Well my final conclusion for now:
Most people's comments seem to be about the "low light" flaw of the canon
series... people definetly not happy about that.
Also the number of people argueing about which resolution and mode p/i is
better is pretty crazy... why formats and camera's cannot be more flexible
escapes me
Both camera's seems to have sound issue's... though the canon only has the
sound issue when it rotates/moves/skews... according to the reviewer... if
not yet seen a video of it...
Video camera's are mostly about video though/ofcourse...
The sharpness of the canon is probably just slightly better... but the
colors could be far worse... according to the reviewer the canon is pretty
shitty with colors.
The noise/fan issue with the panasonic is annoying but only hearably on loud
volume settings... this means you can probably forget about recording music
concerts are things like that... the humm will be shitty.
The touch screen seems annoying...
I don't like the humm from the panasonic, and I don't like the low light
shit from the cannon... I will view some more video's... but I will probably
postpone a buy until these issue's are solved... or maybe I will just get a
cheap one so I don't have to worry about these issue's.. but I already have
a cheap/crappy video option on my digital camera... so I don't need another
crappy video camera
I want a good one.
Also the panasonic records 1080i in some weird format which is difficult if
not impossible to edit with todays software... that's also a major no-no.
Though my PC might not even be able to play 1920x1080 video... it requires
some real horse power to be able to play those video's smoothly. Though it
would still be nice
too have that option in a camera for my future pc.
The panasonic has a more stable zoom.
If I had to make a choice right now I would probably go for the panasonic...
it has longer battery life too... less storage space though... but that can
be solved by swapping flash in and out... shouldn't have to be a big
problem.... I wonder if the cannon can do "hot swap" (swapping flash cards
while it's recording ?)
I don't understand yet what a viewfinder is... and why it's usefull... the
reviewer was very found of it... to me it seems a bit weird but ok.
Also I haven't reviewed to cannon software that came with it yet... but
that's pretty much not a point if the camera is not so good.
However it could be that the review is a bit biased because it didn't
examine p24...
24 frames per second seems a bit low to me...
The panasonic also has 12 optical zoom and the cannon only 10x.
The panasonic has more pixel sensors inside it ?!?
The panasonic is even cheaper !
And has 5.1 digital mic... which is kinda interesting... but I wouldn't
expect to much from it... since it's tucked away...
The uncovered external mic hole in the cannon is worrieing... what if rain
fails in it... or a paper clip... or some metal dirt ?
It might damage the cannon... not a pleasent thought... the reviewer seemed
to be worried about that as well.
My ideal camcorder would do:
1. 1920x1200x60 fps (perfect match for my monitor !
)
2. Good low light properties.
3. Good color properties.
4. Good sharpness.
5. Excellent motion sharpness... that's what I am buying it for after all...
I can take pictures/slideshows with my digital photo camera
6. Good clean sound.
7. Nice grip.
8. Long battery life... (panasonic had longer battery life)
9. Lot's of storage space.
10. Hot swap would be a bonus.
11. Easy and meaningfull/clear to use menu's.
12. Good automatic mode.
(I am newb though... but some did mention "shutter" speed... faster shutter
speed might be less motion blur... but also more blockyness.. others said it
should be automatic... people want to pick up the camera and immediatly film
something so I agree with that mostly... but manually options can be nice as
well.)
13. Manually manual modes.
14. Nice look. (All black or black and silverish would be nice).
15. Should be resistent against dust, sand, water, wind, rain, filth, grass,
mud, dirt, hairs, and the usual junk in pockets
16. Scratch resistent lens ?!?
17. Good zoom.
18. Stable zoom.
19. New recording formats if possible... potentially even custom made with
specifications available online... current video formats not that great and
even a bit shitty here and there.
20. Place custom software on flash card and loading it into the digital
camcorder might be a nice way to support new software/codecs without
requiring any rom flashes...
This way I might even be able to develop my own codec and try it out... that
would be great !
This would probably require some kind of general purpose processor and ram
to be present... and some operating system or hardware interface and/or
api's.
^ This is probably where current camcorders fall short... there are many
geeks out there who would like to be able to twiddle and fiddle with it...
just like linux geeks...
Make them programmable and who knows... maybe
massive ammounts of geek attraction potential and ofcourse third party
software support which could become quite interesting...
So far I have seen one thing/device (?) mentioned which could do this:
"nanoflash" but it was damn expensive ?! like 3000 bucks... way too
expensive...
(I think it was for cannon).
I will leave it at that for now... the cannon did have something which the
panasonic might not have ? the cannon had a flasher... nice for taking
photographs... the cannon was better at that... and it has a light for video
as well... the panasonic probably not ?
Maybe if the light of the cannon was turned on the low light situation might
have been better ??? But maybe this is a mute point ?
Bye,
Skybuck.
