Panasonic HDC-TM700

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Panasonic HDC-TM700

One of the least expensive and most compact camcorders available with a full manual feature set and electronic viewfinder, plus a 1080/60p recording mode, the Panasonic HDC-TM700 presents an attractive option for users dissatisfied by the quality and lack of controls of midrange HD camcorders but wary of paying $1,000 or more for the privilege. And though it falls short in a few aspects, for the most part it delivers what they're looking for.

The TM700 has an almost identical--but overpriced--sibling, the HDC-HS700, which costs about $400 more simply for the unnecessarily large 240GB hard disk. The body is also nearly identical to its predecessor, the TM300/HS300. It's similarly comfortable to hold, especially with the slight upward curve toward the back that makes the zoom switch and photo button easy to reach. As with competitors' designs, you pull out the EVF to enable it and turn on the power

Panasonic sticks with an old-fashioned dial on the side of the camcorder to switch among still, video, and playback modes; the company moved power from the dial to a button inside the LCD indentation. Along with the power, a full complement of ports and connectors live in the LCD recess: AV, component, and mini HDMI out, USB, and an SDXC card slot. Panasonic recommends a Class 4 card. I dislike the placement of the connectors inside the LCD, since that means it's got to be open while you're attached to other devices, which is just kind of awkward. I also think the battery release, also in the LCD enclosure, is in a bad spot; opening the LCD usually turns the camcorder on, which means in order to remove the battery you end up turning on the camcorder.

In the recess there's also a dedicated button for switching to 1080/60p mode. When you turn it on, an odd message appears: "Record in 1080/60p mode for best quality when playing back on this unit." What it should say is "Beware: you may not be able to play the video back properly on a computer or have software to edit it." Various playback software I tried (VLC, ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater and Splash Lite) had no trouble with the file format, but didn't play very smoothly on either my 32-bit or 64-bit systems. Adobe Premiere CS5 had no problems opening the files on the PC, and it's reported that ClipWrap will losslessly transcode them to work with Final Cut on the Mac.

Also, I'm getting tired of these warning messages popping up on camcorders every time you switch into a "nonstandard" mode: on Sony camcorders it's a warning about not being able to record 1080/60i video on an AVCHD disc. It introduces an unnecessary delay, and one warning is plenty. For the Panasonic, an easily spotted pink-on-white icon appears on the LCD so you're unlikely to get confused.

As with previous models, Panasonic puts the accessory shoe on the side of the lens barrel rather than the top. On top of the camcorder towards the front is the microphone. Like Sony, Panasonic offers dubiously useful 5.1-channel surround recording (in addition to stereo). However, at least Panasonic provides a decent set of volume controls to support the mic, including the option to set levels with or without automatic gain control.