The HDC-SD900 was the first of Panasonic’s expanded 3D camcorder range to arrive in the UK. It sits below the HDC-TM900 and HDC-HS900 (which offer 32GB memory and 220GB HDD respectively), but shares the same functionality, recording Full HD and 3D video to SD card. Panasonic HDC-SD900 Card sharp: Panasonic's HDC-SD900 If …

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Monday 14th March 2011 08:36 GMT TWB

Bugger....

And here I was thinking it was time for me to go HD camcorder only to find my laptop (2 year old Macbook) struggles with your youtube sample - maybe it would be Ok with the footage from the camcorder and it is just the youtube decompression required.

Sounds a nice machine though - thanks for the review.

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Monday 14th March 2011 10:16 GMT Anonymous Coward

Sort it out

The 900 is a great camcorder and a significant improvement over last year's 700, but Panasonic STILL haven't fixed that damned fan noise problem.

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Monday 14th March 2011 10:16 GMT Christian Berger

So where is the focus ring?

Looking at that device I don't see where the focus and zoom rings are supposed to be.

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Monday 14th March 2011 18:17 GMT Tom 52

Focus / Zoom Ring.

The focus and zoom ring use the same ring. You can switch between them with a press of a button.

AC: I believe the SD900 doesn't have the issue of fan noise that some previous models had. Have you actually used a SD900 yet and tested it?

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Tuesday 15th March 2011 11:41 GMT Richard Ball

Depth perception

And is there a version of the 3D adaptor for those people whose eyes are further apart than 20mm?

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Friday 18th March 2011 10:01 GMT IT specialist

I just bought one. It's great

I keep it set to 25p. In the camera's menus, 25p is called 'Digital Cinema' mode.

But the camera can also do 50p, which is incredible, if you have a device that can play 50p video. Some computer monitors can do it.

It also does 25i, like most other camcorders, but I personally don't like interlaced video, which was really designed for use on a cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor. Progressive 'P' is better for the computer era.

The US version of the camera does 60p, 30p and 30i. I think there should have only been one model that does all framerates.

Anyway, to sum up, this is the best consumer camera on the market. Its 3 image sensors (one for each colour) give it the best picture quality of any consumer camera. Professional cameras do this, but the Panasonic 900 is the only consumer camera to do it.

Other cameras (eg Sony) have gimmicky features like GPS, but the Sony only has one image sensor, thus lesser picture quality.

The VLC media player (open-source, free download) can play back AVCHD movies on any computer platform, so you don't need to pay for extra software.. Alternatively, you can import your AVCHD movies into Final Cut Pro, which converts to an intermediate format for editing, then you export it to any format.

Anyone thinking about getting this camera should search the model in Google, then click on Videos, and take a look at some of the videos people have made with it. Videos on Vimeo look better, but there are lots on YouTube (but YouTube compresses them a lot, losing a bit of quality).

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