Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48960 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: HDC-HS9EB-S
• Released on: 2008-02-12

Manufacturer's Description

The most precious scenes in life deserve the beauty only a Full HD camcorder can provide. With its full HD 1920x1080 progressive recording, the new Panasonic high definition camcorders capture images with today‘s most advanced technology.

SD Card Technology
Panasonic‘s wide range of SD Memory Cards with capacities from 512MB up to 32GB allows everybody to choose the SD Card capacity according to one‘s own needs. SD Memory Cards are extremely shock resistant because of their type of construction. Therefore, all SD Card based camcorder are shock proof, too. In addition, the small size and the light weight of SD Memory Cards give the opportunity to build compact camcorder that can be taken at any time to any place. The advanced SD Card technology is used as well at the Olympic Games – namely in professional broadcasting cameras containing the P2 card. With benefi ts like compact size, data reliability, fast data transferring (up to 20 Megabyte/sec) and a steady increasing capacity the SD Card is the future proof recording media.

High Quality Lens for HD Movies The lens is a central and vital part of the camera, with the ability to greatly infl uence image quality. Lens quality is even more important than ever before when doing High Defi nition recording. Therefore, the Leica Dicomar lens, developed specifi cally for Full HD camcorder and featuring original optical technology from Leica, is an advanced lens that captures clear, crisp and finely nuanced pictures with outstanding detail and contrast.

Full HD 1920 x 1080 25p Progressive Images Why is the image quality so much better? Panasonic Full HD camcorder record horizontal pixels at an HD resolution of up to 1.920 pixels, which results in a total of around 2.070.000 pixels. Panasonic Full HD camcorder use progressive scanning which provides twice as much data per picture as conventional interlace scanning and captures clear, vibrant images with intricate detail.

	Face Detection Ordinary TV broadcasts and DVD discs provide SD images with 576 x 640 pixels or 576 x 720 pixels. Today‘s newest HDTVs, on the other hand, can display images with 1080 x 1920 pixels. HDTVs require high-quality image sources suitable for their large screens. If the optimization process for high-quality images is inadequate, the picture can become blurry or grainy. DIGA‘s original i/p conversion and up-conversion functions solve this problem. These functions convert SD signals from DVD discs or DIGA‘s own hard disc drive into 1080p signals that provide high-resolution images. The conversion process boosts the amount of image information by about 5 times, so pictures are clear and beautiful.
	Advanced Optical Image Stabiliser Panasonic‘s Advanced O.I.S. system corrects the effects of hand-shake 4.000x/ second, balancing out jittery movements before light enters the CCDs. This compensation functionality is effective for both moving and still pictures. The technology behind is very effective – the Advanced O.I.S. system uses gyrosensors to detect movement caused by hand-shake and adjusts the lens inside to compensate it. As this system is an optical one image quality will not be compromised. Clear, beautiful moving pictures on a large Flat Screen TV - Image quality is in no way reduced with the Advanced O.I.S. / O.I.S. lens compensation. The lens moves up-down or left-right, bending the incoming light in order to correct the effects of hand-shake.
	3CCD Camera System Superb colour reproduction – faithful, natural colours with delicate nuances. Record moving pictures with realistic and natural colours. Capture facial expressions and skin tones exactly as they appear in real life. Panasonic’s advanced 3CCD camera system offers beautiful colours, precise details and distinct gradation - it draws out the full potential of Full HD image quality just as professional broadcasting cameras do. .
	Pre-Record Function This clever function records three seconds of images even before you actually begin shooting. The images are saved temporarily on the camcorder‘s internal memory before recording onto SDHC/SD Memory Card begins – never miss an important scene.

Box Contains

• Panasonic HDC-HS9EB-S Full HD 60GB Digital Camera
• AC Adaptor
• AC Cable
• DC Cable
• Rechargeable Battery Pack (Lithium-Ion)
• Video Component Cable
• AV Cable
• IR Remote
• USB Cable
• CD-ROM

Customer Reviews

Amazing Quality
The camcorder itself is amazing in quality and great for editing, if you do that kind of a thing. Now all I need is a High Definition TV.

Having taken still pictures on the camcorder too, the quality is really really good.

The 60GB hard drive is ample unless you need hours and hours of footage, (I think it's limit is 15 hours on 60GB). It may be an idea to get a separate SD card to separate the still images from the video footage on the harddrive or worth getting in case your hard drive becomes full before you've had the chance to transfer it onto your home computer.

The 10x optical zoom could have been better and although the 700x digital is a brilliant gimmick to impress the friends and family, you'll obviously lose a lot of quality when zooming into far away objects.

The only downside for me so far is that there is no Apple Mac software, althouh you can import it into iMovie / Final Cut Pro, if you want some decent software to do the editing on a Apple Mac, you'll have to go out and buy the software separately.

I'm most certain you'll be impressed with the quality, in fact I'm using the camcorder a lot more than I used to simply cos it's brilliant quality and easy to use. Enjoy..

Oh it's definitely worth paying the extra from the Panasonic model below this one to get the 60GB hard drive.


Irfan

Excellent - provided you have a beefy PC
This being my 1st Camcorder I dont have a ton to compare this to. However, I can say what I like about this.

Picture quality is excellent. Turn on the 25p and Cinema Colour mode and you'll be blown away by how good this looks in daylight. The "Auto" options can leave the colours a little off, so I recommend going manual, but theres just the right amount of control - not so much to be complicated, not so little to be useless. The camera itself is small, light, fits well in the hand and is easy to operate. Shame theres nowhere for an external Mic, but then to get this quality with that feature would cost a fair bit more.

There are 2 BUTs tho.

1: Getting stuff from the built in drive to your PC is fiddly. You have to take out the battery, plug into the mains and attach the USB cable. All the while you CANNOT charge the battery. Its not a deal breaker, but its awkward.

2: You need a decent PC to use this. Most PCs will struggle to play back the video at 1080p. Most dont stand a chance of being able to edit the video. You're basically looking at needing AT LEAST a Quad Core and 8GB of RAM, with a terrabyte of storage. If you don't have those specs then consider an SD camera.

All in all I'd give a 9 out of 10 (rounded to 5). Great, easy to use camera, but with a couple of caveats.

Very high quality digital video recorder
Very versatile recorder with excellent picture quality, even at hd and especially at enhanced hd. The only slight downside was supposed to be recording in dim light, but we had a powercut recently & in very dull light it recorded my dogs beautifully. Highly recommended