Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21371 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: HDC-SD9EB-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.

Customer Reviews

HDCSD9 Vs Canon
I read many reviews and spent days wondering what to buy finally I went to a high street store and asked them to charge up the panasonic sd9 and the canon hf10. I took footage inside and out. At this moment I was somewhat obsessive about the Canon ie its quality and all the rave reviews. Imagine my surprise when I got home and looked at the footage via my ps3. The panasonic footage was much more stable and much more true to life vivid colours. This might be that the Canon was incorrectly set but both were on auto so to me thats an equal footing.

I took the plunge as to my surprise Amazon were now offering the unit at 400 pounds with an 8gb panasonic sdhc card so in effect the real price of the camera was at 360. Now for this price you cannot get a high definition
camcorder in this league.

Having taken much footage now, the path to avchd recording has not been so bad. I have an Sony AR61 that has a card reader and hd writer installed fine on Vista premium. The software is not perfect but within a small time I was able to edit avchd footage on a dual core laptop.

I use via ps3 as this can handle the avchd format directly and i see no point in converting a hidef avchd footage into an mpeg 2 for a dvd.

The resultant footage is excellent with the panasonic and I would urge you not to dismiss this unit over the Canon. If you want simplicity of use with excellent results then this is the perfect machine. OK yes the Canon is a remarkable piece of equipment but look at its price and ok quality of image can be subjective hence my advice to try. I see it this way I now have full HD recording at an amazing Amazon price. I can now wait for a year at which point the HF10 would have halved in price and then get that too, effectively owning the Panasonic and Canon at the same price as the canon is now.

The Panasonic is a well made machine and I suspect the reviews are all leaning to the Canon from video experts. If like me you have the normal two kids and a wife that is not so technical then the forego all the fancy buttons and get the Panasonic.

The images are truely stunning and yes in low light the images get grainy as all cameras do in low light conditions but it has to be really dark to the point where you wouldnt take footage anyway.

So do it. The money you save will buy you the Sony PS3 that you can use as a hub to show your footage from a standard usb stick. This way your Full HDTV can be used to its full potential.

You might ask why not 5 stars well this was not because of price or quality but because they give no mini hdmi to hdmi lead cable or a case for the device or even an sdhc card as standard.

If like me you already have the TV hdmi slots taken up in the cable run then go via the ps3 however if you want to connect the camera to the tv then get a mini hdmi to hdmi converter and plug it into the end of an existing hdmi cable as these are only 6 pounds.

panasonic HDC-SD9EB-S HD
I had been reading camcorder reviews for weeks before buying this camcorder from Amazon. I initially didn't think HD was the way to go because of budget contraints, but at £400 there were no other cacorders in the same league as this one. The picture clarity is fantastic not only in the view finder, but on my HP 1080p Panasonic TV as well. I use the Viera link which Panasonic offers on most of its media products and it works well. Editing the move clips was a breeze using Sony Vegas Pro 8.0c (must be "c" for Panasonic AVCHD support). The free trial software you get with the camera is not worth the time. I don't use the software that comes with it to copy the files to other media either.

Fantastic camcorder at a fantastic price. Very small form factor and fits into the palm of your hand very neatly indeed.

Superb Camera...see here for Mac fix
I'm writing this review really to point out to the Mac users that it works fine with Macs as long as you use http://www.perian.org/#detail as this fixes the issue at the moment. The camera is indeed superb and I agree with others that point out these people have knocked stars off the rating for the wrong reason.

Hope the info helps.