[begentle]

Thank you to those of you who helped me negotiate the minefield that is selecting an HD camcorder.

Please could anyone who has read the reviews or even better played with one let me know what they think about the SD5.

The links to the reviews are ;

http://www.tech.co.uk/gadgets/digita...asonic-hdc-sd5

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/camcorders...9294446,00.htm

Thanking you in advance

[Sicoe]

Hi There

i would also be interested to here what people think, i am thinking of getting one myself

i can get one for 410.00 delivered, unless anyone knows aof a cheaper deal

oh the links arent working

cheers simon

[rhubarbe]

If you can get an SD5 at £410 I should make sure that you know what you are getting. Is it PAL, or NTSC? If you have an HDTV you can use an NTSC SD5 with impunity, but if you are wanting to share your footage on DVD say, with friends and family who only have SD equipment then do be careful, for an NTSC cam won't be much use for that.

[senu]

Originally Posted by rhubarbe

If you can get an SD5 at £410 I should make sure that you know what you are getting. Is it PAL, or NTSC? If you have an HDTV you can use an NTSC SD5 with impunity, but if you are wanting to share your footage on DVD say, with friends and family who only have SD equipment then do be careful, for an NTSC cam won't be much use for that.

Well not quite, He can transcode from NTSC to PAL at the output stage, given that output is going to be mpeg2 anyway. Im not sure how much loss of PQ that will entail (if any as it is software dependent) but It would also depend on How often he shares his footage.
Certainly for those who do share a lot( Friends Family Work colleagues. ect) regular transcoding is a PITA and good quality isnt always guaranteed

[ken 2311]

I have just purchased the SD5 and received good advice from the forums. The camcorder fulfils all the promise of the pundits and i am well pleased with it. You might be interested in a few perhaps minor features which concerned me before purchase. First the ridiculously small cursor button which i can say is largely negated by the excellent remote control which makes circumventing the menus a doddle. Secondly the supplied software has been largely understated by the experts. It works well in transferring data to a computer, limited editing and HD viewing on a small screen. Footage can be converted to Mpeg2 for burning to DVD. These were some of the issues that troubled me before i purchased. Lastly with an USB2 port the footage can be transferred to a computer from an sdhc card without any need to hitch the cam to the mains.
ken 2311

[redsox_mark]

£410 is very cheap; the cheapest price on pricerunner currently is £542.

[begentle]

How can i get one for £410?

Whats all this business about PAL and NTSC in english please.

Are there any bad points to this camera (please resist the temptation to say tape to me) ?

I think i want one, obviously for the best price possible if anyone can help.

Thank you

[redsox_mark]

Whats all this business about PAL and NTSC in english please

The differences are technical, but I'll try.

A UK model SD5 will be PAL. You can often get cheaper imported models which may be NTSC, e.g. if they come from Japan or the US.

With HD, both the PAL countries and NTSC ones use the same resolution, the only difference is the frame rate. A UK HDTV will play either, so if using it in HD only than no issue with an NTSC cam.

If you want to make an ordinary SD DVD, then it is a bit of an issue, as with SD there are greater differences. But as Senu said you can convert in software.

In summary - if you want to watch on a SD TV, and don't want to have to learn how to convert etc, you are safer with a PAL model. If you are only going to view in HD, either is fine.

[redsox_mark]

And the SD5 is a fine camcorder. No bad points, the only thing is (as has been said) it is AVCHD, so you may see issues when panning quickly, and editing/playback has less software support (but growing) and needs a faster PC.

[senu]

Originally Posted by begentle

How can i get one for £410?

Whats all this business about PAL and NTSC in english please.

It is in english.. It relates to the Colour TV systems used in different parts of the world ( they are different) .NTSC in the USA , Caribbean and PAL here ect ( lOOK here)
for the explanation suffice to say It is less of an issue with HD

Are there any bad points to this camera (please resist the temptation to say tape to me) ?

Fear not, nobody will "force" tape on you.
As stated in a previous thread it does look very well sorted and is rated well although new(ish) .. Just today I got a little footage ( via FTP ) off it and wasnt dissapointed.. Typical Panasonic sharpness and colour. Any disadvantages will be related to (AVCHD) comparison with ....(HDV) tape. Certainly Poor Picture quality is not one of them (disadvantages ie)

I think i want one, obviously for the best price possible if anyone can help

.
Oh ..Yeah???

[begentle]

redsox thank you for explaining that to me so well; you are a kind and patient person.

another daft question; can i put an 8gb class 6 card in it now or does it need an update ?

if so do you recommend any brands ?

thank you

[begentle]

...and im concerned by this "fast" pc business ; is that necessary for playback and/or just editing ?

am not planning to edit.

how fast is fast btw ?

thanks

[Scoodle]

PS. I suspect the £410 price tag was for the earlier SD1 model...

[senu]

Originally Posted by begentle

...and im concerned by this "fast" pc business ; is that necessary for playback and/or just editing ?

am not planning to edit.

how fast is fast btw ?

thanks

It is for both...
"Fast" here would refer to a ( at least )PC with dual core Pentium with a minimum of 1Gb of RAM and a "good" graphics card . rather than many on-board ones.
AVCHD is simply not easy to play , or edit on older PCs. despite the obvious attraction of the non tape format. As it happens, Even with tape , in the early days of HDV, many PCs were struggling with it

Im not sure what you have now but if you can, download some AVC footage off the internet and play it with say neros media player
If you dont plan to edit ( fair enough). How do you plan to play the footage back?

With all due respect to Mark ( who is infact quite temperate TBH) , your questions are answered as you ask them so any unspoken assumptions that other answers may be less "gentle" may be ..Unfair?..Your interpretation.

Anyway one of the motives for being perhaps frank on here is so that if you get any surprises when you buy your kit, they get to be nice pleasant ones

[rhubarbe]

He's temperate, is he? And they tell you not to trust a man who doesn't drink!

Concerning SDHC cards, this thread gives chapter and verse:

Sdhc Class 6 Card Compatibility

The SD5 uses the same SDHC cards as the SD7 and you don't need Class 6. Class 4 is fine, and cheaper.

[redsox_mark]

Temperate... maybe, but not in the drinking sense...

As Senu said the best thing is to download some AVCHD footage and see if you can play it. I'm sure there is SD5 footage out there somewhere; or maybe rhubarbe can post some SR7 clips. There are some Canon HG10 clips here; which will do for testing your PC

http://file.meyersproduction.com/hg10/

The 3 zip files at the top contain the raw AVCHD clips. (Often you will find clips on the web which have been converted to different formats, for testing you need to make sure you have the raw AVCHD clips).

[alpine101]

I'm using the CoreAVC codec, which appears to be considered the fastest AVCHD codec around at present, in various media player applications. But on the 1.7GHz Centrino laptop I use normally, the displayed video doesn't keep up with the sound. On a 30second clip, the sound finishes about 3 seconds after the video.

I've found the best solution to sorting out AVCHD is to use the demo Elecard 'Converter studio AVCHD edition' to convert the clips to Mpeg2. It has very flexible options and is much better than their 'AVCHD to DV Transcoder' product.
You can for instance choose the bit rate for the transcoded clips, and set the audio stream to pass through as Dolby 5.1, so I set mine to max 15Mbps which then plays happily on the PC and via my media centre to the TV. It's not fast at transcoding, 5fps in the laptop, but you can just leave it running doing the transcoding in batch mode.

[begentle]

All helpful responses welcome !

If i buy one of these beauties, am i right in thinking that i can play the HD footage by linking the camera via HDMI to my HDTV ?

This would presumably mean that i could move previously saved footage back onto the SD card from my computer then use the camcorder as a "player"

And / or can i burn this HD footage onto a "normal" DVD using a "normal" computer (it currently burns standard footage just fine) then play these HD disks on an HD player ?

Of course id need to buy that HD player...

Have i understood you all correctly ?

[begentle]

My computer spec, for anyone who can tell me if its "fast" enough is u1300 @ 1.06 ghz - 1 gb of RAM

Is that enough for HD playback ?

I think the graphics card is good.

Thank you

[rhubarbe]

Yes.

Only if unedited.

Don't know.

Or you could use a PS3.

There are some SD7 clips here: Panasonic HDC-SD5 ?? HD or not??

One is very long and id the FIL doing Elvis. Only for strong stomachs.

That PC spec isn't fast enough for AVCHD - I am writing this on a Pentium M760 (2.0GHz) 1GB RAM and they don't play on that. Should be OK for HDV though.

[begentle]

More questions (sorry!). How do i play a .mts file ?

Any free softwsre out there to play it ?

Will slower PCs be likely to play this footage in the future, or do i need an HD burner and player ?

[senu]

I suggested Neros player..Do you have it?
Im not sure if VLC
or GOM
will pay it without codecs on your PC but just download them from the links and try

[begentle]

Ill try to download it - cheers.

Wont windows media player do it (and if so how?)

This is all very complicated for a newbie !!!!

[senu]

WMP may not but I assure you , VLC and GOM are far much less resource hugging than WMP and what they may lack in versatility (of WMP) they more than make up for in simply doing the job of playing back media files

[rhubarbe]

WMP won't, nor will VLC. The only player I can find that will playe them is Nero Showtime, and that isn't free.

[senu]

VLC does on my systems but that could be due to the presence of codec on the system from other software
Nonetheless I agree than Nero would be the first suggestion of choice and WMP !

[rhubarbe]

If you can work out what the codec is, do tell.

[senu]

Originally Posted by rhubarbe

If you can work out what the codec is, do tell.

Im not feeling quite that clever ATM
Saying that I discovered when I installed a trial from Canopus Edius 4, after the trial expired and I uninstalled it, I still found its codec on my system via Sony Vegas ,and Canopus Procoder ( which I still have). So it could be from anywhere.
Also, As Sony Vegas 7e can edit AVCHD, it is quite possible the 7.0e update installed H.264 codecs with it

[begentle]

What about using my external hard drive to link directly to the tv ?

Product Description: FreeAgent Desktop - hard drive - 250 GB - Hi-Speed USB
Type: Hard drive - external
Form Factor: 3.5"
Dimensions (WxDxH): 4.1 cm x 16.3 cm x 19.1 cm
Capacity: 250 GB
Interface Type: Hi-Speed USB
Data Transfer Rate: 480 Mbps
Spindle Speed: 7200 rpm

Is this possible or could i link it through my computer and if so would that be "fast" enough to play the footage ?

[senu]

Im not sure about what you want to do. There are some Media "enclosure" boxes which allow you to put a bare HDD and then connect to PC by USB, to get files, then to TV by the usual video connections.. Many of the cheaper ones dont support Hi def though
Something like THIS
had the HDD built in
The speed referred to here is not the HDD speed, It refers to the system speed which is dependent on the combination of processor, motherboard chipset, graphics card , and amount and type of RAM..
Its the Price we pay for progress
If it is any consolation, You can Buy the camcorder, Just transfer the footage to your PC , then back Unedited to the card for playback via the camcorder to TV whenever you wish, Otherwise you will have no way of watching the footage unless you get a faster PC, or get another Format.. Non Hidef, or ( I hate to say it: tape)

As it happens Even with a powerful PC, once you alter the footage by editing you will no longer be able to watch it via the camcorder as AVCHD anymore