Panasonic Forges Ahead on 1 Chip MiniDV Camcorders

by David Kender

Published on Jan 4, 2006 12:00 PM
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Las Vegas, CES, January 4, 2006 - Today at CES, Panasonic announced the release of three new 1 CCD MiniDV camcorders, the PV-GS29, the PV-GS39 (Review, Specs, $212.8), and the PV-GS59 (Review, Specs, $297). These models will replace last year’s PV-GS19 (Review, Specs, $244.74), PV-GS31 (Specs, $299), and PV-GS35 (Review, Specs, $359.95) (Review, Specs, $283.25), respectively. While bucking the trend of the industry and choosing not to truncate its MiniDV line, the changes from last year’s models are few.

Modifications from 2005 focus primarily on form and ease of use. “Better. Smaller. Easier,” said Rudy Vitti, Panasonic Marketing Manager for camcorders. “It’s a good strategy and it’s worked well for us.”

Shrinking camcorders are a strong trend this year. But while most camcorders have slimmed down in width, raising the overall height, Panasonic has chosen to flatten and widen the body. MiniDV tapes now load sideways, from the left side, rather than the top. The rationale, Panasonic claims, is that taller camcorders are more difficult to hold; low and wide is an ergonomic advantage.

The second major improvement from last year’s camcorders is an easier to use menu. Last year’s camcorders, when in manual mode, split the navigation menu into three submenus. The design, some complained, was over-stuffed, and the iconography was confusing. This year’s models have split the menu into five submenus, and added an optional information feature which explains each of the icons and its function.

The top 1 chip model, the PV-GS59, will retail for $379. It uses a 680K (gross) 1/6-inch CCD that uses the entire width of the chip to allow for true 16:9 widescreen capture. It is capable of 30x optical and 1000x digital zoom. The widescreen capture is matched by a 2.7-inch widescreen LCD. The PV-GS59 uses electronic image stabilization.

Manual controls are much the same as last year, including a full array of independent shutter speed, aperture, and gain controls. It has the same four white balance settings, a shutter speed range of 1/60 – 1/8000, an aperture range of f/2.0 – f/16, and a gain range of 0dB to 18dB.

Still features on the PV-GS59 are limited to 640 x 480 resolution. It features a slot for an SD/MMC card, though it does not ship with one. The USB connection is high speed, using a data transfer rate of 480 Mbps.


PV-GS39

The next model down, the PV-GS39, retailing at $349, is largely the same. There are some minor cosmetic changes, and the USB is full speed, rather than high speed, at 12 Mbps.


PV-GS29

The least-expensive 2006 1 chip model, the PV-GS29, retailing at $299, loses ability to capture at 16:9. It does, however, use a similar 1/6-inch 680K (340K effective) CCD. The LCD is a smaller 2.5 inches. It does not have the SD/MMC card slot, and must shoot stills to the MiniDV tape. It also captures at 640 x 480.

None of the camcorders have microphone inputs, and all use electronic rather than optical stabilization.