Panasonic HC-X900 Camcorder Review

Motion

Panasonic was one of the first manufacturers to included 1080/60p video recording on its consumer camcorders, so the option isn't anything new for the company. The results when shooting 1080/60p video are splendid: smooth motion, limited artifacting, and only the smallest amount of blur and color bleeding are noticeable. The thing is, the HC-X900M's motion test looked no different compared to last year's TM900's 60p sample video. This lack of improvement isn't all that surprising—the results are extremely good already. It's hard to imagine what an improvement would look like.

We did see an improvement in motion and sharpness when shooting with the HC-X900's 1080/60i record mode, though. It seems Panasonic was able to give that regular shooting mode a boost, and maybe the new sensor or processor has something to do with it. The improvement was very slight, however, but it is one area we can confidently say the results looked better on the new X900M as compared to previous Panasonic camcorders. More on how we test motion.

See below for a full discussion of the available resolution and frame rate options for the HC-X900M

Resolution & Frame Rates

Panasonic loaded the X900M with a lot of recording options and frame rates, all of which can be seen below. The 1080/60p record mode has been present on Panasonic camcorders for a couple of years now, so it isn’t really new—other than the fact that this year Panasonic was able to say the mode is “AVCHD compliant” thanks to the new AVCHD 2.0 standards. The new AVCHD 3D recording is something we haven’t seen on Panasonic camcorders before, but this mode only comes into play if you purchase the optional 3D conversion lens for the HC-X900.