Panasonic HDC-HS100 Camcorder Review

by David Kender
Published on Jul 24, 2008 8:57 AM

 
Intro Performance
Format
 Auto / Manual Controls
Still Features Handling and Use
Audio / Playback / Connectivity Other Features
Conclusion & Comparisons Photo Gallery
Specs and Ratings


Compression (7.0)
Video from the Panasonic HDC-HS100 is compressed in the AVCHD format. AVCHD was co-developed by Panasonic and Sony a few years back as a means of bringing high definition recording to the popular media of DVD, flash memory, and hard drives. Until that point, the only viable option was tape and the HDV format. Tape's days are clearly numbered. Even now, tape camcorders exist on the margins of popularity, though they offer an arguably higher video quality. Unquestionably, many of our top performing camcorders in the past two years have been tape-based, including the Canon HV20, Canon HV30, and Sony HDR-HC9.

2008 showed signs of being the first year that AVCHD could compete with HDV in terms of compression quality. Of course, we cannot review camcorders strictly on compression. Our reviews look at the results of the complete system: lens, sensor, and processor. So we extrapolate based on a comparative analysis. On the whole, the results from AVCHD this year have been satisfying. The Canon HF10 and HF100 proved to be nearly indistinguishable from the tape-based HV30. Sony had similar results.

 
  The SD/SDHC card slot
for recording video or stills
   

Because Panasonic never released an HDV camcorder, we can only compare year-over-year performance of Panasonic AVCHD camcorders. For details, see the Video Performance section earlier in this review. In short, it's getting better every year. Fewer blocky chunks of compression artifacting and smoother motion have been the most obvious gains. Importantly, compatibility with editing software has also increased, which is discussed in more detail in the Editing section below.

There are four quality settings to choose from on the Panasonic HDC-HS100, each of which corresponds to a maximum bitrate and a resolution. The HA setting (17Mbps) and HG setting (13Mbps) record in full 1920 x 1080 at either 60i or 24p frame rates. The HX setting (9 Mbps) records full 1920 x 1080, but only at the 60i frame rate. The lowest setting, HE (6 Mbps), has a resolution of 1440 x 1080. See the table in the next section for approximate record times.

Media (7.0)
The Panasonic HDC-HS100 records to two media, your choice. There's a non-removable 60GB internal hard disk drive. That should be enough room for a string of back-to-back vacations without access to a computer or DVD burner to archive the footage. However, we strongly recommend that you learn the archiving process as soon as you buy any hard drive camcorder. It's easy to get comfortable and forget that all hard drives will eventually fail, especially ones being traipsed all over the world.

The other option for recording is a removable SD or SDHC memory card. No card comes included in the box, but a number of different capacity cards are available. Below is a table of approximate recording times.

  HA (17Mbps) HG (13Mbps) HX (9Mbps) HE (6Mbps)
2GB card 15 min 20 min 30 min 45 min
4GB card 30 min 40 min 60 min 90 min
8GB card 60 min 80 min 120 min 180 min
16GB card 120 min 160 min 240 min 360 min
32GB card 240 min 320 min 480 min 720 min
60GB HDD 500 min 610 min 920 min 1380 min

Editing (4.0)
The Panasonic HDC-HS100 compresses video in the AVCHD format, which is certainly not the ideal compression for consumers looking to edit video. Support gets better month by month, but it's still spotty with even big name software manufacturers like Adobe, and you typically need a powerhouse computer to work with the large, gangly files. Our strong recommendation is to do some research before you buy any new camcorder to see if you're set up to accommodate the outputted files.

The HDC-HS100 ships with the "HD Writer 2.6 for HDC" software. This allows you to import video, perform simple editing, and output finished movies to high definition or standard definition DVD or memory cards. This is an extremely limited editing program. You can find easier and better software.



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