Panasonic HDC-HS300 Camcorder Review

Motion & Sharpness Performance Summary
• Motion is smooth, but shows a bit more artifacting than Sony HDR-XR520V and Canon HF S100. • 24p (digital cinema) mode works well as an alternate frame rate and offers a film-like aesthetic. • The Panasonic HS300 has very good video sharpness, but so do the rest of the camcorders being used as comparisons.
	Color & Noise Performance	(Page 4 of 17)	Low Light Performance

Motion (8.8)

The Panasonic HDC-HS300 offers smooth motion with a sharp image and little amount of trailing. The camcorder does show a bit more artifacting than the Canon HF S100 and Sony HDR-XR520V, but its overall motion is very similar to those two camcorders. The HS300 also has identical motion to its sister model, the HDC-TM300, which makes sense because the only difference between the two camcorders is their internal recording media. (More on how we test motion.)

The Panasonic HDC-HS300 has two frame rates for recording video—regular 60i and a 24p mode (called digital cinema by Panasonic). Shooting in 24p mode gives the footage an entirely different aesthetic than 60i. Motion is slower, more film-like, and may appear jittery to some people. We thought Canon's 24p mode looked a bit smoother than Panasonic's, but a lot of personal preference goes into determining how good a different frame rate looks.

Other than a low quality slow motion mode, the Sony HDR-XR520V doesn't offer any additional frame rates beyond its regular 60i video recording. Its 60i motion is very good, however, and it looks very similar to what we saw on the Panasonic HDC-HS300. We did notice slightly less artifcating on the Sony when compared to the Panasonic, but as far as trailing and smoothness are concerned, the two camcorders are produced nearly indistinguishable results.

In addition to 60i recording, the Canon HF S100 has 24p and 30p record modes. The camcorder captures excellent motion in each mode. We noticed the least amount of artifacting on the HF S100 compared to the rest of the camcorders in this set, although the camcorder did show more trailing and a less smooth image than the Sanyo VPC-HD2000.

The Sanyo VPC-HD2000 is an interesting camcorder as far as motion is concerned. Firstly, the camcorder offers a native 1080/60p record mode. Since it is the first camcorder capable of full-HD 60p recording, it is able to produce smoother motion and less trailing than its 60i counterparts. The HD2000 did have more artifacting than the other camcorders in this set, however. Sanyo also includes a 60i and 30p mode on the VPC-HD2000, as well as a couple of low-quality slow motion options.

Video Sharpness (10.97)

The Panasonic HDC-HS300 performed very well in our video sharpness test. The camcorder measured a horizontal resolution of 750 line widths per picture height (lw/ph) and a vertical resolution of 650 lw/ph. This puts the camcorder slightly ahead of the Sony HDR-XR520V and Sanyo VPC-HD2000, although the three camcorders were all roughly equivalent with this test. The Canon HF S100 was at the top of the pack, but not by much. Since each camcorder in this set is a top-of-the-line model, these excellent video sharpness scores should come as no surprise. (More on how we test video sharpness.)

Video Sharpness Score Comparisons