Panasonic PV-GS300 Camcorder Review by David Kender Published on Feb 21, 2006 3:00 PM
Related ArticlesReviews: Panasonic PV-GS320 · Panasonic PV-GS500 Camcorder Review · Panasonic PV-GS400

Widescreen/16:9 Mode (7.5)
The PV-GS300 (Review, Specs, $469.99) offers choices of 4:3 and 16:9 in its aspect ratios. What Panasonic does not advertise, of course, is that this is not a true widescreen CCD. Rather than taking the original 4:3 frame and adding information on the sides to create a 16:9 picture, the camcorder crops information from the top and bottom. This process also creates a 16:9 frame, but is subtractive rather than additive.

Scan Rates/24P (0.0)
The GS300 has no scan rates other than its native 29.97 fps.

Backlight Compensation - This feature brightens the exposure when your subject is strongly backlit in order to add detail and make them look less like a silhouette.

Tele Macro -  This allows the camcorder to zoom in at 10x and focus on a subject at a distance of 50cm (20 inches). In playing with this feature, we almost always had to use the manual focus to get the image to look good. Sort of defeats the purpose.

Wind Cut - This feature removes the bottom-end noise from the audio track, which is often created by wind passing over the microphone.

Red Eye Reduction -This is a still feature that reduces the chances of red-eyed subjects appearing in pictures with dim lighting. It uses a double-flash system, where the camcorder flashes once (while the subject has to remain immobile) then flashes again.

Flash - Located to the right of the lens, this flash should help when taking stills in lower light situations.

Zoom Mic - The zoom mic boosts the audio levels when engaging in zoom in order to capture the sounds of the distant subject.

Quick Start - Quick Start is like a standby mode. When activated in the menu, the GS300 will go into Quick Start standby when the LCD is closed. A green light will appear where the normal, red operating light is. The lens cover does not close. When the LCD is opened again, the camcorder will be ready to record in 1/7 seconds.

Anti Ground-Direction Standby - This new feature is meant to prevent the act of wasting a whole tape by forgetting to hit the “stop record” button and pointing the camcorder at the ground. When engaged, if the GS300 senses that it has been recording in a face-down direction for too long (an undisclosed amount of time), it will automatically shut off.