The Official Panasonic HDC-HS/SD/TM700 Owners thread - Page 13

Hi, jbeale
Have you tried camera on tripod at intermediate degrees?
Do you think it only occures at 90?
Or it can be at 70, 80, 45?

p.s. good idea about spy lenses

I shot a standard color-checker chart using the TM700 in normal and x.v.Color mode, and did the same with a Sony XR500V camera, and also a Canon 20D DSLR. Lighting was 9:30 am direct sunlight this morning, clear blue sky in Mtn.View CA. Color temperature 5025k (based on a 20D RAW exposure of a calibrated grey card).

Below are screenshots of each of the clips loaded into Vegas 9e. The color looks a bit different in x.v.Color mode vs. not, but to tell the truth, I expected more difference than this. I'm aware that Vegas does not yet support x.v.Color but if you didn't have the A/B comparison, would most people even notice? Looks to me like most of the difference between xvColor and Normal, could be achieved by just a slight tweak with a color balance tool.

http://www.bealecorner.com/TM700/GMB...pare/index.htm

In case of interest, I made a crude measurement of the TM700 Cb and Cr components (the "U, V" in the H.264 YUV color format) in response to pure color (single wavelengths) over the visible range. See attached graph. The measured (min,max) range is Cb: (10,232) and Cr: (28,242) for fully saturated input colors over the full visible spectrum. The normal limit in YUV video encoding is (16, 240). So does x.v.Color mode actually expand the recordable gamut for this particular camera? I don't have an answer to that yet.

Hey everyone! My cam is on the way from US to Europe. So to prepare, I've got one thing to ask. Is charger packed with US cams rated for 110V to 220V? On pictures it seems that power cable is separate,and is just a cable. If adapter is rated for wide input types than I just need to change cable/plug,right? Or if adapter can't work on 220V,than I need to order european adapter..

Why didn't you buy in Europe ? You could have a problem with the warranty in Europe.

Because I got it for half the price,and I hope that I won't need warranty. Yet,for price difference - it's still worth it. Even with all the complications involved

You are not afraid of shaking issue?

[Hi from Jan uk, brought tm700 yesterday- my software hdwriter ae 2-1 ,will not let me in..says in need a PASSWORD to remove restriction,Have not found a ppassword at all, Do you also come to Adobe elemts 6 as hd writer? so I am stuck now..also does anyone know how to get camera recording onto pc?
Excuse me a real amateur,just got camcorder,but the software is stopping me with no password..nice to say hello to you all.
jan

I'm not affraid of anything with TM700 anymore..as long as it arrives in my hands in one piece It's great cam for what it costs..cant wait to get my hands on it

Dude. Give it up! Why would he be afraid? This is a great camera and shaking issues happens in few situations and is barely visible.

He did put a smiley and in all fairness, all other cams have their own "issues" as well. Like I've said,for money they ask for it (<800$ with shipping inside US) - TM700 can't be beat.

If all people were dudes, Panasonic, SONY etc. produce more perfect electronics. Becuase 90% of customers shut your eyes to defects, all firms have a possibility to do а careless work

I am enjoying my TM700... just took some footage yesterday and made a great home movie. Looks awesome. Shakiness?? nowhere to be seen... Rarely will I be recording at 90 degree angles... and at 45, I have not noticed anything. So, go out, enjoy... how many movies are shot at 90 degrees???

45 degrees downward is a very useful angle for macro, for shooting towns from towers, hills, etc.
45 degrees upward is a very useful for architecture shooting.
If you do not shoot macro, architecture from tripod, prefer hand horizontal shoot, yes, this camera is for you.

Myg,have you sold yours yet? Or did you give up from buying? If neither,than why are you so harsh at other owners when you are no better. And in case you've sold yours (which I doubt) you can stop hanging in the Owners thread. One TM700 related thread was already closed due to "bickering",I don't want this one to have the same faith. Now back to the subject - poster clearly said that there was NO SHAKES at 45 degrees,so your reply was a clear miss. And I agree that up to 45 are often used angle,but 90 degrees DOWN really isn't, and I personaly saw the issue reported before ordering and still made the order. Why? Because even the original report said that only 90 deg down is problematic,and other angles aren't. Same with fan issue which isn't noticable by most people and in most videos. Same with the unzoom shake etc. If less than 1% of videos are affected by all of these "defects" and/or <1% people notice it - I'm fine with it. And by the samples seen so far, I think it's both <1% recordings AND <1% people.. If it's huge issue for you,take some other cam with their share of problems. What bothers me, maybe won't bother you so much.

Why don't you test it with your cam,and give us the report? You seem very affraid of it :P

I have been doing some extensive testing this week, after reading all the posts in this and other forums.

Editing TM-700 video files:
I have tried the demos for Adobe Premiere CS5, Vego Pro 9, Vegas Movie Studio HD, Corel Videostudio Pro X3, Pinnacle, PowerDirector, and Edius 5.5.
I shot some basic footage at full 1080/60p.
I used files converted with HD writer to .m2ts vs just copying the .MTS files directly to hard disk.
Most programs will open both types of files, and allow editing. However, to save and reencode the files was a problem.

Only Premiere and Vegas (both versions) had the ability to change custom settings to 1920x1080 59.94 (or 60)p. Premiere was via the H.264 preset, and Vegas was via the Sony AVC preset and Mainconcept mpeg2 presets.

Premiere - I could not hear any sound when importing and previewing files (it said there were no audio tracks). Also, the only template available is H.264, and only creates .mp4 files. There is no option to keep the video in the same format at the original .m2ts or .MTS. It encoded the video, but the result had no sound. I'm not sure if these file choices or sound problems are a limitation of the trial version.

Vegas - Although it appeared promising that I could select 59.94 frames per second as a custom option, in both the Sony AVC preset and Mainconcept mpeg2 presets, neither would encode. Encoding would not begin, and reported "An Error occured while creating the media file. The reason for the error could not be determined."
Encoding to any other preset worked fine.

Videostudio Pro X3 was also able to edit the original video, and burn to blu-ray. Unfortunately, the video was reduced to 1080i. Video files could only be saved at 1920x1080 29i (24 p not even an option)

The included HD Writer software is very basic, but will do the job.
If you simply want to trim your videos, add some basic transitions, and save the file in original format, this is still the simplest option. It is an awkward program, and to trim video, you don't actually mark in and out points, you "delete" unwanted pieces of video. You select the opposite - what you don't want, as opposed to what you want.

Playback of 1080/60p on computer:
I have tried Windows Media Player and PowerDVD 10 Ultra. I also tried with and without DivX installed. I also turned off Windows Aero, and as many programs running in the background as possible.
Initially, I thought that PowerDVD was the best, with fewest skipped frames. But it was still not perfect.
Then I downloaded Splash lite. Wow. So far, perfectly smooth playback of both .MTS and .M2TS files from the camera. Not bad for a free program!

So for playback, Splash lite works the best for me.
For editing, HD Writer is a basic fix for now.
Premiere CS5 and Vegas are promising, but I need some questions answered:

Can anyone who has full versions of Vegas or Premiere confirm if
1) In Premiere - is the audio present when previewing video, and is it present after reencoding clips?
2) In Premiere - can you encode to anything other than .mp4 and keep 1080/60p?
3) In Vegas - has anyone been able to encode files without the error at 1080/60p? What are the detailed settings used?

Ehhh... Read my comment again... did you read 45 degrees? Yes.. What do you think my footage yesterday was of? Spiders, ants, butterflies, bees, and some other fun stuff... I love macro, I do photography and video. It turns out that the best way to do macro is at level with the subject, although sometimes I shoot from the top, more often 45 degrees. Oh, and a few days back... filmed some nice tall historical buildings... No shakie, shakie for me....

Lux, yes, the charger indicates "110-240v, 50-60hz".

I discovered another interesting thing about playing 1080/60p video...
With both PowerDVD Ultra, and Splash lite, I disabled hardware acceleration in the options of each program - and voila!! Perfectly smooth playback!!
Strange, that with hardware accerleration on, video plays worse.

Something for others to try - disable hardware acceleration in your video players for smoother playback!

My european adapter is 110V-230V.


1 - yes. Maybe the demo does not have the required dolby 5.1 codec.
2 - 1080p with H264, DBX, Uncompressed MS AVI, FLV, MPEG4, Windows Media. Please note that I have NOT tested all this, I just selected the presets and noted which ones allowed to set 50/60p or "same as source" in the frame rate.

I did a bit of testing today too and for me the oscillation starts at a little more than 45 degrees, maybe 55 or 60, shooting either up or down. It seems to get worse as the camera approaches 90 degrees. Not a deal breaker, but it would certainly be annoying if I had bought the camera to shoot bugs and flowers.

Did you post a link to a video that we can look at? I missed it.

No, I have not uploaded the video. I will some time soon.

Greetings dptempid.


May I ask what's the video card you use?

It seems that most video cards have problem dealing with the TM700 1080/60p video using hardware acceleration. So far only the GT240/220 are known to work.


Best regards.

I heard something different. I've seen people complaining about nVidia cards.
My old ATI 4670 in Windows Media Player, Windows 7, without any additional software or filters installed plays 1080/60p clips perfectly and it's all done in the 4670 (cpu stays almost idle).

First of all sorry for not quoting,I'm on mobile and it's quite akward.
Dptempid-I can confirm that audio works in CS5 when not trial,as I had an oportunity to test. It will import and export 5.1 sound,and will play at preview and so on.
Ken, Djizasse-thanks,so it should work with just the different cable or alternate plug.
At everyone regarding shake- Ken Ross suggested that maybe turning of one option may help. It's the option to to turn off camcorder automatically when pointed down for longer time. Anyone tried that?

Oh,and playback. I've talked about it before,and read quite a few posts about it. There is no 100% success for any chip/card (I mean,that same card model will always work in bunch of different configs). It depends on card+driver+OS+player+codec combo. Some are more lucky,some less. But I agree-Splash Lite is great player,and free. And if your GPU acceleration wont play 60p fine, use software (CPU) playback. I've seen some improvements with newest Splash Lite and newest Catalyst for Win7 64bit,so I think soon we'll all have smooth GPU based playback thanks to Splash

Is this with hardware acceleration turned off?

My 4670/5670 had problems with DXVA playback.

It seems that Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9.0b (I haven't tried the new Vegas Movie Studio 10 yet) and Sony Vegas Pro 8.0 has memory management problems when running under Windows XP, Vista and 7 (32 and 64 bit installations).

Using a program called "CFF Explorer" can be used to modify the program executable and the pertinent DLL's used for rendering.

After these "fixes", I was able to render all my projects using Sony AVC and
Mainconcept MPEG2/MPEG4 with no dialogs of "An Error occurred..." anymore.

Here is the link on the Sony forums:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=697122

I currently use VMS 9.0b and I have tried the free trials Edius Neo and Edius Pro 5.5 The first NLE that can render (hopefully smart render) to AVC Level 4.2 (1080/60p) will get my money. I may have to wait till Vegas Pro 10 or the next version of Edius to be released. Personally, I will never support Adobe - I don't know if CS5 can render AVC Level 4.2 1080/60p

Hardware accel turned on. Have you tried to install the latest ATI drivers, along with avivo?



The 4.2 option is there, I haven't checked the 1080/60p .