The Official Panasonic HDC-TM900 Owners Thread - Page 6

I think I'm going to play with my Pleo, this is getting old, Panasonic has Problems period! never owned one and would never consider one after all of this thread. Money can buy happiness and freedom. Robots Rule!!

Ps.. I'll wait to see what Steve says about his new TM900 purchase, but I suspect it will be going back into restock soon.
purplestingers

Steve, seriously, I'd consider the XA10 under only one condition, it was released prior to the GF10. For my casual purposes I have no need for XLR and in my mind that's the main differentiator. I've seen video from the XF100 in comparison to the XA10 and for about 1/2 the scenes I actually preferred the XA10. Too pricey for my casual use.

Steve, it's exactly the same kind of beep that people were discussing in the thread that Mark posted...only that's a $15,000 Panasonic. It appears this is not a new issue for Panasonic and I'd bet that's why they were quick to acknowledge it.

I think my TM900 will go back and I will just wait for the XA10. Yes i have a week to play with it but my TM900 needs a huge amount of light or it gets noisy even when increasing the manual controls.
My wife's ceremony is probably going to be darker than the TM900 can handle. I'll still give it a try but I'm going to rely on my Canon P&S for the important shots.

I never had that issue with my 700, but then again I never tripod mounted it and pointed it down at 45 degrees. Having seen the videos of that 'stutter', I don't think it would get me nearly as upset as the issues I've had with the 900.

To answer your question, I don't think the 700 is necessarily a better cam, but its QC may have been better. The potential of the 900 is there, but they obviously have an extraordinarily high defective rate. Look, even CCI obviously had a unit with the same focusing issue that mine has. I only played with one 750 and I mentioned about the WB issues on that cam.

Of course the other question is, even if you get a perfect unit, is there assurance it won't go south in a short time and manifest these same issues? Perhaps not, but who knows? I've never had to deal with these kinds of things before in any HD cam I've owned. Very disappointing.

You know this thought just occurred to me, in a pinch, I might even consider the Canon HF21!!! I don't know why I didn't think of that before. I actually felt the overall PQ (at least in BB) was somewhat better than the 750.

Ken, that is because you are going to Italy soon. For me the XA10 has some room to grow into. XLR is nice to have and I'll probably spring for it. my wife and I were comparing the XF105 vs the XA10 footage and to be honest I want the ability to capture motion. Yes, a babbling brook is nice, Yes a cherry blossom gently swing in the breeze is nice. But I want to see real motion on these cams and good low light performance. I also don't want to spend $6k on a camcorder.

The XF100 and the XA10 are about all that's left and no one really knows when they are going to show up.

I'm almost 100% convinced that each and every 900 has this issue in varying degrees. How audible it is will be dependent on a few factors:

* The individual unit and to what degree the problem exists
* The way the person listens to the audio (home theater, computer speakers)
* The hearing acuity of the listener

Steve, what was your opinion of the footage you saw? From what I've seen, I don't think either camera you mentioned will have any issues capturing motion. The XA10 looks very sweet for the price. Not that $2,000 is cheap, but it's better than some of the other options out there. If I needed XLR I'd probably have that on the top of my list.

I was unhappy, the TM900 does not like pans, even slow ones. Cars whizzing by on the road were ok tho. I will take more footage tomorrow when I get back in the afternoon. My car has a recall and I don't want to take the camera with me. I have no bag to put it in and holding it for hours....

I will have more time when I get back to really test it. The TM900's Low light performance for me is hopeless. The Sony was miles better. The room at Best Buy was twice as dark as my living room and I have a lot of noise here, with more light.

Very frustrating!

Well? I guess everybody is back to square one? What a waste of time haa? I've never experienced these kinds of issues ever, and hope I never due. Steve just use the dam thing and return it after the ceremony. I new my previous posts would get everybody thinking. I only hope now that Panasonic reads through this forum about the publics (out cry) in regards too these issues. Also, when it comes to Cam's one size (DOSN"T FIT ALL) LOL some folk seem to think it should though.

purplestinger

We'll I guess my thoughts on the Fat ps3 being able to play these files just went out the window. Sorry to see your ps3 does not play the files without choking Steve. Alot of issues with the 900 since I was here earlier today. That stinks guys. I hope Panasonic can do something about the problems the cam is having.

Very strange that only one cam has worked without any issues, that's not good. But it makes me wonder if there was a production problem somewhere with certain units. Why would Marks cam work fine, where 4 or 5 others have issues. It's so odd.

As far as low light, that's disappointing to hear also. I wonder why Panasonic has not gone to a Back Illiminated CMOS design like some of the other cam manufactures have to improve low light. Maybe they can't because of the 3MOS design?

Has any one messed with manual controls to improve low light footage, like a 1/30 shutter speed or other option?

Welcome to the club Steve, not a fun place to be. But you raise an interesting point that I totally forgot to bring up. It seems to me that I see more blurring with pans than I can ever recall with the 700. That really struck me when I first started testing, but with the other issues I guess I forgot.

I'm assuming that's what you're referring to. To me this is more proof that 1080p is not always the panacea we hope for.

I didn't bother myself because I don't like the motion with 1/30th. But you raise an interesting point. I thought Mark had mentioned that he had total manual control with the 900. I haven't found a way to do that. It's just like the 700 in that you adjust iris and then as soon as you go to shutter, iris becomes automatic.

I may have misinterpreted what Mark said, but the Sony behaves exactly the same way.

You should be able to Ken, I almost positive on that. Mark can confirm. I personally have no problems with 1/30th and motion. Anything below...yes.

I must be missing something then. You select iris or shutter speed, but each time I go from one to the other, the previously selected value reverts to automatic. I'll take a closer look tomorrow, too tired now. This little thing has worn me out.

Seems like it was a long day here. Get a good nights sleep and wake up with fresh minds and attitudes tomorrow.

Its a Panny thing Period!

purplestinger

The Sony 1080/60p files bitrate seemed less to me than that of the 900's and gave me no issues with my ps3. But I have not watched alot of the Sony native files yet. Not nearly as much as 900 native files. I don't think there is a conclusion yet. If you can download some from Vimeo, you can give it a try.

I just tested my cam for the beeping and came up with nothing. I took video in complete silence and cranked the sound. I didn't hear any beeping. I also listened to video I took last week and did not hear anything. My only complaint with the camera is the low light. To me this was a trade off with the canon for the 60p.

I bought an SD800 recently (for $770) which is the "cut down" version of the 900 series. At the moment I also still have my SD700 that I bought last year, so as I though it might be useful I compared the two at default auto settings using a tripod indoors in low light. I took 1080/60p clips of a chart with both then compared 1920x1080 frames as JPGs at 100%.

It seems like that the SD700 gives a brighter image than the SD800, although the the SD800 image looks more like how the chart actually appeared in the room. To my eyes the SD700 has more colour noise and the SD800 is sharper and shows a bit more detail. Although the differences aren't huge they support what Panasonic claims about improved processing in the 900 series.

For what it's worth, I also did some still images outdoors with both camcorders at default auto settings and the SD800 images are definitely sharper and with a bit more detail visible.

Cheers,
Ian

Edit: my image was downsized during uploading, so I'll try to add another version as it shows the fine details better.

The Sony has no issues with the PS3. Perhaps not surprising in that Sony may have tried to maintain compatibility with their own system.

Interesting. I'm really not sure which image I prefer. I like the brighter image with the more saturated colors of the 700, but I like the somewhat reduced noise of the 800. It's hard to pick a winner IMO.

I thought the fat PS3 would be immune but it's not. Even worse my wife's cold got worse from her jumping around like that.

Low light is very dissapointing. I did play with it and got rid of a lot of the noise but to do that I dropped teh shutter to 1/60 which is as low as it goes and I shut the iris. You couldn't see very much, but, what you could see, which was basically the light I pointed it at, was noise free.

I don't have much problems with beeping yet. I heard it that one time twice and not since then.
But what I did hear was audible. Also the fan can be heard when you put it up to your ear or if you crank the TV and you record something in a silent setting.

Yes much more blurring with a pan on the TM900 and I'm actually very good with hand held pans (lousy with just holding it) but pans work out for me. It seemed jerky.
I think it's not a 1080p issue because I could see the jerkiness on the LCD screen. It's a very tough cam to pan. Too bad the Sony CX560 had so many focus issues. The right side would be in focus the right wouldn't be. The video I posted on Vimeo shows this.
I would love to spend a day at one of the big camera places like B&H Photo and test out the various cams. I think it's about bit rate and how the sensor is setup. Testing an XA10 at 24p versus an XF105 at 60i isn't a fair comparison. I think the XA10 or the XF100 will be the cams to have this year.
If they ever get released.

My wife said I can get the XF100 or the XA10 if they will do everything well and provided she can use it.
Half the stuff we do is inddors in low light and the other half is bright outdoor light. CF cards are Sooooooo expensive!

Return it asap! to many complaints. Is there anything good about this Cam? I have read not.

purplestinger

Ok we get it, but most of us are trying to figure out what we currently have and what we can do about it. I know you are a Canon fan. I own Canon cameras myself. But there aren't any new Canon cameras any of us can buy yet.

You should be able to turn auto slow shutter on, if you go to manual, then go to menu, then scroll until you find it. Should still be in there somewhere. This wil allow you to drop it to 1/30, though I generally try to avoid this.

Also, why would you have to close the iris-just keep the gain under 12, or maybe at 12...but I prefer under on my cam, and it should look quite smooth.

How much light do you call low light? It is impossible to tel on youtube, but I have not seen anything in this thread that my sd600 can not do quite well....so...I am pretty confused, lol.