Panasonic SDR-S150   

jimkhoo

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Very good for what and who it was designed for

Jul 30, 2007

Rating: 8 out of 10 (Excellent)
Pros: very compact, good picture quality, SD card storage, user friendly, good enough 3.1MP camera,
Cons: bundled software does not work with Vista, .MOD format, battery life
Opinion:
Lets be fair here. This camcorder was never designed or built for the purpose of taking professional video. Its targeted at consumers who want a compact sized, cartridge/DVD free and easy to use and backup camcorder with added still picture camera. It was never meant to replace my Canon 850IS camera but it sure is handy to take photos while shooting video. 3.1MP is really good enough for most general consumers too. Is the video really that bad? personally, I think its good and acceptable for me to take videos of my kids. Its sharp and clear and what more can i ask for. I read reviews that state the colour and brightness or whatever is not comparable to the Canon or Sony camcorders but realistically, can the normal consumers tell the difference? I dont think so. The pictures are not grainy and distorted and comes out clear and sharp. Awesome!! The LCD screen is quite big and folds conveniently on the side. the buttons on the back is also convenient to be controlled with the thumb. I already have an old Sony miniDV camcorder but the problem was i ended up with stacks of cartridges which i never managed to backup or transfer to DVD for storage. Thus going for a DVD camcorder will not do as i will end up with the same problem. Getting this SD card based camcorder solved all my problems for a "lazy" consumer like me. I take the videos, transfer my SD card to my PCs and get the videos backed up in my HDD. simple and superbly convenient!! I got myself a 4GB SDHC card and that gives me almost 2 hours of video at XP or almost 4 hours in LP mode. Thats more than good enough for me!!! If i need more, then i get an extra SD card which is cheap and convenient!!! Did thought about a HDD camcorder but could not find one as compact as this.
With all that said, panasonic could improve in a few areas. first of all, the bundled software does not work with with Vista and there is no solution to this!!! Eventhough the driver is not vista compatible, i did manage to setup the camcorder to work as a webcam in MSN messenger. Users should also note that SDHC cards does not work in all card readers. I had to use the USB cable to connect the camcorder to my PC in order to read the SDHC card. However the SD card slot for my Toshiba notebook gave me no such problem and read the SDHC card perfectly. Another thing is that the recorded file is in .MOD and not the more common .MPG. This is not a big problem as you can easily change the extension to .MPG so that the various MPEG players can read it without any problem. Have yet to find a software that can allow me to edit the recored file though. Tried the windows movie maker that comes with Vista but it cannot work with the .MOD file or .MPG file (changed from .MOD). Lastly, yes the battery life is kinda short but i have an extra battery so its not a big deal for me too.

In summary, this is not a high end professional camcorder (dont buy if u r looking for this) but if u r looking for a very compact camcorder that records in SD (no cartridge or DVD) with reasonably good quality video (based on normal consumer standard) and convenient backup storage with a PC or portable HDD then i dont think u can find another camcorder like this Panasonic. Dont ask me about the Sanyo Xacti or the Canon TX1. I did consider these 2 models but after doing some research, it does not seem to be the ideal camcorders for me for many different reasons which i shall not comment here. This S150 would have been perfect if it can shoot in HD but i am sure its a matter of time before panasonic comes up with one. But in the mean time, I think this is one of the best compact non-HD camcorder for the general consumer who wants a non cartridge/DVD based camcorder.
Rate this product for what it was designed for and the target market it was intended for.