Panasonic HDC-HS9 HDTV camcorder

The Panasonic HDC-HS9 is one of the third generation AVCHD camcorders by his manufacturer. It is very similar to Panasonic HDC-SD9 both on the outside and on the inside, but there are numerous differences between the two. HDC-HS9 has 10x optical zoom and the digital zoom that can be set to 700x. The Panasonic HDC-HS9 has a 2.7-inch LCD screen which can be extended to 90 degrees from the main body of the device and rotated up to 270 degrees. The screen has quite


good resolution – 300,000 pixels and some settings allowing the used to adjust the brightness and colour of the screen. You should be careful with those, though, because when you change something there it will change your perception of the image you’re recording. Considering its small size: 75 x 74 x 126 mm (2.96 x 2.9 x 4.96 inches), weight: 452 grams, and the fact that the camcorder has a 60GB HDD the HDC-HS9’s battery life is good. When recording in the highest quality the camcorder lasts about 117 minutes.

The Panasonic HDC-HS9’s video performance is not among the best ones in this price range. The image tends to be oversaturated and as there is no saturation adjustment tool it is a rather important issue. The next thing is the sharpness, which is all in all good, but still worse than in competitors’ camcorders. When comparing the different light conditions the outcome was also not satisfactory. Outdoors in bright light, the performance is very good. Motion is crisp and


smooth, but strong colors tend to oversaturate. Inside, under predominantly fluorescent lighting, the camcorder shows instances of trailing and ghosting. Yet, on the positive side the noise reduction in the Panasonic HDC-HS9 is very good, as is the Advanced Optical Image Stabilization (O.I.S.). The camcorder offers four quality settings corresponding to the bitrate, ranging from 17 Mbps to 6 Mbps. The two highest quality settings record in full 1920 x 1080 and can capture in 1080/24P, or 1080/60i.

The menus in the Panasonic HDC-HS9 are logically organized and very clear. Moreover, there are some simple one-touch tools for making corrections and hints for optimizing settings. The manual settings offer plenty of adjustment possibilities, such as Tele Macro, Guide Lines, Color Bar, 24P Digital Cinema Color and others. As usual with digital camcorders you can alto take photos with HDC-HS9, but only at 1929 x 1080 and with little adjustment options. The camcorder had Red-Eye Reduction feature and Face Detection, but every second average digital camera has it nowadays (and a better resolution) so this device is not really good for taking photos. Especially that its flash is positioned in such a way that provides uneven lighting. All in all, the Panasonic HDC-HS9 is a relatively good camcorder, worth considering if you do not plan to make professional films with it. After the recent reduction now it costs only $999 which is its another advantage. For this price you get the camcorder and:
- VW-VBG130 Battery Pack
- AC Adapter
- AC Cable
- DC Cable
- Remote Control
- Button-type battery
- AV Cable
- Component Cable
- USB Cable
- CD-ROM: Pinnacle Studio 11 Trial and HD Writer.
Detailed Panasonic HDC-HS9 specs are as follows:

Source: Panasonic.