Panasonic SDR-S7 SD

[ed]

OK, I can't believe I'm considering spending money in today's disaster, but I'm thinking about getting the Panasonic SDR-S7 SD camcorder.

I know, it captures in mpeg, but lately 90% of my videos are short vidieos for the internet that I capture using my Canon digital camera. Does anyone have experience with this camcorder? I like it's size, and think it would output better then my camera.

[ed]

Thanks to all the valuable opinions I received here...Just kidding! ...I bought this camcorder. So far I'm really liking it. It's very small and weighs less then 5oz, but has better image quality then my Canon digital camera. The video quality is about the same as my old Canon ZR miniDV. Pluses: size, quality of video image as compared to size, and the fully manual controls (focus, WB, shutter speed, and gain). Minuses: output as .mod (however at 4:3 I just need to change the extension to mpeg and it loads in WMM or Magix. At 16:9 this doesn't seem to work, and changes it to 4:3 for some reason. I have to use MPEGStreamclip to convert these), low light quality (similar to my Canon ZR due to the small sensor size. It does have a color night setting which works well, but leaves trails on fast moving objects).

It was under $200 because it's being discontinued for a newer model that offers HD. I guess Panasonic didn't see Youtube going to HD as soon as they did. Here's a few videos I've done with it in difficult lighting. The first is inside at night and the second is overcast and snowing early in the morning. I shot them in full auto, and only added a little color saturation in edit.

http://www.vimeo.com/3427934
http://www.vimeo.com/3444128

[Chuck Engels]

Thanks for the update Ed, glad you are happy with the camcorder.

I am guessing that no one else here has any experience with that camcorder at all, so you are breaking new ground.
Now the next person that asks

Does anyone have experience with this camcorder?

You will be the go to guy

[Chuck Engels]

Did you upload straight from the camera to YouTube?

[ed]

I figured no one had experience with it Chuck, just thought I'd add some snark just for the fun of it

I doubt if I try the direct to YouTube thing. I always like to clean things up a bit first.

[Edit] I forgot to mention that with an 8 Gig SD card you can do about 1 hr 50 min of video. The included battry is good for about 40 -50 minutes of videoing. I'll probably get a cheap nock-off battery as back-up later.

[Chuck Engels]

I really meant straight from the camera to Vimeo, but what did you use in between and what export format did you use?

[ed]

Oh, since I was using my laptop I used Magix v12, increased the color satuation slightly with a application preset, exported as DV-AVI, then imported and exported from Quicktime Pro as .h264 mov as I usually do:

* maintain frame rate
* 15 keyframe
* data rate 2500
* deinterlace
* audio AAC 128

I don't like the quality I get from the Magix mov export.

[Chuck Engels]

The quality is really very good, much better than I would have expected.

[ed]

The sensor is basically the same size as an inexpensive miniDV, so the image quality should be comparable. I was mostly worried about converting.