All my previous videos were taken with an old point and shoot Canon camera. I've never been overly impressed by the video quality. Seeing some of the excellent videos on other blogs made me consider getting a video camcorder. I've had my eye on the Panasonic TM900 camcorder for its excellent low light capabilities and time lapse feature. Unfortunately, most stuff in Canada are unfairly priced higher than our neighbours south of the border. However, good things comes to those who wait (6+ months) as I managed to pick up one that was extremely discounted during the Boxing week sale.
I thought I'd provide some initial impressions on this camcorder. The camcorder can record in high definition 1080 x 60p AVGHD or iFrame (960 x 540). iFrame is specific to Apple's iMovie format. Video in iFrame format is a breeze to import into iMovie'09. Editing is also easier since the files are smaller in size. Editing high definition videos is much more difficult on my Mac Mini. Response times in iMovie when previewing clips in HD are brutally slow and jumpy. The other problem I experienced with HD clips was that iMovie wouldn't import m2ts AVGHD files. To get around this problem, I had to convert them to mp4 format using Format Factory. Unfortunately, this software is only available on a PC. This only adds to my frustration level as I have to use multiple platforms.
However, the mp4 files are easily imported into iMovie. The first time I did this, I wasn't aware of the default setting where the software automatically optimized the video to 960 x 540 pixel size. It took some sleuthing to figure out why the video image quality from the camcorder was no better than my point and shoot camera. Once I turned off the optimization, the image quality is a great deal better. The other thing I did to improve image quality was use manual focus on the camcorder. That's the other reason I went with this model. It has a ring on the lens that allows me to focus or zoom like an SLR. So far, I'm pretty happy with this camcorder. I'm hoping with practice, I can improve the quality of my videos.
2 comments:
Wow! The video looks great, but the layouts looking even better!
I can't tell you how frustrating the whole video experience has been...I shared a lot of the same frustrations as you (Unfortunately, my video camera is Sony which uses the MTS format which Mac's seem to gag on without special effort!).
The manual focus is a huge benefit when shooting N Scale...autofocus is just not smart enough to know the right subject. Good move! Looking forward to more videos!
Thanks Jerry. My Mac also gags on the hd formats. I've always been impressed with your videos. I'm currently working on my bridge so hopefully I'll post another video next month if all goes well.
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