Digital Trends

Panasonic HDC-HS9 May 27th, 2008 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

As mentioned at the get-go, this is one small camcorder featuring a primarily dark-silver case. There are touches of black, including the piano-black finish on the back of the LCD screen and in the area underneath the lens covering the remote control sensor. It’s not a beauty but just the fact it’s so compact is the key takeaway. This size—or lack of it—could possibly make it a fine traveling companion.

The front is dominated by a 10x Leica Dicomar zoom that translates to 42.9-429mm in 35mm terms, not nearly as powerful as the 12x zooms found on the recently tested Canon Vixia HF10 and Sony HDR-SR12 . As in the case of those two HD cams I’d prefer a more wide-angle opening focal length for landscapes but that’s my taste. You can twist the front of lens off in order to add optional filters and wide/tele conversion lenses if you want to go beyond the basic focal length. A built-in lens hood opens and closes when you power on/off. You’ll also find an adjustable flash to help with digital stills and a remote sensor located under the lens.

The right side is the casing for the 60GB HDD that saves 7 hours, 40 minutes worth of 1920 x 1080I Full HD video. Step down in quality and you can practically record for days. You’ll also find the Velcro strap that’s not as comfortable as competitors and decals proclaiming HDD Hard Disk Drive.

Underneath the gloss-black door on the left is a 2.7-inch widescreen LCD rated a solid 300K pixels. It works well in most lighting situations including direct sunlight which is a good thing since there isn’t an electronic viewfinder. When I opened the LCD, a slight chill went down my back since I didn’t see any controls on the bezel like those found on recent Canon, JVC and Sony models. For whatever reason, Panasonic engineers placed the controlling joystick on the body opposite the screen, putting it in a fairly awkward spot. Bad move—and it was an inkling of some additional negative things to come.

On the body are a number of controls along with the joystick including one to switch between auto, manual and type of focus, to engage optical image stabilization, one to access the menus along with Disc Copy, Delete and a dedicated button to boost the LCD screen (a welcome addition). Panasonic has been a leader in OIS for camcorders as well as Lumix still cameras and its system does a nice job of eliminating most of the shakes from handheld videos. Beneath the control keys is a compartment for the A/V, component and USB connections. The covering door is a bit cheesy and attached by a small piece of plastic. With the LCD open it’s hard to miss the lithium-ion battery that fits neatly into the body cavity. The battery is flush to the rear panel, making for a nice smooth line. Unfortunately—and this was a total mystery—the mini HDMI connector is located in this space. In other words, you can’t simply take the camcorder to your HDTV and connect it via HDMI using the battery to view your scenes. You have to connect the supplied DC-in cable to the input directly above the HDMI port to the battery charger and plug that into an outlet. In other words, this makes for a big-time hassle and is truly ridiculous. I wonder what Panasonic engineers were thinking when they came up with this scheme. Oh, you can take your SDHC card and plug it into a Panasonic plasma for instant gratification but that doesn’t do any good for the 60 gigs of video on the hard drive. Amazing stuff…

As noted, the rear of the HDC-HS9 is neatly designed. On the top right is a mode dial that lets you choose recording to either the HDD or SD/SDHC cards; playback is here as well. Note: you must have a Class 4 or better SDHC card to record AVCHD videos. Prices are coming down so it’s not too much of burden. To the left of the dial are keys to engage face detection (Panasonic calls it Face Clear) and Pre-Rec (pre record). When you tap this, the camcorder records 3 seconds of audio and video before you press the record button. This is a good real-world feature and helps you save a special moment when you’re a little slow hitting the record button. Underneath the battery is a compartment for the SD card and this has a solid door with a latch lock.

The top of the camcorder has a 5.1-channel surround mic, a small speaker along with the wide/tele switch and a button for taking snapshots. The maximum resolution here is 1920 x 1080, basically 2MP images—something barely worth the trouble. What’s sorely missing is a hot shoe for an accessory light. The bottom of this Made In Japan unit has a metal tripod mount.

The Panasonic HDC-HS9 comes with a solid kit—other than SD card and HDMI cable. There’s the battery rated 60 minutes of continuous use, charger, various cables, remote and CD-ROM with HD Writer 2.5E software for saving material on the PC and burning disks. There’s also a good 144-page owner’s manual.

After charging the battery, setting the date and loading a 2GB Class 6 SDHC card, it was time to start recording.

Image Courtesy of Panasonic