Well my final conclusion for now:
Most people's comments seem to be about the "low light" flaw of the canon series... people definetly not happy about that.
Also the number of people argueing about which resolution and mode p/i is better is pretty crazy... why formats and camera's cannot be more flexible escapes me ;)
Both camera's seems to have sound issue's... though the canon only has the sound issue when it rotates/moves/skews... according to the reviewer... if not yet seen a video of it...
Video camera's are mostly about video though/ofcourse...
The sharpness of the canon is probably just slightly better... but the colors could be far worse... according to the reviewer the canon is pretty shitty with colors.
The noise/fan issue with the panasonic is annoying but only hearably on loud volume settings... this means you can probably forget about recording music concerts are things like that... the humm will be shitty.
The touch screen seems annoying...
I don't like the humm from the panasonic, and I don't like the low light shit from the cannon... I will view some more video's... but I will probably postpone a buy until these issue's are solved... or maybe I will just get a cheap one so I don't have to worry about these issue's.. but I already have a cheap/crappy video option on my digital camera... so I don't need another crappy video camera ;) :) I want a good one.
Also the panasonic records 1080i in some weird format which is difficult if not impossible to edit with todays software... that's also a major no-no.
Though my PC might not even be able to play 1920x1080 video... it requires some real horse power to be able to play those video's smoothly. Though it would still be nice too have that option in a camera for my future pc.
The panasonic has a more stable zoom.
If I had to make a choice right now I would probably go for the panasonic... it has longer battery life too... less storage space though... but that can be solved by swapping flash in and out... shouldn't have to be a big problem.... I wonder if the cannon can do "hot swap" (swapping flash cards while it's recording ?) :)
I don't understand yet what a viewfinder is... and why it's usefull... the reviewer was very found of it... to me it seems a bit weird but ok.
Also I haven't reviewed to cannon software that came with it yet... but that's pretty much not a point if the camera is not so good.
However it could be that the review is a bit biased because it didn't examine p24...
24 frames per second seems a bit low to me...
The panasonic also has 12 optical zoom and the cannon only 10x.
The panasonic has more pixel sensors inside it ?!?
The panasonic is even cheaper !
And has 5.1 digital mic... which is kinda interesting... but I wouldn't expect to much from it... since it's tucked away...
The uncovered external mic hole in the cannon is worrieing... what if rain fails in it... or a paper clip... or some metal dirt ?
It might damage the cannon... not a pleasent thought... the reviewer seemed to be worried about that as well.
My ideal camcorder would do:
- 1920x1200x60 fps (perfect match for my monitor ! ;):))
- Good low light properties.
- Good color properties.
- Good sharpness.
- Excellent motion sharpness... that's what I am buying it for after all... I can take pictures/slideshows with my digital photo camera ;) :)
- Good clean sound.
- Nice grip.
- Long battery life... (panasonic had longer battery life)
- Lot's of storage space.
- Hot swap would be a bonus.
- Easy and meaningfull/clear to use menu's.
- Good automatic mode. (I am newb though... but some did mention "shutter" speed... faster shutter speed might be less motion blur... but also more blockyness.. others said it should be automatic... people want to pick up the camera and immediatly film something so I agree with that mostly... but manually options can be nice as well.)
- Manually manual modes.
- Nice look. (All black or black and silverish would be nice).
- Should be resistent against dust, sand, water, wind, rain, filth, grass, mud, dirt, hairs, and the usual junk in pockets ;) :)
- Scratch resistent lens ?!?
- Good zoom.
- Stable zoom.
- New recording formats if possible... potentially even custom made with specifications available online... current video formats not that great and even a bit shitty here and there.
- Place custom software on flash card and loading it into the digital camcorder might be a nice way to support new software/codecs without requiring any rom flashes... This way I might even be able to develop my own codec and try it out... that would be great ! ;) :) This would probably require some kind of general purpose processor and ram to be present... and some operating system or hardware interface and/or api's.
^ This is probably where current camcorders fall short... there are many geeks out there who would like to be able to twiddle and fiddle with it... just like linux geeks... :) Make them programmable and who knows... maybe massive ammounts of geek attraction potential and ofcourse third party software support which could become quite interesting...
So far I have seen one thing/device (?) mentioned which could do this: "nanoflash" but it was damn expensive ?! like 3000 bucks... way too expensive... (I think it was for cannon).
I will leave it at that for now... the cannon did have something which the panasonic might not have ? the cannon had a flasher... nice for taking photographs... the cannon was better at that... and it has a light for video as well... the panasonic probably not ?
Maybe if the light of the cannon was turned on the low light situation might have been better ??? But maybe this is a mute point ?
Bye, Skybuck.