Hi all,
I just thought to share my impression from the GS200. For long I didn't even step in a electronic shop but yesterday I did and my attention was drawn by the new models.

What I liked:
+ New mode dial seaprate from the power key. I wished this for long. Now you can set up the mode, then power up not passing through the recording mode each time and waiting for the the tape and WB to adjust.
+ very nice higher resolution, sharp and vivid viewfinder - lovely!!!
+ I have the impression it has slightly better EIS than the GS70
+ sleek even slightly smaller body than GS70

Disliked:
- the menu and menu dial are now behind the LCD - you have to open it to be able to use the menu options (Sony like???)
- no swith for entering manual mode on the outer body. GS70 had it in inconvinient place (under your palm) but still it had it. Now you have to enter the menu to switch modes I guess.

Anybody correct me if I'm wrong - I really haven't delved deeply to find more.

See this thread for Allan's excellent review (in 2 parts):

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22550

OK, as this thread is geting some more hits I decided to review my info as it is WRONG in my last Dislike point.

I wanted to edit the message but had to contact the admin so decide to save time and post the edit separately.

So actaully I've been very unconcentrated last time.
Reading Allan's exelent preview in the thread pointed from Frank is recomended for overview of any of the upcoming new models I think. Even the new GS400 would cary these characteristics of the new operation layout (with some extras).

So on the point - the cam has auto/manual/manual focus switch on exactly the place I wrote it's missing.

What I couldn't find out for the short time holding the cam was how to change the shutter, iris, etc. once you enter the manual mode?

There's no need to edit your post. They were your first impressions. Perhaps Allan can answer your other questions:What I couldn't find out for the short time holding the cam was how to change the shutter, iris, etc. once you enter the manual mode?

Under manual mode, pressing the middle button on the cross-arranged buttons one at a time will display WB, shutter speed, iris and gain in that order. You can manually change the settings by pressing on the left or right arrow keys. Notice that you only need to press those buttons one at a time to change setting of WB and shutter speed while 2 presses (of the same button) are required to change the values of iris and gain.

Frank, thanks for the words!

Allan, my attention was to my kid running somewhere in the shop so I just pressed Menu button which presented me with the menu of coarse.

I really like the new mode dial and easier menu scrolling and layout.

My complain though stays - You can't do any manual adjustment now if you use only the viewfinder. What's worse is that now this device is sharper and better than before and you can't explore it fully. I asume even the not released yet GS400 will have similar layout whit all the pluses and minuses coming with that.

On the positive side is the new function for the LCD display for outdoors. As I set up my display without the AI and normal brightnes it's practically unusable for outside. This new models make it easy to brighten up temporary for such bright light situations (instead of using the viewfinder as I do).

Quick question,
I've been reading the posts on the gs200 and could not find any info on the release date. Does anyone know when we can expect this in the US? I already see some web sites advertising the product but no date on when it will be in stock. Thanks.

Also a second question. If you were to choose between the gs200 and the sony hc85, what would you do?

If you're willing to pay for the price of the HC85, you'd better consider the 953.

Hi,
I'm new here, so at first greetings to all. Fantastic board, with really good information you have made here.

I've seen a NV-GS120 today at a german store (998,-¤).
And i have to say, the new EIS (now so called SIS) made a quite good job. I know that this will be worse if the contrast in the picture fades, but I could zoom 10x and had still a stable view without any shaking.
And I have to add that with my NV-MX300 i could not do this at 12x zoom (firmware update already made).

In a german paper ("video aktiv digital"04/2004) I saw also a comparison of the low light quality of the GS200 and GS70 at 20 Lux. Result: The GS70 made really a bad dark and colorless picture, the GS200 made a much better job. Picture was still colorfull and had good contrast.
They also tested the whole performance and gave really good comments about the video quality also.

So because I like the small formfactor of that cam, i thing about buying a GS200.

Next week I'm in Kuala Lumpur at a job. Tha's why I want to know if the NV-GS200 is already available in Malaysia or Singapore and if yes, what is the actual market price there?
And if somebody knows, where in Kuala Lumpur i can buy it then.
(I'm from germany and don't know KL, I never was there before)

Can anybody help?

It has only been released in Japan so far. In other parts of the world, soon (meaning, shortly). :-))

Ok, in Japan and Germany :-)
I really could get it here right now!

So, then I have to buy it in Germany i guess

Thanks

Welcome to dvinfo, Meinolf! And another MX300 owner to boot! So the German version has German menus? I wish I would have kept up my German.

Hi Meinolf,

I would go for the PAL cam you would get in Germany. Not sure what was the system in Malaysia.

My inpression from long time ago when I was in to it is that generally the EIS is slightly better working than the OIS on the Pany cams. This is if you are just looking for stability.
I explain this with the small lens and technical difficulties for the OIS using such small lens. It's less stable at 10x than the EIS in my opinion, and it bounces at the smallest hand shake.

On the other hand if you look closer on the picture with EIS you can find some color imperfections as well as other defects when panning or moving quicker the cam (color bleeding, etc.) Also the EIS gets disabled at lower light levels and when the gain hits 9dB or more. It's not working while zooming too (Sony's are better in that respect).

Pictures of the GS200 are available here (http://fortvir.net/modules.php?set_albumName=album10&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php).

German menu language? No, that piece i had in hand was in english (i guess, because words like "display", "zoom", "LCD", ... are the same in a german version anyway. So it wouldn't be very helpfull to keep up your german:-)).
But probably you can switch somewhere the language, i don't know.

Hi Meinolf,

The GS200 is not available in Malaysia and Singapore yet.
The top of the line 3CCD consumer camcorder is still the MX500 here in Singapore and Malaysia; not even the GS100.

For the consumer market here, Panasonic offers only GS70 and MX500.

Street prices in Singapore :

GS70K - S$ 1700 (RRP S$ 2099)
MX500 - S$ 2200 (RRP S$ 2499)

I wonder what's keeping so long for Pany to ship out PAL units. I've seen the PAL model of the GS200 at LAOX duty free shop in Akihabara. Price is JPY120,000 duty free (for visitors); that's over JPY35,000 higher than the Jap model though.

Hi, I'm back from my business trip. And I was successful: Now I own a NV-GS200GC!

So the Cam is now available in Malaysia. I got it from "Billion Photo SDN SHD" in Plaza Jalan Bukit Bintang, 55100 K.L. for 3880 RM
which should be round about 870€.
If you see that the best price for the GS120 in germany actually is around 810 € and the Pana list price for the GS200 is 1498 € in germany (which is stupid, regarding the MX500), this was quite a good deal i guess :-)

The Cam is a PAL system Cam, and is fully compatibel to every TV and DV stuff i have here in germany at home.
The whole product is called NV-GS200GC, in germany the product is called NV-GS200EG.
The differences i can see till now are:
The manual languages are Chinese-English Russian-Arabian(i guess). The Network adapter comes with three different cables (instead of one in germany), one works in germany one in Malaysia and China and one i don't know.

So in the end i got more product for less money. And the pricing is obviously not following the high german PAL price list. It had followed the lower NTSC prices that you have in the US for that cam.

My impression of that cam: I really like it.
The Pictures are sharp, the colours are vivid.
The stills are not as good as from a Digicam, but good enough, to be noticed. And slightly better than from my MX300 and good enough to make 15x10mm prints from it (e.g. much better as every snapshot oneway cam, which sometimes is bought when you've forgotten your photo cam at home).

The cam starts up very fast, and with a quickstart function this can be accelerated to 1.7 second (might cost more energy).
My impression is that the low light pictures have a little bit too less blue (even after manual white balance, the colors are not so good than with my MX300), but they are not really bad in the end.

In my hotel room wich was 5m x 6m I've tried to make pictures at nigth. Only one light bulb with 50 Watts was burning.
The pictures looked a little bit darker than my personal visible impression was, but with +18dB they were satisfying me. Red, yellow and green looked not so bad (a little bit too much red), only blue looked a bit grey. The noise of those low light pictures was noticeble, but not dramatic, i can live with that.

The automatic program for "Candle light Conditions" generated a little bit brighter pictures than the+18dB setting, but with more noise also.
The MPEG4 movies at low ligth seem to be sligthly darker than the DV movies.

The image stabilizer stabelizes well. It is a EIS, so if it works, sharpness is slightly decreased during turns, which i could also see. If the light conditions are not sufficient, the EIS automatically goes off (a sign in the display indicates this). Bad jumping or shaking i could not observe untill now, even at 10x zoom.

The language in all menus is english.

If somebody can give me an email or ftp adress, i can send a few samples over, if there is some interest.

Meinolf,
You are welcome to post some pictures or video (<10 Meg, please) in the Members Album on my website. Just register, then go into the Members Album and create a 'nested album' to post into. You can edit properties to give it a name and description. You can also select the picture you want for the album cover. In the drop down list below the picture, select Highlight and it will make that picture the album cover (default is the first picture in the album).

Hi Meinolf,

Could you kindly describe further how the video quality of the 200 compares with the 300 (clarity, sharpness, resolution, color accuracy, noise level, brightness) both in good light and low light? I'm really interested in one particular MX3000 unit. I know how the 200 video looks compared to the GS100 and MX5K but I haven't been able to hook a 300/3000 on a monitor. Many thanks!

Allan

Hi Meinolf,

Glad to hear that and congrats. Seems like the price in KL is very comparable to Spore's.

Allan, the MX3000 has the same playback resolution as the VX2000/PD150, but with richer color saturation. It requires more light, of course than the VX/PD.

Problem is Jap sites don't usually provide resolution data. I've read somewhere that GS70 and GS200 have 500+ lines of resolution and I wouldn't argue others opinion/observations of the GS70/GS200 being sharp. But from my own tests, looking at GS200 video side by side with the likes of Sony and Canon's megapixels (that are equally sharp as the GS100 and MX5K), the discrepancy in sharpness and clarity is readily visible. Even my 10-year old daughter notices the difference right away.

Allan, VX2000/PD150 playback resolution via a wave-form monitor was done and published by a regular from DV Magazine. The article was called something like, "A second look at the VX2000." The MX300/MX3000 was tested by Pana Technical in Japan. I don't know about the GS200's resolution, but my guess would be that it's over 500 playback lines.

PV-GS70 has less than 500 lines of resolution as reported by Videomaker megazine.

However, the MX500 delivers 520+ lines

The GS70 has less video effective pixels than the GS200, that's probably why. 440K verses 290K.

The MX5K and GS100 delivers approx. 540 lines according to Pany Japan (with or without OIS).

I don't think the GS200 has over 500 playback lines, but it's a good cam for its price nonetheless.

I bet the GS200 has at least 500 playback lines with DIS disengaged. Even with the MX300, the resolution is increased slightly with OIS disengaged. But with Pana's DIS off, there'd be more of an increase, like with the AG-EZ30U / PV-DV950.

Alright then, well at least I now have a better idea what 20 or 40 plus lines of resolution look like :-))

So Frank the 3000 has 500+ playback lines too?

Out of topic, but the last 2 nights I've been watching some home videos I shot 10 years ago using my jurassic C-VHS Pany, some of them recorded under LP mode. 200-300 playback lines or what, it was FUN watching those old stuffs.

Yes, both the MX300 amd MX3000 have 500 horizontal line playback, but the MX300 (PAL) has more vertical resolution. The important thing is the horizontal resolution, because one eyes look horizontally more than vertically when viewing TV, and that's how lines are counted.

I 've added some sample pictures, sample videos and sample stills at the GS200 Album under "members album". at FortVir.net The link is:

http://fortvir.net/modules.php?set_albumName=album10&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php

The samples might give you more impressions on the low light performance of the NV-GS200 and still picture quality.
The video made by using the "Candle light program" have got the same brightness like the real visible impression was in that room.

On the Camcorder display all pictures looked a little bit brighter.

Videos made under bright sunlight are fine anyway.