I've had my HDC-TM700 for a couple of days. So these are just first impressions. (If you want to see my unboxing video, I posted it on YouTube: YouTube - Unboxing a New Panasonic HDC-TM700 (like HDC-HS700 & HDC-SD700)! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h19toffXnf4))

One nice TM700 feature I haven't seen discussed elsewhere is peaking. The camera does include a peaking function when switched to manual focus. Panasonic calls it "manual focus assist." This really helps achieve critical focus with the 260k pixel LCD screen. The peaking color is blue; I prefer yellow, but will gladly settle for blue.

Whether you dub the 35mm lens "wide" or not, it's a hell of a lot more wide than any other consumer cam lens I've tried. My EX1 has a 31.4mm equivalent lens, so the TM700 is in the same ballpark. For me this make a big difference in the practical use of the camera. No longer do I need to carry and constantly attach/detach a wide angle adapter. This also makes me more likely to use the 18X zoom (since there's no wide angle adapter on the cam).

One minor but appreciated detail involves the automatic lens cap. Turn the camera on and the lens cap opens. Close the LCD with the camera still on, and the lens cap closes-- but if you withdraw the electronic viewfinder (with the LCD still closed) the lens cap opens again. So, if you get my meaning, the camera "knows" when to close the lens cap even when it is turned on (contrasted to my Canon HV20 lens cap which was open all the time the camera was turned on).

Another upside to the TM700 vis-a-vis other consumer cams is the manual control ring. Panasonic has done a nice job implementing this feature and it's easy to quickly adjust zoom, focus, shutter speed, & iris using the ring. This is a slam dunk win for the TM700 because the competition doesn't even offer a control ring (the control wheel is a far less satisfying alternative).

One incongruous aspect of the camera is the location of the power button, which is found behind the LCD screen. Not a big deal, just a little odd IMHO.

Also there's a cooling fan in the same spot. The fan does generate some noise when it activates, although it's not always on. The fan will prove an irritant for some, as the noise is audible.

I am shooting in 60P with the motto, "Shoot first; discover workflow later." ;-) I tried rendering one 60P clip to "Video for Windows" AVI in Vegas Pro 8, and the resulting file was 22 GB in size. So the editing aspect of things needs a little refinement.

I am still just beginning to learn the camera. Suffice to say so far that I am impressed and am very happy with the TM700. My other cameras are an EX1 and a couple of HV20s. I have kept the HV20s for quite a while because with every potential successor consumer cam I always found significant flaws. But finally, I can say that my weathered old HV20s are ready for retirement.

nice writeup ,i appreciate you taking the time :)

In another thread, several of us were wondering if there were any kind of "cine gamma" settings, that might help in matching it to the HMC models?

If anyone wants to download a 60P file to play with, I posted one on Vimeo 60P-orsche on Vimeo

By the way, Graham, there's some sort of cinematic gamma feature, but activating it merely switches on "x.v. color."

Would a Canon TL-H46 46mm Tele Converter Lens work on the new HDC-TM700 ????

<<Would a Canon TL-H46 46mm Tele Converter Lens work on the new HDC-TM700 ???? >>

Yes, it should... The TM700 has a 46mm lens filter thread, so I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Nice Porsche....

....but for a "sample" clip, would have liked to seen:

- The car driving down the road; anywhere from 10 - 80mph
- Panning; maybe a 180 degree pan
- Vocals, music ambient noise for the audio testing portion

Glad you like the cam and hope you will be able to post a bit more footage soon with the above suggestions.

And thank you for sharing your "first impressions" with the rest of us; most appreciate it as I am considering this cam as well!!

AC

Where is the infra red eye (for revceiving remote control signals) placed on the TM700?

Thanks for your comments. I must say that this was just about the first thing I shot with the camera, literally moments after unboxing. Hey, it was either a car or the usual cat & flowers. ;-)

Note that I did no editing to the clip whatsoever, so that people could download it from Vimeo and see how the 60P file works on their own computers and editing programs. I was just trying to give people a 60P clip of substantial length with a little camera movement.

I am attending an Indy car race on Sunday (Danica Patrick, et al) and will bring my TM700. I won't have ALL my gear (no fluid head tripod, etc.) but will do my best to capture some 60P action shots of the Indy cars on the track. Cheers!

Rob, the remote control sensor is located on the front face beneath the lens, offset towards the LCD side of the camera.

Thanks for your respons Michael.
I suppose that sensor will not receive any signal from sitting behind the camera. Maybe you could try this for me. Trying to find out from which corner it responds to the remote.
Thanks,
Rob

No, the remote won't work from behind the camera. It will work from the front within approximately 5 meters (16 feet) at an angle of approximately 10 degrees up and 15 degrees down, left, and right. If you can download an owner's manual, this is covered on page 54.

I've found that the remote works well within these parameters. (Much better than my Sony EX1 remote!)

I dropped the Vimeo clip on my Vegas 8.c Timeline. Preview is a little jerky. but, still workable.

I rendered two 30 second clips. One clip as a Cineform AVI file the other as a mp4 file.

In both cases, the 30 second Clips took over 5 minutes to render, and that's with no additional editing or transitions!

I'm going to have to rethink this camera.

A few more tests with the 60p in Vegas 8.c. Raw footage no editing.

A one minute 1080 60i clip renders to a 1280 x 720 mp4 file in less than 3 minutes on my computer.

A one minute section of the 60p clip that I downloaded above, took 18 minutes to render to a mp4!!!!!

I must admit that the visual quality of the 60p clip was better than the 60i.

Warning, before you purchase a HDC-TM700 for shooting 60p, find out if you can edit 60p.

I also use Sony Vegas Pro 8 c, and have been editing (or at least attempting to edit) 60P. Be sure to set your preview to the "Auto" setting.

Of course the TM700 also shoots 60i and 24 (via 60i), but reports (Camcorderinfo, etc.) indicate that the TM700 captures maximum resolution in the 60P mode, so I'm shooting 60P. I'm not yet sure how to best render the 60P, and it's during rendering that I am having trouble -- sometimes Vegas crashes. I've tried rendering to WMV (24p and 30P) and also Sony MXF (720P 60P). Sometimes it works, and sometimes it crashes. There's probably a better workflow for these 60P files, but I haven't found it yet.

Just an update... I edit on a couple of different PCs. I'm using 32-bit Vegas Pro 8(c) on both. But the two have different operating systems (the older has 32-bit Windows 7, while the newer PC has 64-bit Windows 7).

The 60P files are crashing Vegas on my Core i& with 64-bit Windows 7. But they edit and render just fine on my older laptop with 32-bit Windows 7. So perhaps some of my render problems are related to the 64-bit operating system.

Have you tried the Demo version of Vegas 9 Pro 64bit on your 64bit machine? Give it a shot see what happens, not sure if it's limited in any way other than time.

I also use Sony Vegas Pro 8 c, and have been editing (or at least attempting to edit) 60P. Be sure to set your preview to the "Auto" setting.

Of course the TM700 also shoots 60i and 24 (via 60i), but reports (Camcorderinfo, etc.) indicate that the TM700 captures maximum resolution in the 60P mode, so I'm shooting 60P. I'm not yet sure how to best render the 60P, and it's during rendering that I am having trouble -- sometimes Vegas crashes. I've tried rendering to WMV (24p and 30P) and also Sony MXF (720P 60P). Sometimes it works, and sometimes it crashes. There's probably a better workflow for these 60P files, but I haven't found it yet.

i havent used the 1080p 60 fps clips yet ,but for 720p 60fps clips i render with quicktime photo jpeg at 100% quality

I have been sticking with 32-bit Vegas because my Magic Bullet plug-in apparently is not compatible with the 64-bit version. (Basically I had to choose between Magic Bullet and the increased memory usage of the 64-bit). But I will give the 64-bit demo a shot to see if the crashing continues.

By the way, I also just tried rendering 60P footage to Quicktime Motion JPEG, and much to my surprise, it worked! The resulting file is quite large, but it looks great. Thanks for the tip.

Download the FREE Edius Neo 2 Booster editing software (30 day trial) at EDIUS Neo 2 Booster | Grass Valley (http://www.grassvalley.com/products/edius_neo_2_booster) ...then download 1080/60p sample footage at vimeo.com to test. You'll be amazed how smooth it is, and no conversion.

I just picked up my TM700 and I'm pretty happy with it so far. However, I was wondering if you noticed an exceptional (or any) amount of audible grinding when utilizing the control ring. I'm wondering if I should return mine for a new one.

I plan on doing some test shots too.. in particular differences in quality from the different modes. I'll post em when I do. The most bothersome thing I find so far is a lack of seperate gain and iris controls... although of course I have to keep reminding myself it is consumer. In very low light, I prefer to keep the gain levels a bit more limited (then brighten in post) then what the Ai cranks them all the way up to, but that also means locking the iris, so I need to be ready to make adjustments if I move into a brighter area or more lights come on when filming indoors. Obviously the surround sound mic also isn't ideal for all situations, but I planned on attaching an external for it from the get go.

---- Edit ---

Okay, nevermind the ring noise. As it turns out it was the shoe adapter port lid rubbing up against the ring :p

The HMC40 does the same - no gain applied until iris fully open.

Anyone have a mini-shotgun mic recommendation for this camera? I just picked one up and I'm looking to install a more directional mic. Thx.

If you want a small shotgun mic, Sennheiser MKE400 is about as small as it gets.

Could someone please give me a link to some Panny TM700K 1080P60 raw footage?

I would like to do both some quality evaluation and editing tests.

Thank you,

I just returned from two weeks of taping in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank. I left my EX1 at home and went with a less conspicuous, tourist-camera-geek-looking rig. I used a Panny TM700 and a Canon T2i with an assortment of lenses. I shot 1080/60p with the Panny and 1080/24p with the Canon in hopes of editing in a 24p timeline. That didn't work out, but here's the workflow I'm going to use (I have a Mac with FCP 7).

I'll transcode the MTS files into ProRes 422 with Clipwrap, which loses the 5.1 surround sound but preserves the 60p frame rate. I set up a 1080/30p sequence in FCP with ProRes 422 as the codec. The Panny files do not have to be rendered in order to play back, but the MOV files from the T2i do. Everything look good, the motion I prefer looks good, and the render times are reasonably low.

BTW, Premiere reads the MTS files without the transcoding step. The 60p material has to be rendered in the timeline, but the 5.1 surround sound is preserved.

I'll let you know how this goes once I get into some cuttin' on this material.

Where are you putting this?
DVD? Blu-Ray? Web?

If it's the web, perhaps you can put it on Vimeo so that people can download it.

I'm trying to figure out the 60P editing sequence... Can you "convert" the 1080 60p into 30p footage and have normal speed? In other words, can you use the 60p footage for acquisition, edit it, and output standard 30p footage that's more easily played back on various systems...

The 60p samples look great and I'm considering the HDC-TM700 as a nice "home" camera and backup in the field, but only if I can cut its footage with my standard 1080i and 30p footage.

Thanks.

Stuart, I haven't tried converting 60P to 30P, but I have converted 60P to 24P Sony MXF 1920x1080 with no problem using the Sony Vegas 8 batch rendering tool. It plays as normal speed 24fps, but you retain the benefits of TM700 resolution in 60P mode.

If memory serves, you can convert ("copy") clips IN CAMERA from 60P to 60i AVCHD.

Thanks for the response. I've never edited in anything other than 60i, so this one presents a challenge to me. For around $800 to get a 60p image with quality approaching some much "higher end" cameras, I'm intrigued. Being able to get it to 30p or 60i without losing image quality makes it even more tempting. For an interesting "extra" camera at paying shoots, I'd sure want to light the heck out of the scene though and fight my way through the menus to get full manual control.

I'm surprised there isn't more hubub about the TM700. I suppose that video DSLRs are stealing some of its thunder, but it really is a powerhouse little camcorder. The image quality in 60P mode is stellar, and the camera is better in low light than you might expect. Small, lightweight, plenty of manual controls if you want 'em. It's an ideal stealth camera.

I wish we had more frame rates (ie. native 24P) that retained the resolution/bitrate benefits of the 60P mode. Maybe Panasonic is saving that for next year's model.

Editing the footage is a bit of a bear because of the need for transcoding. I've had stability issues in Vegas when I try to mix 60P with other framerates & codecs (ie. Sony EX1 MXF files) on the same timeline. If you don't mind the necessity of transcoding, it's a great camera.

Could someone please give me a link to some Panny TM700K 1080P60 raw footage?
I would like to do both some quality evaluation and editing tests.
Thank you,
Bump... Bump... Bump...
And thanks, thanks, thanks...

Every single clip in this thread was native at one point but you have to be quick because the original files will change to the streaming versions after a week.
Native 1920x1080 50p & 60p clips videos on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/groups/native1920x108060pclips/videos)

Basically the files that were uploaded within a week are still native and files from Plus users are always native. You have to be signed in, in order to download the files.

Of the three that are still native, two clips are .m2t and one is .mts.

Can you please tell me why?

Thank you,

I haven't used that camera yet which makes it a bit ironic that I'm the moderator of the forum but I've downloaded loads of those clips and the video quality is phenomenal.

It's MTS when it's being recorded directly to the card and if you use the software to transfer it to your computer, it's M2T. Their both basically native as far as I'm concerned.

One FANTASTIC feature of the TM700 is timelapse (undercranking). I find myself using timelapse on the TM700 on a daily basis. It works much like S&Q motion on the Sony EX1, albeit not to the level of specificity of the EX1. You can only timelapse in 60i, not 60p, but the results are still impressive.

I have nothing technical to add, but I find the TM700 constantly upstaging my HMC150 in convenience and on-the-run use. The TM700 does fantastic imagery.

Is anyone shooting sports with the TM700?

If yes, would you share your settings.

Thanks..Alan

I have shot my first footage with the TM700 and am quite impressed with this quasi-prosumer/consumer little camera. I cannot quantify or compare to other cameras yet, but with 1080 60p and mainly auto settings, the clarity was indeed very nice. For personal use it will be amazing. For professional use, it will be nice for some more remote location shots in some of my industrial shoots. Definitely needs light to get the best footage. For $800+ it's a steal - especially if you can handle the 1080 60p footage.

I will be playing a lot with this little wonder in the coming weeks.

One FANTASTIC feature of the TM700 is timelapse (undercranking). I find myself using timelapse on the TM700 on a daily basis. It works much like S&Q motion on the Sony EX1, albeit not to the level of specificity of the EX1. You can only timelapse in 60i, not 60p, but the results are still impressive.

Just so people who see this tidbit of misinformation don't get all excited about the wrong thing:

The TM700 does NOT under/over-crank or shoot "variable frame rates" - VFR. That's where the camera purposely shoots a faster - or slower - frame rate than the selected format to achieve either in-camera slow-motion or fast-motion.

"Time lapse" is not VFR shooting, it's a series of still images taken at intervals, not the same as over-cranking motion-picture footage.

There are no consumer/pro-sumer grade cameras that shoot VFR, the smallest camera that does is the HVX200 or HPX170. Most high-end ENG cameras especially the F700 series, Varicam, Viper and RED all have VFR options, but not "handy-cam" style cameras.

I have the TM700 and the time-lapse feature is very, very cool and produces amazing imagery but it's no replacement for real VFR shooting.