Differences between TM 900 and HS 900?
 

Is the only difference between the TM 900 and the HS 900 the internal storage? As I understand it the HS 900 has an internal 220GB hard-drive whereas the TM 900 has 32 GB of internal storage. Both models accept SD cards. The hard drive makes the HS 900 slightly heavier than the TM 900.

Re: Differences between TM 900 and HS 900?
 

That is the difference. What you get with the hard disk is possibly some noise... especially as it ages ... and the joy of losing footage when the hard disk has a problem. I would not recommend it for anything other than always on a tripod and you absolutely MUST have all that storage for one shoot.

Re: Differences between TM 900 and HS 900?
 

Thanks Les,

The reason I am interested in the HS 900 is that it seems to still be available, whereas the TM 900 is not - at least in Pal form. Even though the price of the X900M is dropping this camcorder does not seem to have the following enjoyed by the TM 900.

Re: Differences between TM 900 and HS 900?
 

I would be very nervous about trusting the hard drive for critical work. I have several TM900's but rather than using their internal memory I have switched to 32gb SD cards. If you ever have to do a recovery it is likely to be far more straightforward using SD cards than internal memory.

Also you can download the SD cards using a USB3 card resder extremely quickly. You just point the Panasonic software to the reader and it downloads as normal n.b. retaining the file structure so you can also use the Panasonic software later to trim the files etc. Remember you do need the appropriate USB3 interfaces on your computer be it an expansion card on a desktop or a PCI card on a laptop plus cables.

The upshot is that since the X900 has dropped in price I wouldn't worry about getting one. Its almost the same as the TM900 anyway.

Pete

Re: Differences between TM 900 and HS 900?
 

ThanksPeter,

I am looking for a second Pal version of the TM 900. As the Pal TM 900 does not seem to be available I am considering the HS 900. I have been using SD cards on my TM 900 and have had a good run with them -apart from a once only moment of panic when the TM 900 warned that it was about to to delete the SD card. When that happened I successfully downloaded the card and I did not lose anything.

If I buy the HS 900 I will stick to using the SD cards.

The main reason for my post was was to be reassured that apart from the hard drive the two models are identical.

Re: Differences between TM 900 and HS 900?
 

What about then the SD900?