Panasonic HDC-TM900 Review

Introduction

Design & Usability

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Nearly identical design to the TM900, except for a slightly larger LCD.

Because it shares the same weight and dimensions as Panasonic’s previous flagship model (the HDC-TM700), the HDC-TM900 doesn’t offer that much new in the way of handling. Sifting through the fine details, however, you will notice some differences. For one, the camcorder has a 1/2-inch larger LCD totaling 3.5 inches. This extra size may not sound like much, but it definitely helps with setting manual controls and making better use of touchscreen functions. Menus are also easier to navigate on the larger touchscreen, and this may be part of the reason Panasonic decided to give its menus a slight redesign on the TM900. On previous models, there was a Function menu that scrolled across the bottom of the screen. This menu has now been moved to the left side of the screen instead. It takes up less space there, but it also feels more cramped, and may be more difficult to access if you have larger-than-average fingers.

As usual, the hand strap on the HDC-TM900 isn’t quite as plush as what you get on Canon models, but it is decent, and the compact size and ergonomic shape of the camcorder makes it simple to grip regardless of the hand strap quality. The TM900's lens ring, a feature pros should love, works great for controlling almost everything (focus, zoom, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, gain), but its proximity to the back of the LCD is a bit disconcerting. You can adjust controls during recording—always a plus—although the lens ring only controls zoom when the camcorder is in auto mode. Unlike some older Panasonic camcorders, you can use the lens ring to set controls when the LCD panel is open or when the viewfinder is in use, either is acceptable.

Most high-end camcorders look daunting and scary upon first glance. They’re often loaded with buttons, dials, rings, and controls that make no sense to the novice user. Thankfully, the touchscreen interface on the TM900 (and most consumer camcorders these days) helps to clean up the surface of the model. This lack of scary buttons makes the TM900 easier to use in a way—nearly everything is run through the touchscreen interface. If you happen to hate touchscreens, which some people undoubtedly do, this is going to be a problem.

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Features

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Manual controls are strong and plentiful, but the TM900 had a strange problem with autofocus.

The manual controls on the TM900 are fine. Most are adjustable with the lens ring, they can usually be altered during recording, and the options are plentiful. In addition to the popular controls like shutter speed, aperture, focus, white balance, and gain, the TM900 also has a wide selection of miscellaneous options. There's a basic picture adjust function that lets you boost saturation or sharpness, there's a tele macro mode for closeups, and there's even zebra patterns to help with proper exposure adjustment. The camcorder is equipped with a viewfinder, as well as its 3.5-inch LCD, and it comes with 32GB of internal memory and an SD memory card slot. The optical zoom lens is limited to 12x, but that's par for the course with high-end HD camcorders.

What really stood out on the TM900 was the camcorder’s poor auto white balance and finicky autofocus. In simple terms, the TM900 had difficulty providing a fully-focused image when using autofocus. The left side of the frame always appeared slightly blurred, while the right side was very crisp. The issue could be fixed with manual focus, but, even with that, both sides of the frame were never perfectly sharp. This focus issue was noticeable in all of the TM900's record modes, including its high-quality 60p setting.

Performance

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Excellent video performance, but, again, no major improvement over last year's TM700.

The HDC-TM900 performed well in most of our tests, exhibiting excellent results in color, motion, low light and sharpness performance. That said, as good as the results for the TM900 are, they offer no significant improvement over the TM700. This is not necessarily a bad thing considering that the TM700—and by extension the TM900—is an excellent camcorder, but the lack of significant improvement is a missed opportunity.

Conclusion

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There's not much to complain about with the TM900, except for Panasonic's lack of innovation with the camcorder.

The HDC-TM900 (MSRP $1099) is a great camcorder, that much is clear. It captured excellent video in a variety of record modes, and its performance recording 1080/60p HD video was as good as it gets. It has a ton of controls, a solid body design, and its 3D recording option (with the purchase of an optional conversion lens) makes it a cutting-edge product.

Despite all this, the TM900 is still a somewhat disappointing product. Other than adding the 3D capability and increasing the size of the LCD, Panasonic didn’t do much to improve on last year’s HDC-TM700—which was a fantastic camcorder in its own right. Panasonic had the chance to make a great product even better, but, instead, it chose to play it safe and maintain the status quo.

Unless you have a strong urge to record 3D video, there’s not much of a reason to buy the HDC-TM900 over last year’s HDC-TM700. The extra 1/2 inch of LCD real estate isn't intriguing enough, nor is the redesigned menu system. The new processor in the TM900 also didn't make for any improvements in our performance tests, despite Panasonic's claim that it would reduce noise up to 45%. To top it all off, the HDC-TM900 retails for around $100 – $200 more than the TM700 depending where you shop.

At this point in 2011, Canon's new HF G10 is the more impressive camcorder so far, and new flagships from Sony and JVC are on their way to our labs. Panasonic is up for some stiff competition this year, and hopefully it will encourage Panasonic to innovate more in 2012.

Science Introduction

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We can't reiterate this enough: the HDC-TM900 is a great camcorder. It's exactly what a flagship model should be in terms of performance and controls. But the camcorder is still a disappointment for one reason only: it failed to improve over last year's TM700. Sharpness numbers stayed the same, color accuracy was nearly identical, and low light performance showed no significant change. If you have a TM700, you shouldn't even think about upgrading, and if you can find a cheap TM700 that's still on the shelf, then you should go for it before spending the extra cash on a new TM900.

Low Light Sensitivity & Noise

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Sensitivity was good, especially when using no optical zoom, but noise levels were a tiny bit higher than last year's TM700.

Like the TM700 before it, the HDC-TM900 maintained excellent image quality in low light. With sensitivity, the camcorder managed to reach 50 IRE with 11 lux of light, and that’s exactly the same amount of light the HDC-TM700 needed in this test last year. Of course, if you shoot 3D video with the TM900, you can expect to need a whole lot more light to capture a usable image. The conversion lens limits the amount of light that hits the sensor, and that doesn’t bode well for low light situations.

Here’s another thing to remember: the HDC-TM900, like many of today’s modern camcorders, has a very wide angle lens. So, when we zoomed in for our sensitivity test, the camcorder had to close up its aperture a bit. This also lets less light hit enter the camcorder and negatively impacts low light sensitivity. We tested the TM900 without any zoom and it needed just 6 lux of light to hit 50 IRE. That is a difference of 5 lux, and that is significant. It isn’t as huge as some of the discrepancies we’ve seen—just take a look at the Sony HDR-CX550V’s different results with and without zoom to see what we’re talking about.

The HDC-TM900 averaged 0.76% noise in low light, which is marginally more noise than we saw on last year’s HDC-TM700. Despite this slight increase in noise, the TM900 still put up numbers that were of what we come to expect from a high-end camcorder in this test. Still, this noise increase surprises us because Panasonic claimed its new processor in the TM900 should reduce noise levels by up to 45%. We saw no reduction in our testing, so we can’t say there’s been any improvement over last year’s TM700. If anything, the two camcorders were nearly identical in terms of performance.

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Motion, Sharpness & Stabilization

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Panasonic's 1080/60p record mode worked wonders in our motion and sharpness tests.

In our motion test, the HDC-TM900 produced video that looked no different than what the HDC-TM700 was capable of producing last year. The two camcorders share an identical 1080/60p mode and offer 60i recording as well. The TM900 also has a 24p Digital Cinema mode, which produces a film-like aesthetic, but we didn’t find this 24p setting as visually pleasing as the 24p modes Canon offers on its HD camcorders.

The fact that the TM900 did just as well on this test as its predecessor means two things. First, it means the camcorder captured motion extremely well, particularly when using the 60p record mode. Images were sharp, smooth, with nearly no artifacting and limited amounts of trailing. What we’re discouraged about, however, is that this also means Panasonic didn’t improve anything from last year in terms of motion performance. The TM900’s footage looks no different than the TM700, and we’d hoped Panasonic would find an area where something could be enhanced. Essentially, with the TM900 you are getting top-notch motion performance… but it’s really no different than last year’s model in this category.

To get the sharpest images from the HDC-TM900, you should record using the camcorder’s 1080/60p mode. Using this mode, we were able to capture a horizontal sharpness of around 1000 LW/PH and a vertical sharpness of close to 900 LW/PH. These numbers are consistent with what we saw from last year’s HDC-TM700 and its 1080/60p record mode—and they represent some of the best sharpness numbers we’ve seen from a consumer camcorder.

Shooting with a 60i frame rate diminishes this sharpness score significantly, but the TM900 still earned sharpness levels that were similar to other high-end HD camcorders. Shooting 1080/60i the TM900 managed a horizontal sharpness of around 800 LW/PH and a vertical sharpness of only 650 LW/PH. Again, these numbers are similar to what we see from most high-end or flagship HD camcorders, but you notice an immediate increase in sharpness when you record using the 60p mode on the HDC-TM900

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Color Performance

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The HDC-TM900’s color results were unchanged compared to last year’s HDC-TM700 from Panasonic. This is to say they were still top-notch, as the camcorder measured a color error of just over 3.0 and a saturation level only slightly under 100%. These numbers are not only consistent with other high-end models, but they are also among the best we’ve seen from a consumer camcorder. In low light, the camcorder measured a color error of 4.32 and a saturation level of around 84%. Both of these numbers are very good and are consistent to the results from the new Canon HF G10 as well as last year’s TM700.

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