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| Brand: Panasonic
Category: Photography
List Price: $799.95
Buy Used: $389.00
You Save: $410.95 (51%)
New (24)
Avg. Customer Rating:  51 reviews
Color: silver
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: Yes
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Optical Zoom: 42
Display Size: 2.7
Maximum Focal Length: 30
Minimum Focal Length: 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 2.9 x 2.6
MPN: HDC-SD9
Model: HDC-SD9
UPC: 037988256655
EAN: 0037988256655
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 GREAT! May 13, 2008
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
This camera is great! I have had this camera for 3 months... The highlights include great HD video quality, very straight forward usage, very good and easy SD to DVD transfer software and tiny size. You can take the SD card out and pop it right into your PS3 for immediate HD playback. You can also use the software to create same quality HD-DVDs on DVD-R-DL discs that hold 1 hour each. Buy the 8GB SD card to match 1 hour of DVD-R-DL. I thought that the price was good at $800 for this camera and now I see that it's less than $600. Buy it - you will want to send me a thank you note after you get it... (but it's really not me you should thank - I thank panasonic for coming up with this winner).
PS. While some people here complain about the low light performance, I think that they should really read the manual... They probably tried the Low Light mode (which really isn't very good)... they just need to switch to manual mode and open up the iris a couple of notches (1 switch move + 4 clicks) , it's very quick and easy to do with this camera and then the low light videos will be good and the camera will also stop playing with the white balance as is commonly an issue with indoor video camcorder shooting).
 Small size, but poor video quality and iMovie support April 10, 2008
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
I tried both the Panasonic HDC-SD9 and Canon VIXIA HF100. While the Panasonic wins hands-down on size, the picture quality just pales in comparison to the Canon, especially in low light.
Plus, as of this review time, the files created with this camcorder crash iMovie!
So, I'm going with the Canon HF100 instead of this one.
 nice camcorder no editing ability with mac imovie08 March 20, 2008
12 out of 35 found this review helpful
bought this camcorder a couple of days ago. Loved the crisp images in BRIGHT light. Tried to load film to imovie08 and it promptly caused it to crash. Imovie08 crashes every single time. So if you own a mac and are using imove you are out of luck. Lots of rumors about apple fixing problem in the latest update of ilife/imovie but I am not going to wait. Going to take the 15% restocking fee hit and getting something that allows me to edit on my mac. Check out the apple discussion boards and see what others are saying.
 No iMovie Support (Crash) March 18, 2008
11 out of 47 found this review helpful
Please look at the iMove 08 support forum. There is a thread on the front page titled hdc sd9. There is absolutely no person who has been able to fix the crashes between the camera and iMovie 08. Apple is silent. There is hope for a fix soon, as the camera is likely to be popular. It is irresponsible for anyone to claim ANY LEVEL OF COOPERATION between this camera and iMovie 08. APPLE and PANASONIC NEED TO GET IT TOGETHER QUICK OR THIS CAMERA WILL CRASH AND BURN.
Camera of the future...unfortunately, but whose fault is that? April 25, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
OK, I knew about Apple software engineers getting caught napping regarding the new AVCHD format**, yet I bought this anyway. How could I opt for any other, after seeing what this one could do -- even more so, considering the price?
For those not happy with the joystick, try using the remote instead. Works great! Perfect solution for us.
For those who mentioned poor picture in low light, try turning on the Low Light setting or even MagicPix, the later of which is intended for near-total-darkness.
Another reviewer was not entirely correct about missing an accessory shoe. Reference item VW-SK12 (Shoe Adapter) which connects to the tripod mount; better than using a "shoestring", I imagine. A lamp can be purchased for this accessory, another way to resolve the low light issue many have mentioned.
All of the included software, either trial version or Windows-only, was useless to me. But the included software wasn't even a factor in my buying decision.
The included user manual is excellent - so far it has been very easy to use and sufficient for every question I've had. It is very well organized and it is even printed in full - an increasingly rare find, where often the printed manual is only an overview and the detailed manual is only available on DVD.
Opening the little door to access the USB connection was a little tricky and the door hinge itself is just a springy strip of pliable material. I sure hope that little door is sturdier than it looks. I have very small, child-sized hands, yet even I find connecting the USB, AV, or DC cables to the camcorder a little hair-raising; the unit is just so tiny, and the connections require a significant amount of force to insert the cables.
But the memory card is very easy to access, and the contents can be uploaded to a computer using a memory card reader - no need to remove the battery to access the DC input, no need to open the flimsy door to connect the USB cable, etc.
Onscreen feedback (icons, menus, alerts, etc.) is very helpful and easy to understand. The video footage looks surprisingly good displayed on our 46" HDTV even with just the supplied AV cables. My husband captured some video in our rather-dark garage yesterday and I was worried about the lighting; but then when he handed the camera back to me, I saw that the low-light setting was ON, as well as intelligent contrast, and the resulting footage looks remarkable, clear as daylight, with no color cast.
I purchased the VW-BN1 AVCHD-DVD drive for this camcorder to preserve my video in it's full AVCHD/5.1 glory, since I must then down convert the clips to .mov/2-channel sound using Voltaic to migrate it onto my iMac for editing. Contrary to product description, **Final Cut Express 4 does NOT fully support AVCHD, especially not from this camera, and it doesn't support 5.1 surround sound in any format anyway.
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