What's the big difference between JVC's HM100U and Panasonic's HMC150?

The HM100U records up to 35mb/s while the HMC150 only records up to 24mb/s, but, the HMC150 has 1/3" sensors and the HM100U only has 1/4" sensors. The Panasonic has individual rings for the focus and zoom controls, the JVC has one shared ring for controlling the focus and zoom.

I can't figure out which one's better. Is there a feature or workflow that makes one better than the other?

Thanks in advance.

The HMC150 is AVCHD-based, whereas the HM-100 uses another format which is essentially XDCAM-EX in a quicktime wrapper.

The key difference depends on your NLE.

If you're using Final Cut Pro, the JVC will make for much easier editing, because it's video is in a native quicktime codec (basically). Whether or not this makes it easier to edit in other NLEs is a question that I cannot answer, but perhaps someone here can pipe in.

The panny uses AVCHD, meaning you'll need some serious hardware (think quad or octo core) to edit natively, or you will need to convert it into some type of intermediate codec (prores, cineform, ect).

That said, the panny has some arguably better features such as bigger CCDs and independent focus and zoom. The real question is whether you would benefit from an easier work-flow, versus more 'pro' features.

I hope this helps answer your question somewhat.

Peter

It is also worth considering that the JVC HM100 is yet to be released and nobody outside JVC knows what the quality of the recorded video is (except for a few, unrepresentative short clips from pre-production cameras).

There are several aspects to the new JVC camera that are completely unknown:
--does the new OIS system live up to claims, or is it inferior to those in existing cameras.
--how does the auto-focus perform
--what is the new lo-lux setting, what does video shot with lo-lux look like, and is this a marketing hype feature with little or no practical use.
--does the zoom motor perform responsively and at a high level
--as already mentioned, will the 1/4" CCDs perform as well as the 1/3" CCDs in, for example, the Canon XH-A1, or is the new JVC camera not good enough for quality, professional work.

The JVC HM100 may turn out to be the best camera in existence, but until they ship and people test them, that's TBD.

This really all depends on what you’re doing, For example, if you shoot mostly indoors such as weddings, you’ll want the bigger chips of the Panasonic and in the HM100’s favor, it has a huge advantage of being portables so it can be in more places and not to mention the fact that you’ll be less noticeable when you take the mic off than bigger cameras.

When you consider how small it is, I think it’s really unfair to compare just the chip sizes. Anyway, I wouldn’t consider the Canon GL2, Panasonic AVC30 and the Sony A1u a failure.