NV-GS400 - okay, you heard it here first. More details to come soon.

Not GS200?

Nope. GS400.

Opps. The GS300 might of been a typo I recieved. I just received a pic, and...: it's THE BLACK MAMBA!!! I guess a GS100 ENGLISH MANUAL should be coming soon. :-))

Frank,

What? ;-)

GS300 typo?

Do you mean that there is a NEW model coming out (NA GS100K - OMG!!!) or was it simply a GS100k with a 3 instead of a 1? I can't take any more suspense!

Oh, by the way, I ordered a PV-DV852 today! :-) I think you're right about jumping on a good thing. Thank's a bunch Frank!

-Stewart

First things first.

Hats off to frank and his 4000th post (and counting)!!!

Secondly, I sure would like to get my mitts on an English GS100 manual.

Keep us posted!

Thanks, Tommy. (I guess you recall the MX8/PV-DV852 manual I sent you with my 16 bit, 33.6 connection---thanks to Pana.)

Yes, the black GS100 is coming to PALsville. So there will be an English PDF manual soon. That's great news.

As soon as I receive it, I'll be posting it for download.


----------------------------------------------------
http://www.123.com - Free E-cards for all occasions including the holidays.

Great News! Does it mean that we will have to wait for the manual to find out what has been changed in the functions of the Japanese model? Will there not be a spec published beforehand?

Haha. Someone from Pana might be pulling my leg. Seems like the new model is now called a GS400. Go figure. So no black mamba English manual for the kiddies---Oh, Darn! (I was looking forward to it.)

GS400 (partial) Specs

4 MEGA Pixel Still Picture Recording
MEGA O.I.S.
PRO Cinema Mode
High Picture-Quality Wide Mode
Multi Manual Ring
Air Soft Grip
12X Optical Zoom
USB 2.0 (HS Mode)
Built-in Flash
Motion Video/Still Picture (1 MEGA) Simultaneous Recording
MPEG 4 Internet Movie

wtf???
THE GS100 HASNT EVEN BEEN OUT FOR 6 MONTHS YET.. !!!!!!

theyre losing their minds with all this new gear...

grrrrrrrrr

That's a new PAL model, replacing the MX500. I'm waiting for more specs. Probably after Chrismas. I already got a pic. It's black. :-))

lets see it

GS 300 ... 400 whatever it takes. I just may have to sell my DV953 now!

If there is one thing I know about electronics.... it's that you'll never keep up with it. You buy something and as soon as you get it home or have it for a month or so, bingo something newer is on the horizon. It's impossible to keep up with it, but for some (like Tommy), it's fun!

You guys are funny :-) .

I will be posting a couple of GS400 tidbits at www.dvfreak.com/links.htm in a couple of days. I'm just working on some pages there now.

I recieved this interesting e-mail from a fellow member. He told me that he recieved it from, well, I think you know who. So I thought that I'd better post it straight away (slightly re-written, of course).A super birdie gave me a not so sweet and sour little song today. It was titled, "The New PAL Mamba She's Not To Be," and here is how it sort of went: you won't be getting the true mamba. Nope. Sorry. It's only for Japan you see. You will be getting a stripped down, GS70 look-at-me cheapie instead. She'll be called the GS120 PAL. There will also be an up'd featured GS70 called the GS200---wow---especially made for hop-along and the gang. To make matters even worse, Panny will strip out the GS100's high-end features to prevent you and your cheeks from even having the pro-looking black version, selling you only a GS400 (which will only look similar on the outside of the black mamba's beefed up pro-like features). Yes, many of you will be tricked into thinking it may be better because it is one year newer...and this GS400 will say "4 Mega Pixel" instead of lil' mamba's 3 Mega Pixel! The trickery comes from the fact that the NTSC is over 3 megs and is only rounded off to 3 in advertising---and in PAL, because more pixels are needed to make the same resolution, it will be rounded to 4 megs. In actuality there will be no difference, but the plain will never know and neither will the sales force, for that matter. This will all take place in months and months from now, as the official announcement for all this is months and months from now. Now one might understand why there are now over 300 PAL users that have the original NTSC MX cams and use their computer as an excellent, fast and clever way to workaround the PAL to NTSC conversions !For more super birdie songs, visit the supervideo.com pages in the New Year. (2004) :-))


----------------------------------------
I'll just keep my MX3, thank you.

Now one might understand why there are now over 300 PAL users that have the original NTSC MX cams and use their computer as an excellent, fast and clever way to workaround the PAL to NTSC conversions!And this is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. It is also extremely poor advice. PAL is for PAL-land; NTSC is for NTSC-land; GS100 = NTSC, so I suggest not to buy this cam if you're in PAL-land.

Frank Said

“PAL is for PAL-land; NTSC is for NTSC-land; GS100 = NTSC, so I suggest not to buy this cam if you're in PAL-land.

I agree with the principle but the playing field is not level so there are strong mitigating points against taking such a strong stand.

1. I think there should be only one cam standard based on the technical merits of the best TV system. If your TV is of an inferior ilk, you get a converter box. They are small and inexpensive. The messy proliferation of TV standards was created for political or nationalistic reasons. We had an ideal opportunity to unify the TV systems during the transfer to digital standard, but we missed it

2. There is some choice in Europe of TV’s, VCR’s CD players etc. accepting PAL, NTSC and SECAM. So if you have got such a system, why not to have a NTSC cam? Especially if it is of superior quality at much lower price.

3. We live in a small global village. I am glad not to travel with a variety shavers to cope with the voltage and frequency variations. because the little “box” in the shaver can cope with them all.

4. Manufacturers take advantage of the various standards by unjustified price extortions. Is it not a fact that Pana keeps all the juicy tidbits for home consumption and sends us depleted carcasses at inflated prices.

There are a number of other relevant reasons for a PAL person to invest in GS100k, but let me come to questions more relevant to this forum.

I am considering getting a Black Mamba and I would like to know, particularly from the PAL people using non PAL cams:

A. The cam has English labeled controls but how difficult it is to cope with using the translated menus?
B. Is the MX500/953 manual helpful for someone not familiar with Pana cams.
C. Will the television NTSC/PAL converter box feed the computer with the correct signal for editing and subsequently burning onto a DVD?
D. Is the down load at the playing speed?
E. Are there any other technical, or otherwise, problems needing consideration?

All help will be much appreciated

A. The cam has English labeled controls but how difficult it is to cope with using the translated menus?

English labeled controls? Surely you're not referring to the overpriced SuperVideo kit with English stickers over the Japanese inscriptions.

The menus are easy to navigate once you have the translated menus, external buttons, and error messages available in the popular zip file (found here). I've only had the GS100 for a few days and I've had no trouble navigating the purley Japanese menus.

Manufacturers take advantage of the various standards by unjustified price extortions. Is it not a fact that Pana keeps all the juicy tidbits for home consumption and sends us depleted carcasses at inflated pricesRight on!

Clive, yes, this is what I wrote "PAL is for PAL-land; NTSC is for NTSC-land; GS100 = NTSC, so I suggest not to buy this cam if you're in PAL-land." Of course you'll be able to view NTSC footage with those multi-system players, but the NTSC footage converted to PAL will never look as good as PAL footage shot with this NTSC cam's sister PAL model (in PALsville)---unless you talking Brazil, where NTSC cams are used with their "unique" PAL broadcast system. The GS100's menu's shouldn't be that difficult especially with basic operations---yes, the MX5/DV953 manual should prove very useful.Will the television NTSC/PAL converter box feed the computer with the correct signal for editing and subsequently burning onto a DVD?The answer is, "no," unless you go for the high end (big, big bucks). For questions "D" and "E," speeds are different; some editing software will only recognize either PAL or NTSC.There are a number of other relevant reasons for a PAL person to invest in GS100k....Let's hear them.

There's a couple of good conversion articles found here:

http://videoexpert.home.att.net/index.htm

A. The cam has English labeled controls but how difficult it is to cope with using the translated menus?

Yeah, the cams labels are originally Japanese - not hard to figure out once you get used with the place of the most frequent used ones.
Menus... hmmm - depends - if you get a small Kana learning book you can learn Katakana for just 2 days and be very convenient to read the menuse by yourself!

B. Is the MX500/953 manual helpful for someone not familiar with Pana cams.

Yes it's very helpful

C. Will the television NTSC/PAL converter box feed the computer with the correct signal for editing and subsequently burning onto a DVD?

The question is not clear.

If you are talking for linear dubbing from the cams S-video it has to be done in NTSC format. Your European Multisystem TV will cope without any problem to watch the footage straight in NTSC again.

For editing you will be using the FireWire connection and the AVI file generated will be in NTSC. However you can convert it to PAL for the final DVD project.

D. Is the down load at the playing speed?

Yes, there is no high speed capturing via FireWire for DV.
You can do such thing if you buy DVD-Ram camcorder which records in MPEG2 straight on a mini DVD-R.

E. Are there any other technical, or otherwise, problems needing consideration?

There might be slight degradation in the quality of the converted NTSC to PAL DVD final image. But this happens any way depending on the bitrate used for compression to MPEG2 even in the original shot format (NTSC or PAL).

GS-400. Sounds odd in view of the fact that there was never an MX-4000 - supposedly because of the Japanese avoidance of the use of the word for "four" (sounds the same as the word for "death" in Japanese, although when used for 100s and 1000s a different word is used). So where are you getting these rumors from again, Frank?

He's just kidding, you know. ;)

Tchhh. You shouldn't have said it. Another Fred Garhart episode brought to an untimely end.

>So where are you getting these rumors from again, Frank?<

Panasonic Tech for the first set of rumours, a "super site" 2nd hand e-mail for the 2nd. :-))

Anyone heard anything about the Panasonic models supposedly unveiled this morning at the 2004 CES?

camcorderinfo.com is posting updates but nothing yet except some lackluster Canon ZR stuff...

Just pulled this off the Panasonic website, no pictures, though.

Brian

http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/pressroom/cont2.asp?Filter=12&cont_id=582

Thanks for the link Brian.

2.5" LCD on the GS120 and GS200? That doesn't sound like a GS100 unless they plan on giving it the typical Matsushita down-sizing (see also 2.5" LCD PV-DV852).

I love the way they concentrate on digital stills and MPEG4 movies instead of things like frame mode, widescreen, or manual features.

Frank?

Perhaps someone will e-mail Panasonic,

consumerproducts@panasonic.com

to ask them about the North American GS100 (black mamba).

I curious if these 2 models were displayed at the show. No one reported seeing them. If the black mamba isn't coming to N.A., I'm going to be really p_ssed, and perhaps I'll be looking at Sony for my next cam purchase. I can't understand why Pana may stiill be up to their old tricks: what's deserving for the Japanese Market is only deserving for the Japanese Market, and the specialised junk goes abroad for Pana's "special" customers. Wha---? Do they think we are all rubberheads and yoyo's here?

If there's no GS100 I'm glad I went ahead and bought the DV852 in December instead of waiting on the new models--for one thing, they don't say if low light has been improved. Looks like the big deal this year is the Soft Skin detail function (the new Canons have it too), which I guess is good news for people who film a lot of people with zits...

The body certainly looks like that of the GS70 with added pro features. Price should be great though.

It is quite surprising why Pany US is not releasing the exact equivalent of the GS100 Black Mamba. Perhaps later.

Could it be that Pany is actually releasing the upgrade to the GS100 in the US ahead of Japan.

That kind of (smaller) size is certainly what the Japs would love to have.

I doubt it, considering Pana's track record.

I think that you should all forget the fuss. you in us have ntsc as the standard the same as japan so why not just import the camera (at a lower price mind you) and learn the controls. the forums have many times told you how easy it is to navigate the camera. there are only limited things on the outside which wont take long to use and being a mx-500(953) owner there isn't much in the menus anyways that you would use. a lot of the things in the menus have pictures anyway and i'm sure someone out there will provide translations. to me there are a few pro features (all found in the same section) that you might want to use and apart from that can't be too hard. and to answer peoples question about can you use ntsc cameras in pal land. well it depends. if you want inferior quality well then sure. i use premiere and when i have converted footage to ntsc which remember is upsizing not downsizing like the other way, there was noticeable quality loss in the dv format. the way i see with it, even if you do compress it later(to mpeg2) you are best to start with good footage and you will get better results. believe me if i thought i could buy an ntsc camera and get just as good footage i would, i could buy most cameras for one third the pal retail prices if i bought the ntsc equivelant. anyway i hope this was a help.

Justin

there was no mention of OIS though and with only 2 meg still pics it would indicate that the ccds are smaller resolution and hardly an upgrade. i find it hardly likely that it would be an upgrade and reach the us first. clearly most products like this take a while to get out of japan.

clearly most products like this take a while to get out of japan.It's not that. Pana just doesn't what North Americans to have their flagship cam. We never got the MX3000, nor the NTSC version of the MX350 for that matter. (We did get a stripped down AG-EZ1 once, at thrice the price.) Look it, Pana could have released the GS100 simultaneously last June/July (Japan and North America). Afterall, we both use NTSC.

its seems silly though doesn't it. the thing is the us is one hell of a market to release into and it could make their company one hell of a lot more competitive and would drop the prices for all of us.
there might be possible tax complications though. i know that us trys to limite imports by putting duties on them bumping the price up i don't know but this still shouldnt be as high as it is. it would be interesting if anyone new anything about this
Justin

there might be possible tax complications thoughI don't believe that either. Japan, the USA and Canada's economies are strongly inter-twined when it comes to electronics (whereas the European electronics are hard to come by in North America. I'm only aware of this because I have family ties abroad---so N.A. has better ties with Japan---and I think consumer taxes are much higher in Japan than in the USA---which might make the consumer prices similar---we in Canada can import electronics from Japan with no additional taxes, other than the usual consumer taxes we pay here, GST & PST).

heh guys come to australia. add another six months or more onto the waiting line. although i do believe we got the mx300 and 350. don't know wasnt' following cameras then.

heh anyways whats the big deal take a look here. the advantage of this camera over the 953 is supposed to be low light and slightly better 16:9. just take a look at the low light. it still isn't all that. probably just better filters and less noise.


Justin
u r l = http://www4.big.or.jp/~a_haru/

The manual controls on the GS200 sound like they are more difficult to use now (but still better than GS70 or new GS120), and I wonder if the low light/Magic Pix that the camcorderinfo.com review mentions is only as good as the DV953. No mention of OIS/DIS. But at $999 list price, the GS200 should end being cheaper than the DV953. I guess we'll have to wait at least until March-April to see any tests...

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/panasonic-3-ccd-pv-gs120-pv-gs200-announcement-01_07_04.htm

Singapore is generally quite up in the forefront when it comes to technological releases, Malaysia is probably 1 month slower than Singapore. Can't help you N.A. guys, though, it's PAL-land here.

Na..., I'm holding out for a North American Black Mamba---if she no come, I'll have to jump ship (Sony). :-))

I was just glancing at the pics of the GS120 and GS200 (thanks for the link). They both look like snazzed up GS70s and that could ultimately mean a lack of OIS and even a quality widescreen mode.

So much for my English GS100 manual. :(

Frank, which Sony?

The new one, with OIS, widescreen and good low light. It should come one day. :-))

Yeah, its not often low light and high quality widescreen go in the same sentence (at least not in my price range).

The only way I see that combo possible is for the cam to have VX2100/PD170 specs but with native 16:9 chips (not megapixel 16:9 extractions).

In other words, I'm setting my sights toward the horizon. :-))

Yeah, I just read the report on camcorderinfo.com

My conclusion - Pana really show they don't care for the real stuff. Again bow to the ignorent average consumer. Phuu..

Very happy I bought GS100 as I'm sure the replacement will be worse.

Frank,
That horizon you are looking for sounds like it is probably going to be on Mars given everything I have read in this thread.

So CES announcements are good news for those that shoot Uncle Louie's birthday once a year and Cousin Matilda's graduation (also a one timer experience). Whoop-de-do! Guess the marketing survey results favor video cams the size of Lucky Charms for limited family use. Sounds like the manufacturer's slogan in 2004 is, "Spare change camcorders for the masses."

The good news is that there are still a couple of pretty good 3-chippers out there that may be the workhorses for the next few years.

Oh yea, one more thing. Since there can only be one "Black Mamba", do you think the Panny DVC80 should be called the "Black Adder" (with all due respect to Rowan Adkins)?

Nick