I am reading on other fora about the fan noise of the TM700. Anybody on this forum having issues with it.
For me this could be a reason not to purchase it, since I film wildlife.
I like to use a stereo mic on the camcorder. Would that eliminate the noise?

Hey Rob -

Wondering the same myself. Check out this post, if you haven't already:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/panasonic-avccam-camcorders/476104-first-impressions-hdc-tm700.html

Wondering the same. I'm very interested in this camera and am concerned about fan noise getting picked up in the audio track. Can anybody that has used this camera comment on this. The information would be appreciated.

It seams like the AVS forum is the most information that your going to get on an English speaking site.

This guy used an external mic for this video:
vimeo.com/11021284
It's best to download that video right away because the original souse will disappear tomorrow.

Thanks Paulo,

I took a look at the clip. I was pretty sure any external mic would circumvent any noise local to the camera, including hand motion, button clicks, sniffling, etc. This would be especially true for a good directional mic. But for casual home and vacation use a 5.1 surround mic would be a fun novelty. Putting ones self back into a special event or whatever with surround sound just seems as exciting as when I first recorded sound at all.

However, I did like what I saw in the clip. Very sharp, clear, good color and stabilization. Pretty sure I'll be getting one of these camera's in the near future.

I don’t know about the differences between the TM 300 and TM 700, but I can’t hear any fan noise on my TM 300, even using the built in mic with very quite sounds.

I normally use a camera mounted directional Audio Technica mic with windjammer on one audio channel and a Sony wireless lav on the other audio channel and I’ve never heard any fan noise from the camera mounted mic.

I've had the TM700 for a day and returned it for the cold image.
The fannoise is not perceptible with an external mic and hardly audible with the internal.

I've had the TM700 for a day and returned it for the cold image.

Hmmm... What do you mean by "cold image", as I bought the HS700 ( hard-drive version ) and the image color is completely controllable by the end user, so you can choose how warm or cold you like the image to be.

I never use the auto settings ( I can get much better results by manually setting everything myself ), but the few times I have tried the auto mode on my HS700 I found the color to be much too warm. ( very "orangy" to my eye )

I also own a Canon HG21 camera, which has nice color but much less saturated compared to the Panasonic. I like the Panasonic look of saturated color.

There is a blueish shine over most of the footage, especially over greens. I dislike it.