As some of you know I've just bought this cam as a B/C cam for my Sony EX3 and Canon 7D. There are a few bits of information about this new model dotted around in different forum areas (and all over the web) so I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread here where all things Panasonic TM900 (and HS900 etc.) got posted in the hope that it will become a valuable "go to" resource for those interested in this series of cams, especially as deliveries commenced in the last few days.

Please note I only unpacked the camera and charged it this morning (it arrived yesterday whilst I was drooling over Canon XF100s at BVE in London and I did not get back home until 2.00AM!) but I'll start the ball rolling with a few first impressions. Please, anyone, feel free to add any relevant and useful information.

My first observations (in no particular order of merit - and subject to revision when I've had more hands on time!)

1. The new 3.5 inch touch screen LCD is lovely - it's double the resolution of the one on the TM700 but, whilst not the pixel density of Canon and Sony's top end camcorders, it seems more than adequate/very easy to focus with (peaking, zebras etc. available).
2. The camcorder is very small and light but is incredibly easy to hold in a comfortable and stable way - surprising really.
3. The menus seem a little confusing at first but it did not take me long to find a few things I'm interested in - I will read the manual over the weekend for sure!
4. Image stabilisation works really well, as does autofocus - both seemed amazing (the autofocus easily putting the AF on my EX3 to shame - I only do MF on that cam anyway).
5. Slow, almost creep zooming seems remarkably easy - again I was surprised at just how good it is (although the zoom button's position on the top is a little awkward for me to reach - something I'll work out soon enough I'm sure).
6. I actually like the (new for this series) power input jacks revised location (not behind the battery). The jack is under a new little flap on the handle side (near the viewfinder/under the mode switch). However, the battery can only be charged "on camera" and I know at times I'll wish that I could charge spare batteries without tying up the camera (as was possible on the TM700, I understand as the battery was charged on the "power brick" bit).
7. The mode switch is a bit fiddly to set - maybe the different design on the older TM700s was better, I don't know.
8. Note that the TM900 uses completely different batteries to those on the TM700 - this caught me out as I have a large new one for a TM700 sitting on my desk - unopened - as I only found this out after it was in the post to me (it's about to be returned to an amazon marketplace seller).
9. The shoe attachment (e.g. for microphone...it would need to be a small one, maybe a Rode Videomic Pro) seems to be OK. I was a bit concerned this was a bad design. It will be if I ever lose the adapter but I think it works OK.
10. No fan noise (as they changed the ventilating fan design in this model compared to the TM700). However, to be fair I've hardly had it on long enough to get hot yet!
11. The lens ring works well, pretty smooth.
12. Got the thing into 1080p50 mode easily enough but I've not had a chance to see how Vegas 9E handles those clips on my i7 Windows box or FCP on my Mac Pro yet.
13. The photo mode (with flash when needed) actually works remarkably well - again another surprise to me.

I have not really got much time at the moment (busy with work I should be doing rather than typing this....). I will add more info when I can.

Official product info on the Panasonic link below:

http://panasonic.net/avc/camcorder/hd/900_800_series/

Anyone, please add information/ask questions and we'll go from there!

1080p50 here I come!

Congratulations on the new TM900 Andy. I'll look forward to your reports.

Thanks Dan. Watching some of your work with the 700 helped me jump into this little AVCHD 1080p50/60 adventure!

I'm tired but but couldn't resist a few more minutes playing around with the TM900 before bed/an early start tomorrow...

I've just discovered a lovely touch with the blue Peaking (i.e. Focus Assist) mode when your are in Manual Focus (I prefer blue but other colours are available as an option). As you adjust the lens ring you get a blue "edge box" around the LCD as well as the peaking - on everything that is sharp that is. Then, a second or so after you've finished making the focus correction all the blue stuff goes away so you can see the full image more clearly once again - and of course this time it should be sharp exactly where you want it!

I really like this as I use peaking almost all the time on my EX3 - but in that case it's typically on constantly (until you dial it down or turn it off). Nice one Panny!

I'm also increasingly impressed with the image stabilisation. I really did not think it could get this good with such a small light cam - it's like the cam is already on my Merlin Steadicam - when all it is in the palm of my hand...

Hi Andy, good you started this thread I think...

These are the manual mode settings I have decided on after a few days shooting/testing with this new camera, nothing set in stone at this early stage of course, will be very interested to see what others are using.

Record setup > Picture adjust
----------------------------------------

Sharpness (edge enhancement) -2
colour saturation -3
WB adjust 0
Manual white balance
Scene mode off
Intelligent contrast off
Histogram = always on
Zebras = always on
Manual focus assist (peaking) on

Setup
---------
LCD set : colour -6 and bri -2
LCD Power ; 0 (zero)

Pleased to find the manual WB setting is remembered through a power off/on and also after switching through AWB, Sunny, Cloudy, etc.

Could not find any way to change focus peaking from blue, would have liked yellow and red options but no big deal really.

Didn't take to Scene mode, evens out dark ground/ bright sky but with a flat look with no means to adjust it's strength, can do better by exposing highlights carefully, letting dark areas go a little and use a YUV filter in post (Edius) to restore the dark areas, this worked better than expected, virtually no shadow noise, impressed, this 28Mb/sec AVCHD codec is doing very nicely so far.

The LCD screen is indeed very nice but it's of the box the screen's settings are too hot, I was able to make it perfect with LCD set and LCD power adjustments but annoyingly the camera restarts with the LCD power set back to the default +1.

Why is the default +1? Zero is perfect! With +1 the LCD scene is too bright compared to as seen on an HDTV via HDMI out while recording or playing back or how it looks afterwards in post. So If one is relying entirely on the LCD and not using zebras/histogram one might be fooled into underexposing.
Fortunately I found zebras to very accurate so just trust in them.

I haven't used modes other than 1080/50P because that's the main reason I bought it, I can see there is no going back from 50P, love the camera already!

Later: Re-reading the manual I now see the LCD Power can be set from the shortcut menu and is obviously meant to be adjusted to cope with varying outdoor conditions, so no way one would rely on this for exposure.
...of course!

Thanks for the great info Claire! You are of course correct - Peaking is in blue and is the only colour option.

(I was tired when I wrote that - probably got my memory mixed up with the XF100s I was playing with it at BVE the day before - those have other colour options). It's been a very busy week!

Andy,

How does the color-balance compare between the TM700 and TM900 ?

This is one of the features of the HS700 that I find to be a bit finicky, so I'm wondering if Panasonic has improved this feature.

I too would be interested in the colour balance of the TM900. My TM700 gives 'unusual' colours at times, particularly when there is a large amount of sky involved.

Hi Andy and thanks Claire

Andy, I have been following your “B” or “C” camera deliberations with interest and look forward to further revelations about the TM900. Thanks largely to Dan’s fine work with the TM700 I am interested in the TM900 to use where it is impractical to use my EX3.

However I have a few questions that I cannot find answers to and as there are no supplies locally I am somewhat in the dark: -

• Is there provision for remote control? Pictures of the TM700 show an Infrared sensor below the lens but there is nothing labeled on the TM900 brochure.

• Is it battery operation only or can it be used with a mains unit?

• Are there built - neutral density filters?

Many thanks
Alastair

Hi Quick reply as I've a ton of work on.

Regarding the "Bondi Beach" effect that some complained about with the TM700. I don't have a TM700 so I can't directly compare the cameras, at all, colour wise but apparently the TM700 would sometimes give a slight blue/green hue to things (that should not have been that hue of course) - even when WB was correctly set up.

Well so far I have'nt seen that....BUT....I will stress I've had very little time actually trying the cam (let alone any time to view footage on a HDTV/monitors) due to other things I need to do right now (I've some work in Scotland this week). I think Claire wrote (elsewhere on the web) that she has NOT seen any evidence of this problem but I may have remembered that wrong.

Now to the slightly easier questions to answer.

1. The camera comes with a little IR remote control unit (which I have not had time to try yet). There is no socket for, e.g. a LANC on the camera. The IR remote has all the typical controls on it (I'm assuming the Start/Stop button is for recording) - maybe if you look on the Panasonic site at the Instruction Book (pdf download) it'll tell you more. The IR sensor on the camera is at the front as is typical on small camcorders I think - not always where you'd want it to be, but there you go! You might need to rig up a simple foil reflector in front of the sensor for operation from the back.

Link to Panasonic manual download page below:

Camcorders - HD Camcorders - HDC-TM900 - Manuals - Panasonic UK & Ireland (http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/W-2/6827390/index.html;jsessionid=0a6d28e930d83a261eea4e194d928758d6f483af496c.e38Pa3mLbx4Oci0Qc3uRc3qKaO1ynknvr kLOlQzNp65In0?trackInfo=true)

2. You can use the TM900 directly plugged into the mains - i.e. for hours and hours of locked down coverage. You don't even have to remove the battery to do this - but the TM900 has to be OFF to charge the battery (again as is typical with on camera charging designs I think, certainly that's what my trust old Sony HC1 requires as well).

3. No ND filters. I'm trying to source a 46mm B+W multicoated ND filter (at a reasonable price - tricky to find in the UK) as well as a B+W Polarizer to allow for more options etc. in manual mode, especially when shooting in bright sunny conditions (more of an issue in Oz than in England during February I think!)

I'm still blown away by just how good the image stabilisation is on this camera. Honestly, it's truly brilliant!

That's it for now (from me anyway!).

Hope this helps, at least a bit. If anyone with more time on their hands knows the answers please update the thread with some more info!

Thanks Andy,

As a matter of interest foil reflector for the EX3 now slides into the front accessory shoe.



http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=21577&stc=1&d=1298289978

Andy, I had to go to B&H to get B+W MRC filters, I've always found them to be the best filters around at a price I can afford - 30-40 quid per filter in the UK. I tried the Tiffen equivalent (around £10) and they weren't as good - there's a lot less reflections and flares on the B+W.

Like you, I just haven't found anywhere in the UK where they're in stock. And the postage and duties for a B&H order is never fun. $120 of filters worked out at $240 in the end. <insert sad face>

Just a quick update - I really should be doing other stuff but curiosity got the better of me (again). Plugged the TM900 into my i7 Windows box and played a few test clips with VLC player - all clips shot at 1080p50 as, like Claire, that's all I'm interested in using this cam for (I have dozens of hard drives and lots of RAIDs and SDHC memory is pretty cheap so why not!)

Looks lovely - really sharp and no unusual colours from these mostly cloudy outdoor, some indoor shots (test shots of my kids etc.). With the internal mic set in Stereo it seems remarkably directional too.

To be honest, at a very casual glance, I'd be hard pressed to tell it wasn't footage coming out of my EX3 that I was looking at on my 1920x1080p 24 inch Dell monitors. Low light seems remarkably good too (albeit some noise is starting to creep in when it gets REALLY dim). Impressive.

Very, VERY, slight micro-jitters on SOME hand held footage - not always - and no where near as bad as on a Canon 7D with a long lens but without IS turned on. These are really not noticeable at all, except to pixel peepers. I'm being really picky now so don't let it put you off as, like I said, I only see it now and again and compared to hand held footage on other cams I own/use it's streets ahead. Not sure what settings I had the stabilisation mode for those clips anyway (as I played around with it a bit to try and see the effect - maybe stabilisation was completely off on those clips anyway!) Need to do some more testing...when I get time!

UPDATE: Just tooks some clips from the 2TB RAID 0 in my 2010 Dell Windows 7 64 Bit i7 box and put them into a Vegas 9E timeline - no problems playing from the timeline etc. Seems to work just fine! :-)

Yeah Mike, know what you mean. I've ordered great, very well priced stuff from B&H before but by the time UKs VAT and Royal Mail Import charges are paid..... :-(

But sometimes it's the only way to get a product and B+W multicoated filters are well worth the hassle. I have some Hoya and Tiffen filters - let's just say you definitely get what you pay for!

By the way, I found this lovely little film on Vimeo yesterday. This guy shows some of the potential of these small little Panasonics well (in this case he's using a SD700). Purists will argue that the 4 blade iris rears an ugly head in one of the sea shots (diamond reflections) but I still think it's a great little film regardless.

Maybe we should request a section for Panasonic Sample Clips in this forum section as I did not know where to put this. What do you guys and gals think?

New England Bay, Mull of Galloway, Scotland on Vimeo

Hi

Just a quick update - I really should be doing other stuff but curiosity got the better of me (again). Plugged the TM900 into my i7 Windows box and played a few test clips with VLC player - all clips shot at 1080p50 as, like Claire, that's all I'm interested in using this cam for (I have dozens of hard drives and lots of RAIDs and SDHC memory is pretty cheap so why not!)

Looks lovely - really sharp and no unusual colours from these mostly cloudy outdoor, some indoor shots (test shots of my kids etc.). With the internal mic set in Stereo it seems remarkably directional too.

To be honest, at a very casual glance, I'd be hard pressed to tell it wasn't footage coming out of my EX3 that I was looking at on my 1920x1080p 24 inch Dell monitors. Low light seems remarkably good too (albeit some noise is starting to creep in when it gets REALLY dim). Impressive.

Very, VERY, slight micro-jitters on SOME hand held footage - not always - and no where near as bad as on a Canon 7D with a long lens but without IS turned on. These are really not noticeable at all, except to pixel peepers. I'm being really picky now so don't let it put you off as, like I said, I only see it now and again and compared to hand held footage on other cams I own/use it's streets ahead. Not sure what settings I had the stabilisation mode for those clips anyway (as I played around with it a bit to try and see the effect - maybe stabilisation was completely off on those clips anyway!) Need to do some more testing...when I get time!

UPDATE: Just tooks some clips from the 2TB RAID 0 in my 2010 Dell Windows 7 64 Bit i7 box and put them into a Vegas 9E timeline - no problems playing from the timeline etc. Seems to work just fine! :-)

Yeah Mike, know what you mean. I've ordered great, very well priced stuff from B&H before but by the time UKs VAT and Royal Mail Import charges are paid..... :-(

But sometimes it's the only way to get a product and B+W multicoated filters are well worth the hassle. I have some Hoya and Tiffen filters - let's just say you definitely get what you pay for!

In the setup menu is a Demo mode for OIS, allowing you to easily turn it on an off from the touch screen with some charts showing how the movement is dampened. It amazes me too how well this works, on maximum zoom the picture is remarkably still and steady with OIS Hybrid turned on, and when turned off it is all over the place, I didn't realise I shake so much!

I have no problems editing in Sony MovieStudio although there isn't an easy way to get the 50p footage back out except for Sony uncompressed and using something else to encode to more manageable file sizes.

Always shooting in 50p here as well, the progressive frames (much easier for the encoder to compress) and higher bit-rates produce superb pictures. Even going down to 50i for Blu-ray produces better results than having recorded in 50i originally. Plus recording 50p gives the options of exporting out as 720/50p, 1080/25p, and SD at 576/25p as required.

To export out at 25p you need to set Sony Vegas to undersample the clips at 0.5, otherwise Sony Vegas merges 2 frames to make 1 which loses the resolution, by setting undersample to 0.5 it skips everyother frame and 25p looks stunning, accepting the limitations of the slower frame rate.

Regards

Phil

Andy, the "Bondi Blue" we talk about appears in the sky of the third shot in the clip you posted. Hopefully the TM900 doesn't do this.....
dave

Thanks Dave. I read on another web forum that a number of TM 900 users have indicated that it does NOT suffer from the "bondi blue" effect that the TM700 had - but have not had the time (or weather!) to be able to confirm that personally.

Also, a question that TM700 (etc.) owners might be able to answer easily - since the lens and much else is the same on the TM900 (etc.). If I buy filters (ND, polarizer etc.) will these cameras vignette on full wide?

I have no problems editing in Sony MovieStudio although there isn't an easy way to get the 50p footage back out except for Sony uncompressed and using something else to encode to more manageable file sizes.

Always shooting in 50p here as well, the progressive frames (much easier for the encoder to compress) and higher bit-rates produce superb pictures. Even going down to 50i for Blu-ray produces better results than having recorded in 50i originally. Plus recording 50p gives the options of exporting out as 720/50p, 1080/25p, and SD at 576/25p as required.

To export out at 25p you need to set Sony Vegas to undersample the clips at 0.5, otherwise Sony Vegas merges 2 frames to make 1 which loses the resolution, by setting undersample to 0.5 it skips everyother frame and 25p looks stunning, accepting the limitations of the slower frame rate.

Regards

Phil

Hi Phil,

Just a thought, have you explored the mpeg2 output options available to you in Sony Vegas? In the trial version of Edius 6 I am currently testing (and thinking about upgrading to from Edius 5), it's exporter options allow me to make MPEG2 settings to cope with the TM900's 50P format. I set frame rate to 50fps progressive, video profile to MP@HL, Video Bitrate 50.0 Mbps and Audio Bitrate 385.0 bps (2 channel).

Okay, I cannot put this on Blue-ray since it's not in the specs but hopefully it will be included some day soon but until then I can enjoy them streaming to my plasma tv in the lounge via my PS3 which handles the 50P nicely and the files are not too large to store until that time. Perhaps other devices can play 50P HD MPEG files, not sure but I know lots of folk have a PS3.

I would check out what Vegas allows you to do in it's MPEG2 settings as this would avoid the need for you to export uncompressed, they must be huge files I think.

.................Also, a question that TM700 (etc.) owners might be able to answer easily - since the lens and much else is the same on the TM900 (etc.). If I buy filters (ND, polarizer etc.) will these cameras vignette on full wide?

I have not noticed any vignetting from the use of a single filter at max. wide, but I haven't been using the "lens hood" ring at the same time on the assumption that it might well cause problems. ( I have not used or done tests on this at extremes of focus and in macro modes.) Highly respected people on other forums question the value of ever using an ND on these cameras......

dave

Thanks Dave. I read on another web forum that a number of TM 900 users have indicated that it does NOT suffer from the "bondi blue" effect that the TM700 had - but have not had the time (or weather!) to be able to confirm that personally.

Also, a question that TM700 (etc.) owners might be able to answer easily - since the lens and much else is the same on the TM900 (etc.). If I buy filters (ND, polarizer etc.) will these cameras vignette on full wide?

Andy,

I've used polarizers and ND filters full wide with no vignetting on the TM700. However, if you stack the lens hood on the filter it will.

Lately, I've been using no filters in the Arizona sun with no ill effects.

Thanks all. Interesting - I'll stall on buying any filters for a while, especially until I get used to the cam, and then decide what to do.

Last night I read some interesting discussions (also involving Claire I think) on dvdoctor forum about the fact that the TM900 (and indeed most if not all small modern cams) actually have a small "crude" ND filter which is automatically placed in the light path as needed, i.e. in order to prevent the diffraction softening that would otherwise occur as the iris narrows. You learn something new every day!

One other thing. The battery (the supplied small one) seems to be lasting for absolutely ages from when I first fully charged it - which I always do before turning any new kit on with battery power. Not been using the cam continuously so don't know exactly how long it's lasted - but worth a mention I thought.

I'm off to Scotland soon and will also take the TM900. Hope to have some fun with it/spend time to get to know it better as and when time allows around what I'm working on up there.

Keep the great info coming in the meantime!

Hi

Hi Phil,

Just a thought, have you explored the mpeg2 output options available to you in Sony Vegas? In the trial version of Edius 6 I am currently testing (and thinking about upgrading to from Edius 5), it's exporter options allow me to make MPEG2 settings to cope with the TM900's 50P format. I set frame rate to 50fps progressive, video profile to MP@HL, Video Bitrate 50.0 Mbps and Audio Bitrate 385.0 bps (2 channel).

Okay, I cannot put this on Blue-ray since it's not in the specs but hopefully it will be included some day soon but until then I can enjoy them streaming to my plasma tv in the lounge via my PS3 which handles the 50P nicely and the files are not too large to store until that time. Perhaps other devices can play 50P HD MPEG files, not sure but I know lots of folk have a PS3.

I would check out what Vegas allows you to do in it's MPEG2 settings as this would avoid the need for you to export uncompressed, they must be huge files I think.

On Sony MovieStudio any attempt to output at 50 pusing the Mainconcept MPEG-2 settings fails with an undetermined error.

The only way I've found of outputting 50p at 1920x1080 is to use the Sony YUV uncompressed codec then use something else to encode it. Yes they are big files but I have a 1TB drive, and it's only a temporary intermediate.

I'm not sure if this is a limitation of Sony MoveStudio that is lifted with Sony Vegas.

Regards

Phil

Just a few questions....

- Image Stabilization - This can this be turned "off" correct?

- Batteries - Are you able to find additional batteries readily and easily? (Not the Chinese knock-offs; the Panny ones)

- Lens / Camera Jiggle - There was talk about this in another forum that when some users lock down their cams on a tripod and pointed straight down or up, that the image would "jiggle". Note, that this was with the TM700 series, not the TM900. Any of you TM900 owners notice this?

- What are you using to edit the 1080/60p footage?

- Finished Project - When you are finished editing, are you able to save and output the 1080/60p footage to a HDD or Flash Drive and then connect those to a either a HDTV, BR player or Media Player to view on a HDTV?

Just a few questions....

- Image Stabilization - This can this be turned "off" correct?

Yes


- Batteries - Are you able to find additional batteries readily and easily? (Not the Chinese knock-offs; the Panny ones)

Not looked yet


- Lens / Camera Jiggle - There was talk about this in another forum that when some users lock down their cams on a tripod and pointed straight down or up, that the image would "jiggle". Note, that this was with the TM700 series, not the TM900. Any of you TM900 owners notice this?

Not seen on TM900


- What are you using to edit the 1080/60p footage?

Edius 6


- Finished Project - When you are finished editing, are you able to save and output the 1080/60p footage to a HDD or Flash Drive and then connect those to a either a HDTV, BR player or Media Player to view on a HDTV?

Yes

Thanks for your replies Claire.

How is Edius 6 in editing the 1080/60p footage? Do you have to transcode first?

I was thinking about getting either Edius 6, CS5 PPro or Vegas Pro 10. Have you worked with any of the other NLE's?

How is Edius 6 in editing the 1080/60p footage? Do you have to transcode first?

I was thinking about getting either Edius 6, CS5 PPro or Vegas Pro 10. Have you worked with any of the other NLE's?

Hi Andrew,

I find Edius 6 can edit 50P footage from my TM900 just fine on my i7 920 2.67GHz computer, no need to convert first. I do have a fair bit of experience in using other NLE's but not recently, so cannot comment on them other than from what I hear Edius currently has the edge working with 1080/50P AVCHD.

The reason I say this is because with Edius you get to edit and preview in full screen with full quality, not a reduced quality in a smaller window which is what some NLE's have to do if you want to play through highly compressed media without frame drop, also with Edius you don't need a CUDA graphics card to get this high level of performance.

Having said that, I do find the TM900's 50P footage does make Edius work harder than usual but it can still be edited fluidly, none of that "dragging a spoon through treacle" while scrubbing the timeline and it plays in real time without frame drop or rendering. This seems to hold until I add more than two layers of TM900 footage with titles, eg picture in picture, then Edius falters and needs that section to be rendered taking 3 or 4 seconds before moving on, everything else works in real time.

I think this is pretty good considering it's a full HD AVCHD 1080/50P project setting, not easy peasy 50i or 25P.

Like some other NLE's Edius 6 can also use the second computer monitor for full screen preview but with Edius 6 this preview remains full quality which is nice, but for proper YUV output to go to an HDTV where one can see exactly how the final video will look for the end user, one of Grass Valley's hardware cards is a great option. I have the older 'NX' card (now end of line), replaced by the newer 'Spark'card but sadly, after getting the TM900 I found out none of the affordable GV cards can output1080/50P, only the 'STORM 3G Elite' card will do this at a cost here in the UK of over £2000! ...so in 1080/50P projects mode I just use the computer screen for preview.

As I posted earlier, Edius 6 can output the 1080/50P project in MPEG2 (you just select 50P in the settings) which is great as lots of players accept MPEG and it's small enough to be easily archived however you will need to check the player does accept and play 50P MPEG2, for instance the PS3 does without frame drop provided all PS3 video enhancements are turned off.

One last thing to bear in mind is that having got this far, not all HDTV's accept 1080/50P. For instance my 2 year old Panasonic 42" plasma does while my 4 year old Panasonic LCD HDTV does not so look in the instruction book, hopefully it will list the input signals that can be displayed. It doesn't necessarily mean 1080/50P won't play at all but the TV will de-interlace it, loosing half the vertical resolution.. also if the HDTV only has a 720 panel and not Full HD then you might see artifacts and line twitter on such as brickwork since the TM900 produces very finely detailed video in 50P..

In my experience you need to maintain a 1080/P workflow from start to finish to see the final edited result properly and for me this costs more than the camera, all this is not cheap! I'm hoping the new format becomes common place soon, gets added to the Blue-ray spec and becomes more easy peasy.

Now if Panny would make the HMC150 do 1080/60p....that would be a sweet companion to this TM900.

Hi

There are some bondi-blue accusations being made towards to the 900 series now which I found on YouTube, mainly around a clip posted by Simply DV here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap7EQ2KEpyM, watch the clip at around 24 seconds, the sky has a green/blue look.

If you screen grab and sample the colours to remove monitors and eyes from the equation, it's easy to see the problem relates to over-exposure of the sky. Both the Blue and the Green channels are clipped at 255, but with there being little red in the sky, that hasn't been clipped, so you are getting recorded values of Green and Blue at 255, and Red at around 180 to 200. Mix those together and what do you get, a light "bondi-blue". What the camcorder is seeing is more like Blue at 500, Green at 300, and Red at 200, but of course can't record those values, so has to clip Blue and Green at 255.

This is probably testament to the 3 chips, as I would strongly expect a single 1 chip with its greater colour interpolation would have blown red out as well, giving white sky, which no one would complain about.

Answers to this clip would have been to over-expose a bit more, to blow red out and making the sky white, or to use a graduated ND filter to darken the sky to stop blue and green becoming clipped at 255 and so give an accurate colour. Further in there is a clip with more sky where the exposure system hasn't clipped the sky and that shows a good sky colour.

So while I agree the sky in places in that clip is a bit green/blue, I can see why it is, and can't see how the camera could do any better given those circumstances. Perhaps intelligent contrast (we don't know if that was enabled or not) might have helped. This also might explain a post I saw where it was reported sky became blue on the TM700 when using the extended colour space (x.v. colour) direct from the camera to a compatible HDMI TV, but looked bondi blue when viewed on a computer in 0-255 colour space.

There certainly is an issue with the older series where blues tend to shift after a white balance, but I'm beginning to wonder if a lot of bondi-blue issues which almost always relate to bright sky, isn't simply the sky being over-exposed too much (or not enough to give white). Factor in people pointing the camera at an all blue sky which when auto white balance is in use and would cause a shift of hue due to the frame being all one colour, it's almost a case of the bondi-blue issue being made more of an issue simply because people are causing it by looking for it.

I would have thought this issue is apparent on other cameras (especially 3 chips) as well?

Regards

Phil

Now if Panny would make the HMC150 do 1080/60p....that would be a sweet companion to this TM900.

Who knows, maybe NAB will see further adoption of 1080p50/60 across the Panasonic line-up, hopefully!

Just got back from Scotland. Used the TM900 a lot. Still loving it!

Yes 1080/60p is definitely the way to go and hopefully will be the "de-facto" standard for future film making. 24p is so .... 1900's!!

Also, I don't think the current line up of video enabled DSLR's will be able to handle this frame rate; they'd probably melt in about a minute of filming.

Here is the Slashcam assessment on the TM900 (German camcorder review site). I have mixed feelings about some of their tests (as I've mentioned before elsewhere on here) but judge for yourselves their technical review, resolution charts, low light tests etc.

Google Übersetzer (http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www%2Eslashcam%2Ede%2Fartikel%2FTest%2FPanasonic%2DHDC%2DTM900%2D%2Dbauaehnlich%2DHDC%2D SD909%2Dund%2DHDC%2DHS900%2D%2Ehtml&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&sl=de&tl=en)

Yes 1080/60p is definitely the way to go and hopefully will be the "de-facto" standard for future film making. 24p is so .... 1900's!!

Also, I don't think the current line up of video enabled DSLR's will be able to handle this frame rate; they'd probably melt in about a minute of filming.
For sure this will help end 60i. I do see a battle going on between 60p and 24p in the future.

Anyway, the new S35 sized NXCAM will do 1080 60p.

Hi again,

Been "playing around" this morning (nothing client critical) with some 1080p50 shot at 1/50th Sec shutter speed in full manual on the TM900 and then placed on a 1080p50 timeline in Vegas 9E on my Windows 7 64-Bit i7 box, slowed down 50% with a velocity envelope and then rendered to a 1080p25 QuickTime 7 clip.

My intention of importing this clip into my Mac Pro for incorporation into an (existing) FCP project with an XDCAM EX3 1080p25 timeline.

I'm getting quite a bit of motion blur (it's a static shot with the TM900 on a Jobi GorillaPod of a passing model train) and I'm seriously wondering if I should have set the TM900 to 1/100th second shutter speed when the intention is to slow it down like this - unless I've missed a setting in my project/render properties. Anyone got any suggestions gleaned from experience with the TM700/TM900 etc.?

Certainly, clips played back at normal speed done with this workflow (i.e. not slowed down) look really great!

PS, I'll try and get a test clip up on the web today so you can all see.

EDIT: Here you go - notes on the YouTube page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqTaPtIG5g4

Hi Phil - I see you've replied whilst I sorted out the sample clip just linked above - thanks for the info - will look into it more! Certainly these clips seem to show blended frames! There must be a way/something I'm missing!

Hi

By default Sony Vegas is blending the two frames to obtain 25fps progressive, what you really want is for it to just use every other frame to give you true 25fps.

To resolve this, right click the clip (or clips) on the Timeline, and under properties, set 'undersampling' to 0.5. This will give you true 25fps output with Sony Vegas generating that from every other frame.

I think this should also work if you also slowing down the footage at the same time.

Edit: not sure that does help having tried it. The undersampling trick only works when playing back at the normal rate and wishing to output 25fps, without undersampling you get 2 frames blended to give 25fps which gives some nasty blurring effects.

Edit: If I slow a clip down 50% and output as 25fps, perfect frames, the problem seems to be when outputting at 50p, as Sony Vegas seems to slow to 25fps then up to 50fps by creating extra frames, causing blurring.

The only way I can seem to stop Vegas from creating extra frames by interpolation of frames is to first export the 50% slowed clip as Sony YUV at 25fps, then bring that back to the timeline, make sure it's media properties are set for the clip to Progressive (it came is as interlaced in my test) then when you export at 50fps, it appears to just up to the 50fps rate by doubling frames.

Best Regards

Phil

OK, here is a link to my second Panasonic TM900 1080p50 slow motion/Vegas test. Identical 1080p50 28Mbps footage from the TM900 as in the first test clips posted above except all I've done here is use an undersampling rate (0.5) on each clip and then rendered it out into a 1080p25 QuickTime 7 file (only 3Mbps, i.e. identical to the first test) for quick YouTube uploading. For sure you can see the normal speed stuff is a lot clearer - try pausing it e.g. in the middle (A66 Cumbria) clip and you'll see the cars/lorries are much, much sharper or the end clip and there are no double letters on the overhead motorway signs. However, the slow motion stuff is very "steppy"/unusable now!

Just posting this second test so we can all learn together. I've yet to try Phil's latest suggestion as I have run out of time today (it smells like dinner is now ready!)

YouTube - Panasonic TM900 (1080p50 Slow Motion - 2nd Test) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDHc-NvpyEQ)

Hi

Undersampling works when the speed is normal and gives true 25fps by getting Vegas just using every other frame. I've tested this by adding a single frame with some text into the timeline, and if that frame is added as an odd frame number out of the 0-49, when undersampling that frame isn't in the 25fps output. If it is placed in the timeline as an even frame number, it does appear in the output. So Vegas undersamples by taking frame 0, frame 2, frame 4 and so on. Without undersampling, Vegas creates a frame by blending frame 0 and 1, then 2 and 3 and so on, which doesn't look so good.

Slow motion using this trick seems to end up with something equivalent to 12 or so frames per second though. It seems to be doing the speed change first getting 25fps by blending fields, then undersampling that.

Let us know if the trick I think works does indeed.

Regards

Phil

Yeah, the whole undersampling deal makes a huge difference! I'm glad that someone mentioned it in another thread, or I would have been wondering why my footage wasn't as crispy as it should be! Like you said, normal speed at .5 undersampling is clear, half speed with no undersampling (1.0) is clear. For anything between you have to do some math.
I also had some clips for a music video that were performed at 1.5x or 150% speed, and then stretched out to match the normal speed audio, and the undersampling for that gets set at .75. You basically have to figure out what undersampling rate will leave you with the desired number of frames, in your case 25, in mine 30.
So, the clip was recorded at 60 fps, then stretched to 150% of its length giving an effective frame rate of 40 fps, now figure out what portion of that you want left, .75 of 40 fps is 30. so put .75 as the undersampling rate.

It's a lovely sunny day here in England so I've just got back from an hours walk around town with my Panasonic TM900 to test out a few specific things and take a break from the corporate editing I'm doing.

Several things of note.

1. The "fast on" setting on the TM900 is superb - you just open the LCD and you're ready to shoot.
2. It's so nice to carry a light cam/no heavy rucksack over my shoulder!
3. I deliberately shot everything hand-held to see just how good the hybrid optical image stabilisation is.
4. I deliberately shot everything in intelligent Auto (yes I know...!!!) but I want to see where this falls down/how good it really is.
5. I also took a number of shots on full wide then zoomed in on max intelligent zoom (i.e. at 20x which uses 12X optical plus a larger area of the 3 chips, I believe). This setting does not use the totally digital zoom effect (which I'd never use anyway - it's just bound to degrade the image too much!). Again, just testing to see how good the hybrid image stabilsation is hand-held at 20X reach (my initial reaction is fantastic - I'm just about to view the footage on a big screen after typing this!)

I'm hoping to get this test video up on the web sometime in the next few days (if I can, got some filming in the Midlands this week so it just depends). Anyway, keep tuned!

Most notable thing was that not one person batted an eyelid or came up to ask me what I was filming/shooting. I was totally inconspicuous/just another "tourist" - perfect! (The complete opposite happens when I walk round the same area with the EX3 or the 7D with a long lens!)

I now have a TM900 that I intend to use where my EX3 is too inconvenient or too heavy to use, e.g. on a boom. I am pleased to find that the Infrared extender I use on my EX3 also works on the TM900. I am also pleased to find that the remote can be used to turn the camera on, as well as starting / stopping recording and zooming. This will permit conservation of battery power when nothing is happening.

My major worry at this stage is that I cannot display 1080 50 p clips on my iMac) (FCP 7) unless I convert them in camera to AVCHD first. This involves an extra step in addition to the transcoding that I will have to perform in “Log and Transfer” before editing.

So my question is, am I likely to lose any quality in converting 1080 50p clips to AVCHD using the in-camera conversion?

Following on from my post yesterday, here is the test video that I promised.

YouTube - Panasonic TM900 - Ely in March (Test Video) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh7dS8bsL-I)

See the notes on the YouTube page.

[Sorry Alistair, not got as far as trying the TM900 files on my Mac Pro yet so I'll let others comment on your question - the answer to which I'd also love to know].

Also, here is the original (very first) slow motion test now on Vimeo.

Panasonic TM900 (1080p50 Slow Motion Test) on Vimeo

Hi

A good showcase for the TM900 in the Youtube clip, lots of blue sky as well and can't see any sign of bondi-blue! I might post a link back to that from the forum that bondi-blue gets the most coverage on.

It's a shame YouTube drops the quality somewhat.

The slow motion tests prove how versatile 50p is. It was almost impossible to tell what was slow motion and what wasn't. The train clip didn't look slow motion at all, just passed slower in comparison to the original speed, otherwise the quality look identical.

Shutter speeds are a trade off, if you use faster shutter speeds you'd get clearer frames and so clearer slow motion, but with just 25 frames per second it might start to look juddery. A slow shutter speed around 1/50th gives a blur to fast movement and helps keep things moving more fluid to the viewer at 25fps, which is what they tend to do with film. You might be able get better results by capturing at a faster shutter speed, then applying small amounts of motion blur in Vegas should some slow motion shots look a bit juddery and have better control.

Regards

Phil

Thanks Phil. Yeah, it is a shame it goes through the mangle a bit with YouTube's 1080p. When I get more time I'll do some proper filming with it around Ely, Cambridge etc. (on a tripod of course) and really show what the camera can do in a Vimeo clip etc. Less wobble will also improve codec efficiency and should "up image quality" too - even on YouTube. Raw files are stunning on my big monitors.

You're right. No "bondi blue". We can all now put that debate to bed with the 900 series, for good! Please post that link to that forum!

I fully understand the implications of shutter speed but the main reason I've been active on the getting to know the TM900 and on the 1080p50 editing front is that I've decided to use it for some slow motion shots (along with the EX3 etc.) on a dolly in some corporate work I've got going on this week. I'm wary of using any new kit until I've a good grasp of it's strengths and limitations but I think I am now at that stage with the TM900 - so it's finally time to put it to work!

Still thrilled that I've got it in my kit - and how little it cost (compared to some of the things I lug around!)

Also, I've been thinking about Alistair's question. Now I imagine that if the TM900 converts 1080p50 files at 28Mbps to "Standard" AVCHD in camera then, in the TM900s case that would be at it's 17Mbps 25p format (sadly the TM900 lacks the max 24Mbps option that the AVCHD consortium currently "allows" within the AVCHD format as of now - Can't be long before this is revised now Sony are also in the game of 1080p50). So I guess the question is, does this conversion just extract every other frame and leave it razor sharp - and hopefully 17Mbps is enough to maintain that sharpness - or does it do some kind of reprocessing. [Not tried it so don't know - just thinking out loud].

Following on from my post yesterday, here is the test video that I promised.

YouTube - Panasonic TM900 - Ely in March (Test Video) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh7dS8bsL-I)

See the notes on the YouTube page.

[Sorry Alistair, not got as far as trying the TM900 files on my Mac Pro yet so I'll let others comment on your question - the answer to which I'd also love to know].

I read your notes on YouTube page and you mentioned that all shots were in iAuto and yet you went -1 on sharpness and color. On 60p unit (NTSC), when you are in iAuto, dialing or increasing sharpness has no effect on anything, it only works when you are shooting in Manual mode. I just tried it on my unit and can verify this. I was in iAuto, tried -5, 0, and +5 in sharpness and saw no difference, but when I did the same in Manual mode the difference in sharpness was huge.

Thanks Gregory - and welcome to DVinfo! That's something else that I've learnt today! Good job anything important I'm doing with it would only be in Manual mode!

Andy, your video was most interesting for me since I have as yet shot everything exclusively in manual mode, apart from one time when the first thing that stopped me proceeding was that the white balance did it's own thing, and not to my liking. This did not appear to be the case with your video, did you use a 'Scene' mode which allows a fixed WB?

Next, you said you were going to test the 'intelligent Auto' and at first I thought I was seeing the result of this on some stonework near ground level of a strongly back lit building (lack of detail) but then I wondered if this was simply YouTube messing it up somewhat. For myself I decided not to use 'intelligent Auto' as I found it could bring up shady areas but somewhat artificially and the sky was still somewhat over exposed. Where you had the sun behind you or to one side you have nice truly blue sky, yes I also am so pleased not to find any "bondi blue" in my shots.

The hybrid image stabilisation I have found to be at it's best with a slight pan, I think your stationary shots made things too difficult for it, I can never get rid of slight tilt movements when tying to hold the camera completely still and so this is what I do, I make my stationary shots a very slight pan, or use the very lightweight tripod I have for my 5DII. Actually your attempts at this are better than most of mine!

Lastly, I did find the auto exposure shows, a lot of things such as white window frames, the white on the ducks, cannot recall them all right now, but several items I noted were over exposed.

What I find as a compromise between full auto and full manual is to switch to manual, set focus to auto, set up your manual white balance, (never have to move mine if I am always outdoors), and set shutter speed to 1/50th. (for 1080/50P). This leaves iris floating, will do it's own thing (auto exposure) but with the benefit of what you entered in the Picture Adjust (menu > Record setup > (page 8/9) > Exposure). For the record I now use -3 for this "exposure compensation" with the sunny weather we are currently enjoying here in England.

Of course 1/50th shutter and no external ND filter does mean for anything but end of day stuff when light has reduced this must be increased to avoid the iris stopping down to F8 or more and degrading the resolution so what I do is before shooting to quickly dab the Iris button on the screen then if it shows an undesirable F number I go back to shutter and increase speed, check iris again, repeat until happy.

The important thing is to always return to shutter after checking the iris number otherwise the iris will be fixed and not give you auto exposure so after this one final press again on the shutter will clear the screen for shooting, leaving you with the nice histogram to keep an eye on things if you want it.

Anyway that's the way I like to work and it does stop me over exposing since I find the exposure latitude a lot less than the EX1R so I know I do need to work a bit harder with the TM900 when the sun is out.

Thanks Claire. Yep, you spotted the tendency to slight overexposure too - believe me it's not just YouTube mangling it - but the only way you find these things out is to actually try! No I did not use any scene mode - this test was really very simple but I knew my stationary shots would be a challenge on the image stabilisation system with such a lightweight camera!

I really like your idea of ultra slow panning for those times when I'm out and about without a tripod/wall/chair/child (not my two - never stationary!) to lean on. Great tip! Thanks also for all the other great info!

Hi

...
You're right. No "bondi blue". We can all now put that debate to bed with the 900 series, for good! Please post that link to that forum!

Well your clip has been seen by a few now and the question raised is the sky is too blue and did you use a polarizer? :-) No pleasing some people I suppose.

Regards

Phil

No polarizer, (as I can't find a B+W 46mm one anywhere in the UK - for a sensible price).

Camera straight out of the box! Some people just like to be critical of ALL new gear.... and others just get on and do stuff with it (and have fun!)

BTW, as a side note, I've just found a reputable camera supplier (that I've used several times before) who has the new larger batteries for the TM900 on their website, the Panasonic VW-VBN260E-K (for £89 plus £10 delivery). I have placed an order just now so should know soon if they have them in stock or what the likely delivery date will be. It's the same company that I bought my TM900 from (and indeed my Canon 7D and a few other things). They sell cameras and are in Bristol ;-)

Hi

Cheers, I've updated them over at avsforums. I knew the blue sky would draw some questions as there has been a lot of chatter there regarding "bondi-blue" on the older models.

Regards

Phil

Hi Phil,

I know there is a lot of concern out there over this Bondi-blue issue that affected some TM700 users, I can say with certainty the deep blue sky in Andy's TM900 film would not require a polarizer with the weather we enjoyed these last few days here in the UK.

We had high pressure over the country bringing us cold frosty nights and clear blue skies during the day, unusual for us being surrounded by ocean so we try and make the most of it, but I can assure you the sky colour in Andy's film is exactly what I have been seeing with my TM900 about 250 miles north of him.

With over exposure on this camera blue sky can become different to how it looks to the eyes, it usually turns white but not always, however with correct exposure the only time I have wondered about bondi blu is close to sunset when a very narrow strip right next to the horizon looks a touch green, however I realise it's my paranoia when looking over the camera that is how it appears to my eyes, ie: it's there in reality, not introduced by the camera.

Edit: Sorry Phil, Just realised you are in London so I don't need tell you we had blue sky recently !