Customer Reviews Of Panasonic PV-GS320 3CCD Silver 10X Variable Speed Digital Optical Zoom MiniDV Palmcorder Camcorder

Customer Reviews

Customer Reviews for Panasonic PV-GS320 3CCD Silver 10X Variable Speed Digital Optical Zoom MiniDV Palmcorder Camcorder
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Review Summary (20 Reviews):
Excellent	12ReviewsExcellent	60%
Good	6ReviewsGood	30%
Average	1ReviewsAverage	5%
Poor	1ReviewsPoor	5%
Very Poor	0Reviews	0%
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Poor	0Reviews	0%
Very Poor	0Reviews	0%
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Reviewer	Product Review
Hojo Tech Level: somewhat high Ownership: 1 month to 1 year This user purchased this item from Newegg	8/31/2008 1:12:56 PM Very Nice Quality Pros: This camcorder makes beautiful videos and good pictures. Great for family events. I love the overall smal size and functionality of this camcorder. Very easy to use (for basic operations). Lot's of features - just be sure to read the manual. Cons: Included software is not the greatest to go from a larger size miniDV file to DVD in good quality. If you want a higher quality (i.e. a movie the size of 1 mini dv to fit on 1 dvd), good luck as a 90 minute miniDV in high quality records as .AVI and is about 18-19 GBs! It took me a very frustrating week of experimenting to find a good program to be compatible with my edited .AVI i made with the included software to render to a DVD file. Then I needed another program to burn it to a DVD. Other Thoughts: I bought this to replace a VHS-C camcorder I had for years (which was much simpler to go from high quality VHS-C to VHS). The included software is good for editing and burning with smaller video clips with little or no compression or if you don't mind lower quality dvds with larger movies. Did you find this review helpful? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Rick Tech Level: somewhat high Ownership: 1 week to 1 month This user purchased this item from Newegg	7/6/2008 5:41:59 PM Panasonic PV Pros: Excellent picture. Good display. Good battery life. I need to step it up to next level because of the audio input not available on this camera. Cons: Should have been a little more observant when buying. I read everything but overlooked the fact that there was no audio input. Therefore my shotgun mike and wireless mike were rendered useless Did you find this review helpful? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
morcar Tech Level: somewhat low Ownership: 1 month to 1 year This user purchased this item from Newegg	6/21/2008 10:05:52 AM Nice camcorder, nice price. Pros: High-quality (NOT HD) video. Fairly inexpensive. Image stabilization really helps. Nice picture quality, way better than VHS. Cons: Somewhat unintuitive. Design issues mentioned in other reviews. Other Thoughts: A good digital camcorder for the end-user who doesn't mind a few minor hassles in exchange for a lower price. 1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
netman8762 Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 day to 1 week This user purchased this item from Newegg	6/1/2008 5:58:09 AM Great Picture Pros: This camera takes great video and is easy to use. The feature set is awesome and I love the interface. I Like the mini dv format because the picture seems to be superior to the hard disk units that I have seen to this point. Cons: I have both the GS-300 and the GS-320. They are great cameras but... the firewire port's on both these cameras have quit working. Panasonic says there is no problem but Google says different. Other Thoughts: These are useless if the firewire will not work. Panasonis needs to address this. I know it is the port, I will not go into details here but beware! 2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Heimdal Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 month to 1 year This user purchased this item from Newegg	4/22/2008 6:23:42 PM Great Camcorder! Pros: Excellent picture quality, very clear and precise picture and color is very natural. Works well in low light and battery lasts longer than expected. Took shots of son's baseball game this past saturday and forgot the tripod. Video still turned out very good handheld throughout the game even on zoomed in shots. Very happy with purchase and look forward to catching more memories of my kids. Cons: Software that comes with it is not the most fully featured but that was expected. It does it's job though. Nothing really bad to say so far after two months. Other Thoughts: We lost our old PV-GS300 last year at the beach when our cottage burnt to the ground and we barely got out. It took a while financially to recover but finally we could buy another camcorder and I have to say this one is even better in most ways than our previous. If you can't afford HD OR you hate how most HD have no real viewfinder (my reason) then DV still gives the best quality picture of the diff formats. This camera won't disappoint, and I'm a picky techgeek ! 2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
N/A Tech Level: average Ownership: 1 day to 1 week This user purchased this item from Newegg	2/27/2008 12:03:20 PM Bargain Price Dream! Pros: Awesome color reproduction. 3CCD! Superb video quality (comparable to $2K cameras) Price point @ sub 350$ is a steal!! Descent Low light Performance Cons: Menu based controls can be a nightmare for some. No focus ring control. Cumbersome design flaws. (have to remove the battery to connect to PC....and other such sillies) No external mic or headphone input. (I just carry another audio recording device if need be and dub in latter) Other Thoughts: Conclusion: Getting great video at this price is unheard of IF you can handle the Annoying Flaws. 1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
MrKnowNothing Tech Level: low Ownership: 1 day to 1 week This user purchased this item from Newegg	2/7/2008 10:15:44 AM My first vidcam Pros: I read reviews of a few vidcams and liked what I read here. I wanted great video quality and believe the 3CCD will give it. The video and pics I've seen so far with this vidcam look as good as I wanted. The included video software is appreciated. Seems well constructed & everything works. Cons: My hands may be bigger than average and there is only about 3/8s of an inch of velcro grabbing a hold on wrist strap. I had to add some length to the lens cap string. Smaller hands will be able to operate the controls better. Other than that I can't complain since my experience is greatly lacking. Other Thoughts: Firewire and USB transfer works fine. Coming off tape the transfers are in real time. This would be too slow for many people. I bought the A-Data 4GB TurboSD SDHC card and it works fine. Looking forward to sending a video to YouTube or others if I can find something interesting to say or a meteor strikes my backyard. Did you find this review helpful? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
N/A Tech Level: somewhat high Ownership: 1 week to 1 month This user purchased this item from Newegg	9/22/2007 1:36:27 PM Works with Mac =) Pros: Great Camcorder. Nice quality in all lighting conditions. Nice features. Leica lens is very nice. Has USB and firewire. Works with iMovie. Cons: no accessory shoe.. but never used it anyway Other Thoughts: I made the mistake of purchasing a HDD camcorder pervious to this one. Vid quality is much better on DV and so much easier to edit with iMovie, Final cut pro. DV is still the way to go. especially you if you want to edit your video. Did you find this review helpful? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
N/A Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 day to 1 week This user purchased this item from Newegg	9/7/2007 3:36:33 PM Great Camera! Pros: images, decent low light images. 16:9 support is really cool! Cons: Lack of features that should be standard for even a budget camera. But I doubt I would have use those features enough anyways. Odd placement of ports, but oh well. Other Thoughts: As long as it isn't a a short-lived camera like my canon elura 50 which died a horrible death at a young age, I will be very pleased! Did you find this review helpful? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
N/A Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 month to 1 year This user purchased this item from Newegg	9/5/2007 7:33:22 AM Beware - design defect Pros: Great sound and video. Decent video editing software included. Cons: Design defect in the firewire/USB interface. Other Thoughts: I'v owned this camera for two months and since day one have had intermittent problems with camera not being recognized through firewire. Eventually no recognition through firewire at all but recognized through USB. Now USB is dead too. Panasonic knows there is a problem with this camera as a pink insert was in instruction manual instructing user to turn off PC and camera before connecting firewire to prevent "overcurrent" from damaging camera. Excuse me, but the last I checked firewire was all about being hot swappable. Terribly inconvenient to have to shut down and restart your PC every time you want to download some video, don't you think? Talked to customer support who tried to be helpful but the camera needs service. Hope I get a new one with the design defect corrected. 2 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
banter Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 week to 1 month This user purchased this item from Newegg	8/6/2007 9:24:10 AM great camera buy now! Pros: great video, easy transfer to computer, and great sound. Great in low light as well. Cons: no powered horse shoe. but thats okay. never used it anyways. Did you find this review helpful? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Halle Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 day to 1 week This user purchased this item from Newegg	7/31/2007 1:57:21 PM Halle Pros: Phenomenal video quality at an excellent price. Easy to use controls and all of the essential functions.Certainly the best non-HD, miniDV camera on the market. HD, however, is overrated anyway, making this the best consumer camcorder on the market. This is my second PV-G series camcorder and I'm continally satisified with Panasonic(and newegg for great delivery time!) Cons: This is the last of a dying breed of fantastic miniDV consumer camcorders despite miniDV's obvious superiority over hardrives and DVD's. Get one while you still can! Other Thoughts: My last pv-g had lots of frills like in-camera video effects and a mic jack, which I would have liked in this one. The lack of a headphone jack hurt the most being as the speaker isn't that loud. But considering the price I paid for this kind of quality, these hardly count as cons, still a flawless, 5-egg product. 2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
N/A Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 week to 1 month This user purchased this item from Newegg	7/26/2007 8:35:59 AM Clean the head? Pros: Great picture and sound quality, easy to use, super small and light. Best camcorder that isn't HD. DV tapes are cheap. Don't have to worry about a hard drive breaking like the newer camcorders. Learn to use the features and your vids will be much better (low-light mode, sports mode, etc) Cons: 1. After 1 hour of filming, the camera said "head needs cleaning" and stopped working. Glad it didn't happen with my kids first steps or at my wedding. 2. Doesn't work in humid weather (such as Georgia where I live). I RMA'd and Newegg overnighted me a new one! Still, heads shouldn't be dirty after one hour of video. 3. Jitter control only works moderately, or maybe I have shaky hands. The smaller the camcorder the easier it is to jitter. 4. Short battery life (40 minutes) Other Thoughts: I think the problems with this camera are universal with every brand and model. You can buy a head cleaner for a few bucks and a extended battery which solves those two problems, but the jitter control is still an issue unless you get a tripod and lug that thing around. 1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
RJA Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 month to 1 year This user purchased this item from Newegg	7/21/2007 12:26:25 AM DON'T DELAY, LAST OF THE STELLER MINI DV Pros: By far the best Mini DV on the market. Bridges the gap between Standard Def and High Def. In addition, by going to a High Def unit, for Editors (like me) you'll need the extra horsepower to do it. Now a $1,000 for a High Def camcorder jumps to about 4k after getting the necessary tools to accomplish good editing. Hard drive camcorders??? NOT cutting it; picture quality (due to compression) is not on par with Mini DV. Considering a Mini DVD disk? Think again, now your reduced to 30 minutes of record time as opposed to 60 miniutes for Mini DV not to mention more expensive media (Mini DVD disks compared to tape are more expensive) At $424.00 this unit delivers what muti thousand dollar units deliver in picture quality. Granted, the bells and whistles are limited (mic jackfor example) Not a deal breaker. How often is an average consumer or prosumer going need that function? The sound is very good as is, no issues for the average, regular shoot. Buy now before it's too late. Cons: None Other Thoughts: NewEgg is my new best friend. 17 out of 17 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
David Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 week to 1 month This user purchased this item from Newegg	7/16/2007 5:38:44 AM Not perfect but very good Pros: Superb video quality. Solidly built. Comfortable. Most controls within easy reach. Menus logical and easy to use. Great price. Cons: Poor on the fly editing. Barely acceptable battery life and the extended battery is a huge affair that sticks back toward your face. No ring on the camera for a neck strap. Other Thoughts: Very impressive camera with great normal and low light video quality. I haven't taken any stills so I can't comment about these. Battery can only be charged in the charger, not in the camera. The battery must be removed to connect the camera to your computer - the camera must be connected to AC. BTW, updated software for Microsoft Vista is available from Panasonic's website. Complaints about the lack of an external microphone jack are overdone, I think. The audio quality is excellent without one. Two complaints. On-the-fly editing is tough because you can't search when in camera mode. One must switch to playback mode and then the search only operates at fast speed, making it tough to stop at a precise point, unless the remote is used. The remote allows for slow motion searching. My old Sony Hi-8 camera allowed the date to be displayed for 5 seconds the first time the camera was used on a given day. This camera doesn't allow that - the date is displayed all or no 2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Pokey Tech Level: somewhat high Ownership: 1 month to 1 year	6/30/2007 5:12:17 PM Well built, great performing and great value Pros: I took this along for a trip to Kenya and Tanzania and it survived the bumpy roads better than my back. The joystick control is easy to operate and the still photo quality is easily as good as my Minolta 3MP camera. The included software (Windows only) is easy to use for dumping the video down to your pc (use Firewire over USB if possible). This is my second Panasonic camcorder and have not been disappointed in the high quality of their products. Cons: The Image stabilization feature delivers minimal practical benefit (bring a monopod or tripod with you). The built in light/flash is ok at best. Other Thoughts: The battery is small so it runs low fairly quickly. Buy one or two extras and keep them handy if you're going to be out shooting all day. 1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
i0nized Tech Level: average Ownership: 1 day to 1 week This user purchased this item from Newegg	6/27/2007 6:57:50 AM Just what I neededd Pros: After going through a ton of reviews for a ton of cameras, I choose this one. The colors, clarity and features are beyond what I expected even after reading up on the camera. Cons: None yet. I wish it included the UV filter...that's not really a con for the camera though Other Thoughts: You won't be disappointed with this camera! As always, Newegg rocks with service and shipping! 1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
Griff Tech Level: high Ownership: 1 month to 1 year This user purchased this item from Newegg	6/10/2007 10:52:01 PM Buy it before it's gone Pros: 3 CCD technology is superb at color reproduction. All miniDV, including the multi-thousand dollar units shoot miniDV at 25Mbs... the data stream is exactly the same. The only difference is the glass, and if the majority of your consumer shooting is in sunlight or normal lighting conditions at average distances you don't need pro glass. Optical image stabilization is well worth having. I've shot thousands of hours of studio footage on pro standard def cameras, and this EASILY compares to that video. Test charts prove this. Maybe a broadcast engineer nerd could tell the difference, but your average consumer couldn't. No, a consumer camcorder doesn't have all of the controls and features you find on studio or ENG cameras, but if you aren't broadcasting live, you don't need those things. It's called post and it can do amazing things. Cons: Using the Camcorder mic can be noisy, as are all camcorder mics. (I started recording pristine 48K 16bit audio with a m-audio stereo field recorder) This camcorder is so light it is hard to balance it on a glidecam stick. Other Thoughts: You should buy this camcorder because it offers REAL WORLD solutions. Sure, hi def is great, but how many people have a hi def player and a hi def TV to watch it on RIGHT NOW? What is your market? Are you REALLY going to be broadcasting your footage in hi def on an actual TV station? Nope, didn't think so. Do you need hi def to make a podcast or YouTube video? Sure, digitizing tape can be tedious and it would be great if you could store all your footage on hard disks for instant access, but do you really need Hard Disk recording if you are only shooting consumer footage? Geez, let the batch digitizer run all night and get your instant access that way and save yourself a few grand. 26 out of 26 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
gigasmurfn Tech Level: average Ownership: 1 week to 1 month This user purchased this item from Newegg	6/3/2007 2:00:27 PM Great Product Pros: patented 3 CCD technology that's among the best in the industry. Lightweight and good placement of controls. Both Camera and camcorder in one. Cons: Should of bought it sooner. 1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!
gigasmurfn Tech Level: average Ownership: 1 week to 1 month This user purchased this item from Newegg	6/2/2007 6:23:26 PM Good stuff Pros: Superb picture quality. Good battery life-lithium ion (1.5 hrs continuous usage)Digital camera and Camcorder in one. Panasonic's 3 CCD technology is amazing. Certainly among the elite in DV media Cons: No light for darkened conditions though it performs better in low light than those Camcorders that do. Other Thoughts: Wait until 3rd or 4th generation High Def camcorders and maybe then. 2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!