Panasonic HDC SD9 - Expert Reviews

Pros: Compact and lightweight ; saturated colors

Cons: Moderate to low-light videos look cloudy ; some awkward design choices ; smallish LCD with terrible color reproduction ; awful bundled software

Verdict: Despite its trio of CCDs, the video quality and performance of the Panasonic HDC-SD9 are a bit too inconsistent. Plus, we recommend avoiding this model until software support for it improves.

Review summary: With its eye-catching, compact body and relatively low price, the Panasonic HDC-SD9 seems to be quite an attractive buy for a flash-based AVCHD camcorder. At 11.7 ounces with battery and SD card and only 3.6 inches long, it's certainly one of the ...

Review summary: The HDC-SD9 captures and exports video in "full HD," meaning 1920 x 1080 at 17 Mbps. Previous generations were either a slower bitrate or a 1440 x 1080 image that was stretched for playback. The improvements have gone a long way in reducing the ...

Verdict: Low light performance is hindered by the camcorder's small imaging chips. The HDC-SD9 has three 1/6-inch CCDs. A three-chip construction generally produces more accurate color in adequate light, but low light capture is largely dependent on the ...

Review summary: The Panasonic HDC-SD9 ($799 MSRP) is the third-generation AVCHD flash camcorder in the company's fleet. Earlier incarnations were plagued with problematic video quality, but this may be the year AVCHD turns it around. The SD9 prides itself on being ...

Verdict: The Panasonic HDC-SD9 has two primary attributes-low price and small size. Its video quality is good, but not great. It has limited onboard connectivity, and handling is at the bottom of the totem pole. We've watched Panasonic get aggressive on this ...

Review summary: The Panasonic HDC-SD9 is the company's third generation AVCHD camcorder that records exclusively to SD/SDHC memory cards. The improvements over its ancestor, the HDC-SD1, are numerous. The SD9 records in full 1920 x 1080 with a new maximum bit rate of ...