Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SDR-H60 60 GB Hard Drive Camcorder with 50x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

This camcorder is great, it is my first dive into the consumer video world and so far I am pretty impressed. The zoom is killer, the ease of use is great. I am a tech so I did not feel the need to install the built in software since I feel that the bundled software stinks, that goes for most consumer products. I filmed a couple of videos, plugged the camera into my pc, and voila! There they were, ready for me to watch and/or edit using any software I wished to use. This process took approximately 10 seconds. For those wondering my setup consists of Windows Vista Ultimate with Service Pack 1, but I imagine if I plugged it into xp or the other versions of vista, I would get similar results. The editing software I used is Adobe Premiere elements 4.0, although I am confident that if I plugged the videos into the built in video maker, I would not run into any problems as the format is pretty standard.

I only write this review because I feel some of these low ratings are unwarranted. The camera itself is great, and although the picture quality could use some improvement (then again I have not played with all the settings yet) I think this is a great camera for a lower budget, the only real improvement I could see by going to another camera is if a High Definition camera is purchased.

Hope this review helps.

This HDD camera is outstanding and wonderful when you are recording moments in your life. I have had this camera for over a year and used it to film two conventions and other events. I think this camera films beautifully, it is the converting that can drive you crazy. The software that comes with this camera stinks and you will end up buying other software to convert the footage you recorded. I decided to buy AVSmedia, which converts my footage to anything version I ask it to (MPEG, MPEG4, AVI, etc.) Panasonic is not to be fully blamed, though they could have included better software. Otherwise, you will love this camera to death!

I don't know who came up with the video processing software for this item but they should go back to school. The manual claims to not guarantee that it will work and they were right. I use Windows XP service pack 3 and it only works with Vista or service pack 2. You have to make sure any other program is closed and even then trying to transfer a video to DVD took me a couple of hours becauses I had to keep restarting the program. that said, I am still trying to figure out a way to make it work because the camera is so easy to use and the functions are great. So, a double edged review from me.

I'll start by saying what everyone else is saying, for the price, this camera is a gem. The 50x zoom with OIS is amazing and you can't really describe it, you have to see it in action to understand. To really understand how much of a difference it makes, just turn it off and you'll wonder why there is even a reason to be able to turn it off at all.

The main complaint is the video software - I didn't even install it. The camera records video into files with a .MOD extension. Just plug the camera into your computer via the USB cable and copy those files over then rename them to .MPG and you can play and edit them in any software that supports .MPG (just about everything). Point is, the software is not a reason not to get this camera - and video conversion is a snap as long as you know that you really aren't recording in a proprietary format, it's just a quick change of the file extension and you're good to go.

(I'll leave video/sound quality to the other reviews as it's fine for my needs.)

Excellent Camcorder for the price, got it few days from 6th ave. Did lot of research and decided on this. Upgraded from Panasonic MINI-DV. Seen people complain about the software, but I found it good software. But you have to upgrade it from panasonic web site, go to support and upgrade the software and you will have the latest software for the product.

Pros: Small size, nice optical zoom, BIG hard drive
Cons: Video quality little grainy in low light, but all camcorders in this price have the same issue