Product Description

The optical zoom feature acts like a telescope to produce close-up shots with extraordinary clarity so you won't miss a single detail. It also offers variable zoom speeds, so you can adjust your zoom speed from wide angle to full telephoto. In addition, the digital zoom ratio can be increased up to an extraordinary 800x. Now that's close up!Now you can snap off a still shot (VGA) while recording video without having to change recording modes. The video is recorded onto the Mini DV tape and the still image is recorded onto the SD Memory Card. This 2-in-1 capability means you can catch sudden photo opportunities without interrupting a great moving picture scene.The Soft Skin Mode feature detects skin tones and softens the focus in that area of the picture. It helps make blemishes and lines appear less noticeable, while preserving resolution in areas of the picture outside the skin.The joystick makes the camera much easier to use, letting you control all basic operations with one hand. As you shoot, just watch the image in the monitor and follow the instruction guide. You can handle a number of operations quickly and easily, without even taking your eye off the subject.The Quick Start button helps shoot video on the spur of the moment. While saving battery power, this function lets you capture these moments in a mere 1.3 seconds after pressing the button.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40849 in Camera & Photo
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: PV-GS19
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 5.00" h x 7.00" w x 9.00" l, 6.00 pounds
• Display size: 2.5

Features

• 1/6-inch CCD imager with 680K resolution
• MiniDV recording format offers up to 500 lines of horizontal resolution
• 24x optical zoom with digital image stabilization
• 2.5-inch diagonal LCD
• MagicPix feature enhances images shot in low light

From the Manufacturer
The new compact PV-GS19, PV-GS31 and, PV-GS35 digital video camcorders are full-featured models that incorporate the most powerful optical zoom available, up to 30x on one model. These camcorders allow you to see up close no matter how far way you may be.

Panasonic's Mode Dial with joystick control puts many features at the tip of your thumb

Among the other innovative features included on these models is the easy to use one-touch navigation. A convenient thumb wheel lets the user quickly access major functions such as JPEG playback, memory-card recording, and tape recording, while a new joystick allows easy navigation of the controls using the thumb only.

The new camcorder models were developed to maximize the quality of the video recording by concentrating on those features that consumers will use most often. One such feature is the image-enhancing MagicPix, which creates rich videos under low-light conditions. An electronic image stabilization (EIS) system compensates for hand and camcorder jitter.

A digital still camera feature can be used to snap still images and save them to an SD Memory Card, while USB capability provides a convenient way to transfer digital video and still images to a PC for archiving, e-mailing, and more. The PV-GS35 also includes USB 2.0 high speed with Motion DV Studio video-editing PC software for editing video footage.

The MagicPix feature enhances images shot in low-light conditions.

Features of the Panasonic PV-GS19:

• Compact design
• Still picture capability
• SD slot
• 24x optical zoom
• 800x digital zoom
• Electronic image stabilization
• USB 2.0

Customer Reviews

Slightly misleading capabilities, but overall great.
This has been an excellent camera for filming our less-than-a-year old daughter, indoors and out. The quality is quite good, and the camera is fairly feature-full. However, the one problem we've had is in connecting this camera to our computer. Panasonic does not have a driver up on their web site to let us download video from the camera using USB. We can download still photos, but not video. The most recent drivers don't seem to support this version of the camera.

However, the Firewire(IEEE 1394, DV) connection is recognized by Windows XP immediately and supports the camera quite well. Since we added on Firewire support for our computer, we've been downloading video and editing it easily. With Firewire, the camera also functions as a webcam.

The only thing I wish the camera had was a simple audio-in connector. The only audio the camera records is from its built-in microphone. The higher-end cameras in this line have this feature -- if you're going to record church events and the like and want to hook into the sound system, you'll want a higher end camera.

Overall, we're very happy with this camera. Just that matter of both the online texts and the manual not being clear that USB will not let you download video, you need Firewire for that.

It does work with your PC!
My son bought this camera on his own this past summer to take videos of his friends skateboarding, etc. His desire was to get video editing software to add sound effects, music, titles, etc. The camera works great and does what is advertised. Always keep in perspective that a $300 something camera will not match up with the features and extras that a $1000 something camera offers.

The real reason for my posting this message relates to how to connect this camera to your PC to download videos. This is how it will work.

1. Ignore the USB connection stuff in the manual. Good for still picture transfer and webcam stuff only. Look at page 43 in the manual: "PC Connection With DV Interfac Cable". You must use this method to transfer video.

2. You need a "firewire" IEEE 1394 OHCI compliant card in your computer. I purchased and added a PCI Trendnet TFU-H33PI to my 5 year old HP XL773 computer that I also recently loaded Windows XP.

3. Here is the KEY. I bought a cheap SanMAX 4pin to 6pin 1394 cable. Could not get the camera to be recognized by the computer OS. With XP it should recognize the camera as soon as you connect it and turn it on with the camera set to playback mode. XP will treat it like new hardware the first time. I tried everything to reload the card software and search online for drivers and through forums for answers. Then I remembered that my neighbor does video editing. I took my sons camera over to his house and his computer recognized the PV-GS19 Panasonic camera right away. I then plugged my SanMAX cheap cable into his computer... NOTHING. IT WAS THE CABLE. I borrowed his Belkin shielded $25+ cable and plugged it into my computer and it WORKED.

Moral of the story. Don't skimp on the firewire cable. They are not all created equal.

Small & Light
I was taking good video 20 minutes after opening the box.The camera is easy to use and you can compensate for dark scenes quickly by changing a video setting with the cameras joystick.I had no trouble copying video from the camera to my computer ( XP ) via the USB connection. The windows movie maker program worked fine.Be aware that Panasonic does not supply a USB cable with its camera.