Product Description

The PV-GS400, with its 3CCD Camera System, reproduces color in great fidelity by using a separate CCD for reds, greens and blues. It's the same 3CCD technology used in Panasonic professional broadcast equipment, resulting in 540 lines of breathtaking resolution. You can count on Panasonic 3CCD Digital Camcorders to give you colors that are as rich and vibrant as your life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10076 in Camera & Photo
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: PVGS400
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 3.25" h x 3.13" w x 7.00" l, 1.96 pounds
• Display size: 3.5

Features

• 3CCD sensor dedicates one chip to red, green, and blue for true-to-life color rendering
• MiniDV recording format offers up to 540 lines of horizontal resolution
• 12x optical zoom with Optical Image Stabilizer
• 2.5-inch LCD screen with color viewfinder
• 4.0-megapixel digital still picture capability, SD memory card slot

From the Manufacturer
From the Manufacturer Get True, Crisp Color Images with our 3CCD Camera System
The PV-GS400, with its 3CCD camera system, reproduces color in great fidelity by using a separate CCD for reds, greens, and blues. It's the same 3CCD technology used in Panasonic professional broadcast equipment, resulting in 540 lines of breathtaking resolution. You can count on Panasonic 3CCD digital camcorders to give you colors that are as rich and vibrant as your life.

Three CCDs dedicated to the red, green, and blue colors of the spectrum (right) produce more vibrant images than do traditional one-CCD systems.

Quality Pictures Start with a Quality Leica Dicomar Lens
World-renowned lens-maker LEICA has developed an exquisite, 12-element, multicoated lens that helps add a high level of detail and subtlety to your creations. With refinements like a two-stage neutral density filter for aperture independent adjustment, you'll appreciate the remarkably crisp, true-to-life color that is a hallmark of Leica Dicomar optics.

Capture Still Pictures with Outstanding Quality
Quad-Density Pixel Distribution Technology makes it possible to capture still pictures with amazing megapixel quality. The tiny 2.5-micron intervals between pixels are shifted by one-half pitch both vertically and horizontally, which distributes them on the CCD with four times the density of previous systems. It enables model PV-GS400 to capture still pictures with incredible detail at up to 4.0 megapixels.

Panasonic's Optical Image Stabilizer and 12x zoom deliver sharp photos from far away.

Optical Image Stabilizer Helps Eliminate Blurred Images
The Optical Image Stabilizer helps you obtain clear, beautiful pictures by compensating for any hand movement that occurs as you shoot video. Gyrosensors detect the amount and direction of movement, while a linear motor adjusts the lenses as needed to compensate. You get clear, sharp images in situations in which hand-shake is typically a problem, like wide-angle shots or high magnification levels of the zoom.

12x Optical Zoom and 700x Digital Zoom Produce an Incredibly Close Shot
An optical zoom this powerful works like a telescope to produce close-up shots with extraordinary clarity. With the different zoom speeds, you can control how quick you go from a wide angle to telephoto zoom--anywhere from 2 to 22 seconds. And through the use of digital technology, the zoom ratio on all digital camcorders can be increased digitally, producing an incredibly close shot. You won't miss a single detail.

Easy Video Transfer to your PC with Motion DV Studio LE
This convenient feature allows you to link the camcorder to your computer via the USB port. Then, you can easily transfer still images captured on Mini DV tape to your computer for use in e-mail or in printed documents.

Customer Reviews

A well-designed and well-priced step-up to 3CCD
I'm an "advanced amateur" who has used digital video for ~ four years. I've extensively edited hours of home video with third-party software which I've burned to DVD and share with family. I recently replaced my Sony DCR-PC5, which was a top-notch matchbook/upright style camcorder (single ~ 1/4" CCD and electronic image stabilization; ~$1500 circa 2000) with new PV-GS400 few weeks ago. I've now shot about an hour of video under various light conditions and edited a few hundred video clips with the new camcorder.

I'm very happy with the upgrade and would do it again in a minute. I was worried that I might not be able to tell the difference in image quality and low-light performance (the main reasons I upgraded), but it was immediately obvious. I briefly considered the Canon GL2, but after playing with it several times in various stores, I felt it was too much camcorder for me (kind of making more of a statement than I wanted to make) and it was a little short on portability and anonymity. (By the way, if I were to buy another matchbook-style camcorder, it would be the Sony DCR-PC350, which has wonderful ergonomics-at least in the store-and a very user-friendly touch-screen-based interface.) Here are a few early observations with the PV-GS400...

Oh, but first a word about the size. This is a bigger camcorder than the matchbooks, but not dramatically heavier than the older DCR-PC5, which was quite solid with lots of metal. And, although the matchbooks are "pocket-sized," that doesn't mean that they're necessarily fun or easy to carry that way. My Sony fit beautifully in my coat pocket-but tended to hang down around my knees. The bottom line is that most of the quality camcorders with decent-sized chips will require fanny pack or small backpack, and the PV-GS400 would fit easily in either.


Pros:

1. Excellent video quality; low light performance is substantially better than my single-CCD Sony miniDV DCR-PC5 (with which I've always been very happy). Color fidelity appears excellent and is quite good indoors.

2. Build quality is very good-much better than the Panasonic PV-GS200 that I used briefly. Still a lot of plastic, though, but I guess it keeps the weight (and cost) down.

3. Multifunction ring (around the lens) is quick and easy way to access the extensive manual controls (shutter, iris, zoom, focus, white balance). The three control buttons for activating these functions may be blocked by tilted LCD screen when shooting with the screen out, but this was usually only minor inconvenience. The ring itself has a nice, solid feel.

4. The 3.5 inch LCD is gorgeous, seemingly rivaling my 17" LCD monitor (as crazy as that sounds) for color and clarity. Made the screen on my -PC5 look like my son's GameBoy when I went back.

5. The zoom control gives nice results-relatively easy to achieve fast or slow zooms.

6. Recognized by iMovie 4 (I haven't had to use any of the PC-based software bundled with the camcorder).

7. Zebra feature, which highlights overexposed areas of the image on the LCD (prior to recording), is nice "prosumer" feature that I quickly learned to appreciate.

Cons:

1. The most serious flaw, especially for users needing glasses, is that eye relief for the viewfinder was a little limited; even without eyeglasses there was some vignetting ("tunnel vision") of the view. With glasses, I could only see about the central 75% of the field of view. The apparent size of the image in the viewfinder was also quite small-much smaller to my eye than on my DCR-PC5. Evidently, one is meant to use primarily the fold-out screen. It worked quite well-even in bright sunlight to my surprise.

2. Ergonomics are suboptimal for me after four years with a matchbook-style; it's not as easy to hold as the latter type, in my opinion, but I'm getting more accustomed to it. In its defense, though, the auxiliary record button right behind the main lens on the right side of the camcorder was always within easy reach of one finger or another no matter how I held the camcorder. This button is far from the camera's "center of mass" so it tends to rock the camcorder (and video) when depressed. I take video of my kids, mostly, and like to hold the camcorder at waist height to be at their "level." In my opinion, this is a little tougher with the conventionally configured ("non-matchbook") camcorders like this one.

3. Autofocus in moderately low light is a little imprecise.

4. Auto white balance seems to take a little longer than the DCR-PC5, but the ability to control the white balance manually with only a white wall or even white card is a great feature.

5. The otherwise well placed buttons near the lens for the manual settings are a little hard to depress and there is no feedback (e.g., click) to let you know when you have succeeded.

6. The optical image stabilization seems rock solid at low and medium zooms (I never go above the optical zoom of 12X), but at higher zoom is not dramatically superior to the electronic stabilization that I've used on the Sony. Some of this might relate to the larger size of this camcorder.

7. Start-up takes full five seconds or so, but there is a rapid start feature

Very good Camcorder !!!!!!!
I own the previous version of this one (PV-DV 953). This one is improved over 953 on the following:

1. Lighter & smaller, the complaint with 953 was it was a bit heavy.

2. This has improved low light shooting quality compared to 953. Has a HOT SHOE too, can just add a video light. My only complaint about 953 was quality in low light, i fixed it buying a nice powerful battery-powered v.light. This one has hot shoe, so all u need is an extra light. I heard this model has accessories such as video light....check it out.

3. 4MP camera. Quite good. 953 has 3MP camera - good not perfect

4. Stunning day-light video. nothing comes closer in this price range. trust me. Sound with unbelievabe steroe effect...no motor noise like canon's.

5. Hybrid lens ring. see camcorderinfo.com for more details. they rated this camcorder as the BEST of all.

6. Leica lens - can u beat that ? no way. YOu get 12x vs. 10x in the previous one.

PV-GS400 Tape Transport Problem
Potential buyers should be aware that there is a tape transport problem with some PV-GS400 camcorders and that Panasonic has acknowledged this problem. I had problems with TWO different PV-GS400s (I returned a defective unit and the replacement was also defective). When I played back tapes recorded with these camcorders, I noticed a grinding, periodic mechanical noise that could be heard through the speakers of my TV set. This noise was clearly audible and annoying - it wasn't subtle. When I put the camcorders up to my ear, it was clear that the grinding noise was NOT the kind of noise that a healthy tape transport should EVER make. This is extremely bad news, since mechanical problems usually get worse over time (possibly after the warranty expires).

An internet search revealed that many other PV-GS400 owners have also reported this problem. Since Amazon.com guidelines prohibit the use of URLs in product reviews, I'll recommend that you do an internet search using the search terms "panasonic" and "tape transport" in order to find a great deal of useful information about this problem. To see a letter that Panasonic issued addressing this problem, use the search terms "panasonic", "tape transport", and "QC issue".

The bottom line is that this problem appears to be widespread,despite Panasonic's claims that only a small number of camcorders are affected. Although Panasonic is offering warranty servicing for defective units, I'm not happy with the idea of buying a top of the line, $1000+ "prosumer" camcorder and ending up with a camcorder that is essentially "factory refurbished".

No one who discovers that their PV-GS400 has this problem should just "live with it". Either return it, or if you can't do that, then get it serviced by Panasonic (and hope it doesn't break down again after it's out of warranty).