Camera Labs

I am interested in purchasing the Panasonic TZ7 camera and have read plenty of reviews and looked at lots of videos on Vimeo, but I am still undecided about the quality of the HD video. They all seem jerky on Vimeo.

I currently have a Sanyo Xacti HD1010 which I love. I usually record in 720p 60fps, but I always have trouble making a PAL DVD because of the frame rate issue. I end up making NTSC DVD's, which won't always pay in all DVD players. This is one of the main reasons why I am changing, the other is the really wide angle of view, which is not very good in the Xacti. I know making a DVD lowers the quality, but the MPG clips it produces are so high that the drop in quality is fine. The photos it takes are also very good considering they are only 3.5MP in widescreen mode.

What I haven't been able to find is raw .mts or Motion JPEG files from a PAL T7Z. All the video sites are re-encoded to MPG etc.

Does anyone know where I might be able to get some raw footage or does someone have some they could share? It doesn't have to be a long clip, but I would like to see a bit of zooming and panning. I was almost set on buying this camera, then I read in Gordon's review and he said the image stabiliser wasn't very good on panning shots. Mine isn't too wonderful either, but I thought the optical rather than digital stabiliser would be better.

Any help or comments would be much appreciated.

Still having no joy trying to get hold of untouched AVCLite footage or MJPEG

Any suggestions greatly appreciated

Sorry, I can't help you here - all my TZ7 samples were shot in AVCHD, but I think Vimeo may now accept them in their native format if you can find anyone who can try re-uploading one to a pro account.

Thanks for the reply Gordon.

I am 95% sure I am going to get the TZ7, but I was a little disturbed by your comment on the OIS not being very good on panning shots - that is one of the things that I find my Xacti isn't very good at either (slight tremors), but I thought going from digital IS to optical would have been much better??

Also, the announcement of the TZ10 has made me think again. I am not bothered by the extra MP, but I am wondering is the MEGA OIS is going to be better. I am wondering too if they have changed the settings so Ai can be used on a higher quality setting for 16:9 shots instead of the poor 2MP that it is now. I also use 16:9 for my holiday pics and I certainly don't want to go any lower that the 3.5MP that I get now. I know I can use the "Normal" setting, but I would prefer to be able to use Ai.

Sorry I have gone off my original topic again, so I will just have to wait until Panasonic put the user guide for the TZ10 on their website.

Thanks