As you can see the picture quality and the sound quality are very very good. But unfortunately the software of the camera is absolute CRAP!!! Currently I'm really frustrated because nothing really works the way I want it. The only thing I could do with Panasonic's software is this badly edited video I hope this will come out as 16:9 on YouTube! The camera records in MPEG-2 wich the XP version of Windows Movie Maker can't handle. I have to put the files into a converter program and convert it to a MPEG-4 .AVI file. Then it works. The big problem is the size of the video. I have set Windows Movie Maker into the 16:9 mode and if I import a file it also shows the imported file in 16:9. But if I pull it into the editing thing, for some reason WMM adds black stipes in the upper and lower part of the video like if it would do if it was in the normal 4:3 mode and you would import a 16:9 file. So the result is a 16:9 video wich has black stripes in the upper and lower part and the video itself stretched all across the middle wich looks really stupid. So currently I'm really frustrated and I'm really not sure if this camera was the best decision. Probably the Mini-DV camcorder would have been easier to handle Also the camera saves its files under very weird names, instead of calling them 0001, 0002, 0003 etc like my Aiptek camcorder does, the names just contain various numbers like 351654684514. That's also really stupid... But I'm still working on this thing, I hope that at ...
Two recent thrift store finds, both working perfectly: a Sony Handycam Vision CCD-TRV32 standard Video8 (not Hi8) camcorder from 1997, and a Toshiba Satellite 105CS laptop, also from around 1997, with a 75 MHz Pentium processor, 40 MB of RAM, 4 GB hard drive, 640x480 color "dual scan" passive matrix LCD, and Windows 98 -- but no CD-ROM drive or sound card.
Uploaded from my laptop at work. Just some old test footage from one of Sony's last analog Hi8 camcorders, the CCD-TRV328, which uses the same downsized form factor as the Digital8 DCR-TRV260 and -TRV280.
Sony's top-of-the-line analog Hi8 camcorder from 2001, with a huge 3½-inch LCD. Too bad it only has monaural audio, but for the price I paid, I can't complain! The CCD-TRV98 also makes an excellent low light camcorder, with the best ever sensitivity of 0.4 lux, and a powerful built-in halogen spotlight, as well as NightShot.
The DCR-TRV350 was one of Sony's most full-featured Digital8 camcorders, with a Memory Stick Pro slot, live streaming video capture from S-video/composite inputs to FireWire, analog Hi8/Video8 playback, and more -- but there's one drawback, which is why I didn't keep it (and actually made about a profit on reselling it!).
I hope this will come out as 16:9 on YouTube! The camera records in MPEG-2 wich the XP version of Windows Movie Maker can't handle. I have to put the files into a converter program and convert it to a MPEG-4 .AVI file. Then it works. The big problem is the size of the video. I have set Windows Movie Maker into the 16:9 mode and if I import a file it also shows the imported file in 16:9. But if I pull it into the editing thing, for some reason WMM adds black stipes in the upper and lower part of the video like if it would do if it was in the normal 4:3 mode and you would import a 16:9 file. So the result is a 16:9 video wich has black stripes in the upper and lower part and the video itself stretched all across the middle wich looks really stupid. So currently I'm really frustrated and I'm really not sure if this camera was the best decision. Probably the Mini-DV camcorder would have been easier to handle 
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