Panasonic HS700

[jabomano]

I bought this camera a couple of days ago and it's the first camera I'ved ownd since my last Canon High 8 years ago.

But one question..

I used the software that came with the camera (HD Writer) to download the video from camera to my computer but the quality of the videos is pretty bad and not at all D quality even though the camera was set on HD.
I'm thinking I have to play it straight from the camera to the TV to get true HD quality.
Is this correct or am I doing something wrong?
Hope I don't have a bad camera.

Thanks.

Ray Bayer

[Skyman]

when you say the quality of the videos is pretty bad can you describe how it looks? also what brand of camera is it and how does it look connected to a TV (it doesn't need to be connected to a HD TV, any TV will do)

[jabomano]

It's the Panasonic HS700 and no I have not had it hooked to and played through a TV yet. The video files where simply played on my computer in a media player (the VLC media player.)

They were processed with the supplied Panasonic software-HD Writer.

Ray

[Skyman]

my frst thought is that your computer is struggling to playback the HD files. This is most common when you have movement in the shot and looks like jagged lines or edges in your video, but depending on how badly it is stuggling and the codecs / conversions the file has been through, it could look blocky and pixelated or simply just laggy and jerky. The program you are using for playback could be the culprit as not all of them support hi def files natively which means that it needs to convert what is already a large file on the fly in order to display it. For the record I don't think panasonic have made a "bad" camera in over 20 years, and the HS 700 (i should have read the thread title more closely is a great little camera. Unless you lucked out and got a Lemon (which I really doubt) then I would be looking at the computer as not being able to cope with the video files. What file format does the camera use? I wouldn't be using a conversion program if you can avoid it, or if you must convert the video then playback the converted file. Beware that Windows media player might be able to playback the file but it is trying to convert it to a format it likes on the fly which causes everything to slow right down (unless you have win7 and the latest wmp as it supports more HD formats natively) Try using a player like VLC as it is less resource hungry and can play back formats like AVCHD natively - there are plenty of others but VLC is one of the better open source players. If that doesn't help see if you are able to try it on a different (more powerful) computer. I hope that helps.