Discount Panasonic SDR-S7 Flash Memory Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom (Black)

I've owned this camera for a few months and the video quality is not as great as digital-8 or mini-dv. To be fair I tried all 3 rec modes and even in the best day-lit scenes the mpeg-2 engine can't handle a straight line border with 2 different colors (the edge of a table against a different color floor).

I don't understand why Panasonic couldn't engineer the camera to fit a slightly thicker battery to accomodate 2 hour recording, or at least a full hour (there's certainly room inside the body of the video camera). As it is I only get 40-45 min on a battery. So buy a couple of extra batteries (good news at least the batteries are inexpensive). The short recording time on a fully charged battery I've observed is consistent with all previous reviews.

So why buy this video camera - easy easy easy simple menu to navigate for set up, small and light - this is the video camera you would bring to an amusement park and you could have in your hand on a roller coaster or tape the kids at the park, being active anywhere out and about. This is what you wish you had in your hand while using a digital still camera and wanted to record better video.

This is NOT the video camera for special events like weddings where things like gradual shading and very fine detail is important - I would stick with mini-dv or an HDD video camera or step up to HD if using flash memory SD, MS, CF etc.

I use a Windows based PC and first I just copy the contents of the card to my hard drive, simply rename the recorded files from .MOD to .MPG and any off-the-shelf media editing software that records to DVD will work: Nero, Roxio, even Windows Movie Maker.
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