Panasonic's HD-SD9 is a low-end consumer HD camcorder that comes with a good number of innovative features, better AVCHD compression and the flexibility associated with memory cards, but its small sensors do not deliver when it comes to image quality. At around $540, this small camcorder is one of the least expensive models out there.



Three 1/6-inch, 560.000 pixel, native widescreen CCD sensors resolve a resolution of 1920 x 1080 in either interlaced or 24P modes.



Compression is done at 17Mbps, using updated AVCHD algorithms, and while the resulting quality is still not on par with HDV, compression artifacts are less visible than in previous AVCHD versions. The camcorder can use SD and SDHD cards up to 16 GB.



The resulting images are oversaturated and somewhat lacking in sharpness and color accuracy. Low-light performance is poor, which is to be expected from the tiny sensors. 24 frames-per-second progressive mode causes excessive motion blur and can only be used together with something called “Digital Cinema” color, which is another name for xvYCC, a new color standard for HD. While theoretically this would add depth to the recorded images, in practice it will result in impossible levels of saturation when played back on non-xvYYC compatible television sets.



A 10x zoom lens has a maximum aperture range of F1.8 to F2.8, a 35 mm photography equivalent range between 42.9 and 429 mm, and a great optical image stabilizer. The 2.7-inch widescreen LCD has a good 300,000 pixel resolution. The press of a button lets you switch between three brightness and contrast modes for the LCD.



Manual control is overall better than the competition's, and just plain bountiful - with independent settings for shutter speed (1/60 to 1/8000), aperture (F1.8 to F16), white balance, gain and focus. There is no exposure control, which would fulfill the needs of first-time users. Focus assist is present, but no focus wheel like on Canon's HV20.



The SD9 has a zebra pattern (but the threshold at which it appears is not mentioned) and color bar output.



The face detection feature identifies up to 5 faces in a shot, and adjusts exposure according to the amount of light that is hitting the detected faces. This may prove to be a mixed blessing, depending on the type of light that is in the scene.



A series of features suggests that Panasonic may be moving towards the development of virtual video advisors. “Intelligent Shooting Guide” is supposed to alert you when you're tilting or swinging your comcorder during shooting, and since it's a much-needed and easy to implement function, it will probably catch on. A less exciting 'intelligent' feature affects playback by skipping over shots that it deems to be out of focus or moving too erratically. While this can potentially reduce the time it takes to overview a long recording session – like a birthday party - I wouldn't want my camcorder making decisions over what I get or don't get to see. In keeping with the artificial intelligence theme, “Intelligent Contrast Control” turns the contrast up or down in an attempt to preserve or enhance detail. It is unlikely that it actually influences shadows and highlights separately, like a professional camcorder would.



The SD9's photos are 2.1 megapixels in widescreen format, and can be taken while recording video. While it does not try to impress through extreme photo resolutions, it does offer a mode that captures 25 consecutive 2.1-MB-resolution stills in a second, and can keep shooting for up to three seconds, recording a total of 72 photos.



Panasonic has given the SD9 interesting audio features. There are four microphones that record Dolby Digital 5.1 channel sound (a fifth 'microphone' is rendered digitally), but no input for external mics. A zoom mode focuses the sound in front of the camcorder, near or far. The camcorder can monitor audio levels automatically, or the same can be done manually. In fact, there are separate level settings for all five microphones.



The ports provided on this camcorder are HDMI, video component, USB 2.0, analog out and AV out.