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  • Introduction

  • Design & Usability

  • Features

  • Performance

  • Conclusion

  • Science Introduction

  • Color Perfomance

  • Low Light Performance

  • Motion, Sharpness, and Image Stabilization

  • Introduction
  • Design & Usability
  • Features
  • Performance
  • Conclusion
  • Science Introduction
  • Color Perfomance
  • Low Light Performance
  • Motion, Sharpness, and Image Stabilization

Introduction

Design & Usability

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New touchscreen LCD simplifies the user experience, but it’s not something that everyone will love.

The HC-V500M is a bit larger and heavier than its predecessor (the HDC-TM40), but the new model does feel better in the hand. Its larger body means less clutter with buttons and controls, as well as more space for a larger LCD (3-inch instead of 2.7-inches on the TM40). Panasonic eliminated the d-pad that appeared on the TM40 last year and replaced it with a touchscreen interface, which contributes to the V500M’s stylish, streamlined looks. Panasonic also rearranged some of the button and connector layouts, primarily moving the SD card slot to the bottom of the camcorder.

The HC-V500M's larger body means less clutter and a larger LCD.

Incorporating a touchscreen interface on the V500M is certainly the camcorders biggest change from a design and usability perspective. Most entry-level users should enjoy working with the touchscreen, as it is an interface people are generally comfortable with these days. But the screen isn't perfectly responsive—it's nowhere near as good as an iPhone screen—and that may bother those who get frustrated easily. As long as you lower your expectations a bit, and don't expect the V500M to be a top-notch handler, then your experience with the camcorder should be adequate.

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Features

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The V500M offers nearly as many controls as a high-end camcorder. There's just no good way to adjust them.

The Panasonic HC-V500M has a lot of features, both of the manual and advanced variety. It’s an impressive set for a budget camcorder, and the suite of controls is eerily similar to Panasonic’s flagship HC-X900M. One of the strongest new features is the inclusion of a 1080/60p record mode—a feature that was previously limited to Panasonic’s top-line models. The camcorder also has aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and manual focus control, just like its big-brother, the HC-X900M. The main difference, however, is that the V500M doesn’t have a great way to set all these controls. You have to use the touchscreen interface instead of a dial or ring like you get on flagship models.

Performance

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It's not the best low light camcorder in this price range, but the V500M put up better-than-average numbers in motion, color, and sharpness.

The HC-V500M isn’t going to blow you away with its video performance, but for a budget camcorder, it did quite well in our tests. The colors were vibrant and accurate in bright light, the motion performance was decent, and even the sharpness results weren’t too bad. In low light, the color rendering was still fairly good, although the camcorder’s sensitivity was not up to snuff.

You can't do much better than this for under 500 bucks.

This means you may have trouble getting a decent image when shooting at dusk or indoors without much artificial light. If you want the best in image quality, the V500M will disappoint, but its performance-to-price ratio is very good. You can't do much better than this for under 500 bucks.

Conclusion

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The Panasonic HC-V500M builds its reputation from its extensive set of controls and features.

The Panasonic HC-V500M is a fine entry-level camcorder, and it has plenty of updates over the previous HDC-TM40. But Panasonic failed to improve the V500M’s low light capabilities, and that marks the camcorder’s biggest weakness. Still, if you’re looking for a sub-$500 camcorder with a lot of controls and decent image quality, then you’ve come to the right place. The HC-V500M has more full-fledged manual settings than the competition from Canon, Sony, and JVC in this price range.

Of course, the HC-V500M isn’t dirt cheap. You still have to spend between $300 – $500 to own this model, which is a lot when you consider last year’s HDC-TM40 from Panasonic is still available online for less than $200. The new V500M does have many design improvements, though, including a 3-inch touchscreen and a 1080/60p record mode. This new record mode helps the V500M capture sharper images and better motion than its predecessor.

If performance is of utmost importance, then this is not a good option.

If performance is of utmost importance to you, then the V500M is not a good option. Sony and Canon’s entry-level models are better, and for just a bit more cash you can upgrade to a mid-range camcorder (like Panasonic's own HC-V700M) that will surely outdo the HC-V500M in terms of image quality. The real benefit of the HC-V500M is its controls—few other entry-level models give you full access to shutter speed, aperture, gain, focus, and white balance like Panasonic does, and the camcorders image stabilization mode was one of the best we've seen all year.

Science Introduction

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This can't be hammered in enough: the HC-V500M is a budget camcorder, and that means it is not capable of doing everything well in terms of video performance. It does enough stuff well, however, to earn our recommendation over other budget models. The V500M shot some impressive clips in bright light, and colors stayed strong in low light as well. Motion and sharpness were, eh, not quite as good, and the low light sensitivity was supremely disappointing. If you want to primarily shoot in low light with your new camcorder, don't buy the V500M.

Color Perfomance

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Strong color accuracy is made even better by manual controls for color depth.

If you've paid attention, you should know that the HC-V500M's real benefit compared to other budget models is its multitude of controls and features. These controls don't make too much of a difference in terms of our testing performance, but they do play a role. Look at color, for example. The HC-V500M had good color accuracy, with a 3.82 color error score, and its images had excellent vibrancy, with an 81.3% saturation level. But what if you want more saturation? Or what if you want less? The HC-V500M's manual color depth mode allows for that, conveniently letting the user bump saturation up or down on a +/-5 interval scale.

This can particularly help in low light, where the V500M had a lower saturation level that hovered around 62%. Colors looked murky and dim compared to our bright light test, mostly because the V500M simply didn't produce an image bright enough for its colors to truly pop in low light. Boosting the saturation levels can help a bit, though, and there's something special about giving the user access to these kinds of options.

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Low Light Performance

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The HC-V500M wasn't lousy in all our low light tests, but this is not a well-rounded camcorder for dimly lit situations.

The V500M didn’t do well in our low light sensitivity test, especially when using a bit of optical zoom in order to frame our test chart properly. The camcorder required 40 lux of light to capture a video image deemed bright enough for broadcast, which is far worse than the competition. The Panasonic TM40 required only 25 lux of light to hit the same levels on our waveform monitor, and the Canon HF R21 needed just 12 lux of light.

Using the camcorder’s widest aperture setting (without using any zoom), the V500M reached the same light levels with just 16 lux of light. This is a huge improvement, but it’s still not a great score. Overall, the HC-V500M produced below average results in this test—even compared to similarly-priced budget models.

Noise levels were a better story, with the HC-V500M measuring just around 1.0% noise in our low light tests. This is statistically identical to the noise levels measured on last year's Panasonic TM40. Color and saturation were mediocre in low light, but the camcorder didn't do much worse than the competition. Color error measured at 4.9 and saturation was a low 62%. Both of these middle-of-the-road scores represent a significant drop from the V500M's bright light color results.

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Motion, Sharpness, and Image Stabilization

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Shockingly good image stabilization and improved motion thanks to the 1080/60p record mode.

The Panasonic HC-V500M can record Full HD video at a 60p or 60i frame rate, but both modes resulted in lower sharpness levels than similarly-priced camcorders. With its 60p mode, this Panasonic managed a horizontal sharpenss of 600 lw/ph and a vertical sharpness of 625 lw/ph. These numbers aren’t terrible—they are better than those the Panasonic TM40 produced last year—but they are worse than what the Canon HF R21 and Sony HDR-CX160 managed to capture.

On the other hand, motion improved, thanks to the 60p record mode. There was some noticeable artifacting and color bleeding in our test, but the camcorder's motion results were strong for the most part. There was some focus popping during our test, which is an issue seen on many budget models. Essentially what this means is that certain moving objects in our test would pop in and out of focus, usually as the subjects moved from the background into the foreground.

Panasonic camcorders have produced some of the best scores in our stabilization tests over the last couple of years, and the HC-V500m continues that trend. The camcorder offers optical image stabilization (OIS), as well as a mix between optical and electronic stabilization (called Hybrid IS). Both modes produced excellent results. The regular OIS setting improved the stabilization in our low shake test by 87% and improved things in our high shake test by 83%. The hybrid IS setting did even better: it reduced the shake by 88% in our low shake test, and handled our high shake test with an 86% reduction. These numbers are not only better than last year’s Panasonic TM40, but they’re also better than Panasonic’s flagship 2012 camcorder, the HC-X900. It’s one of the best stabilization performances we’ve seen, especially from a budget camcorder.

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Meet the tester

Jeremy Stamas

Jeremy Stamas

Managing Editor, Video

@nematode9

Jeremy is the video expert of our imaging team and Reviewed.com's head of video production. Originally from Pennsylvania and upstate NY, he graduated from Bard college with a degree in film and electronic media. He has been living and working in New England since 2005.

See all of Jeremy Stamas's reviews

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