AValive carries this great camera here: AValive.com
At last April's NAB, Panasonic introduced what it calls “the world's smallest professional 3CCD high-definition camcorder,” the 1.1lb. AG-HSC1U. This miniature HD camcorder, about the size of a lens handgrip on a full-sized 2/3in. camcorder, is about as small as a camcorder can get, hardly wider than its lens diameter or longer than its 16:9 flip-out display.
But that's only half of what captured my attention at first. Three other outstanding features leapt out too: remarkable industrial design, an inviting user interface, and flash-based tapelessness. Not just any tapelessness, mind you, but long-GOP MPEG-4 — this being Panasonic, after all, champion of intraframe DVCPRO HD and AVC-Intra — captured to a single-slotted SD card, the postage-stamp-sized memory popular in digital still cameras and cell phones.
As if James Bond miniaturization and no moving parts weren't enough, there's more: uncompressed HDMI output as an alternative to USB video file transfer. A battery-powered SD card reader with a 40GB hard drive that stores the contents of 10 4GB SD cards in the field. A list price of $2,099, which implies online street prices of less than $2,000.
All this sounds too good to be true, but for once, it isn't. While there are significant caveats, which I'll describe below, the bottom line is that this cute, friendly HD camcorder is a great second camera.
Years ago when many of us shot more 16mm than we do now, it was common to augment your Arriflex 16 SR or Aaton kit with a wind-up Bolex. Many indelible, off-the-cuff documentary moments — seen from the window of a traveling automobile, for instance — which would otherwise have been lost because the main camera was packed away, were instead “grabbed” because a compact Bolex was at hand. Bolex cutaways always blended seamlessly.
The HSC1U nicely steps into this role. It's not a main camera or an ‘A’ camera, and it wouldn't pretend to be. There's no viewfinder. No headphone jack despite an external mic mini jack, and limited audio control. The beauty of the HSC1U lies elsewhere: Tape it to a hockey stick for a puck's point-of-view. Place it inside a jar being opened; slide it down a drainpipe; bolt it to a skateboarder's helmet; set it on the ground for a rat's-eye perspective 1.5in. high. When you're done, slip it in the pocket of your Schott motorcycle jacket, as I did.
The HSC1U's sleek, symmetrical design is so minimalist, so 21st-century, I'd nominate it for The Museum of Modern Art's design collection. The recording start/stop button and mode selection dial at the rear are coaxial with the barrel of the body and the lens, suggesting a bullet shape. An artful concept, it pleases the eye and feels solid to the hand. The 12X Leica Dicomar zoom, masked for 16:9 and recessed (no lens hood needed), incorporates a protective outer shutter that automatically opens and closes when the HSC1U is turned on and off. With only nine switches and buttons — LCD brightness, auto/manual, mode selection dial, zoom, still photo, recording start/stop, menu on/off, menu joystick, and trash button — it relies on its bright, sharp 16:9, 251,000-pixel flip-out LCD for both viewing and control.
With most camcorders, accessing the controls by LCD is a prescription for high blood pressure, but the HSC1U's superior design extends to its graphic user interface. That's right, a GUI, just like any other up-to-date computer — only the HSC1U uses a five-position mini joystick (up, down, right, left, center) instead of a mouse to navigate. And what a pleasure to use: The LCD controls are fast, animated, and colorful. Manual adjustment of iris, focus, shutter, white balance, and mic input levels are remarkably simple using the joystick, and there's even an information mode (marked by a small “I” in a circle) that explains how some of the functions operate.
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