Which is best? JVC GZ-MG155US? JVD GZ-MG255US (hybrid)? Panasonic SDR-H18

[MarineMom]

I hear these "Everio" models by JVC are very good and top-rated. I wouldn't have minded paying for the High def hard drive camcorders, but my son won't have high def where he is stationed, so I thought I shouldn't bother (unless all of these high def camcorders can shoot in standard def, too, so he could use that feature?) I guess they can't record in both, huh?

The hybrid model MG255US looked good (liked the idea of both HD and SD card option) but then I read somewhere that the card is ONLY good for STILLS. Is that true? If so, then it is a waste. He has a fantastic Pentax.

The Panasonic got a "Best top 5 Camcorders" from camcorderinfo and it seems to have some very good consumer reviews.

All models are 30GB

Thoughts?

[butachan00]

Greetings. This is my first post on this site! Yay! Anyways, to your question, I recently purchased the Panasonic SDR-H18 in order to take video of my semester abroad in Japan, so I've owned it for about 3 months with frequent use. So far, I have been pretty happy with the video quality that I got from this camera. For the price, I don't think the quality can be beat, but I think that it really depends on what you want to do with the camera. If you don't want to upgrade to a camera that will record in Hi-Def, then I would definitely recommend this camera with one reservation: the editing program that comes with the camera is absolute junk. It makes even simple tasks laboriously difficult, as I experienced first hand when trying to make a documentary film for one of my classes this past semester. Also, the format that the files are in when they come off the camera is Mpeg-2, and so far I haven't been able to find a professional video editing program that will accept this format (I've tried Canopus and Adobe Premiere) I did send a message to Panasonic asking for direction, but since I'm relatively new to the Video editing market, there might be an answer I don't know about. Still, despite the software problems I'm having, I don't regret this buy. Shoots in widescreen with great picture quality, even in the dark, and is generally very easy to use. Hope this rambling helps a bit s