Panasonic HM-TA1 review

At its highest quality setting, the HM-TA1 shoots Full HD video. It’s only the second mini camcorder we’ve seen to do this (after Samsung’s HMX-U10) but here Panasonic keeps the bit-rate down to a manageable 12Mbit/s – so editing it shouldn’t be too much of a chore. Speaking of which, the HM-TA1 is the first camcorder we’ve seen to support Apple’s iFrame standard, with its 960x540 resolution designed to ensure ease of editing.

The view on the camcorder’s 2in display while shooting was a little disappointing. The screen lacks contrast compares to the Flip models, and had a bluish cast in bright sunlight. Thankfully it’s only a limitation of the display, and viewed on a TV the outdoor footage looked stunning.

It tends towards brighter exposures, but stays just the right side of over-exposed. There’s some picture sharpening going on, but the results are great. Objects have cleanly defined edges and so much detail that it makes footage from every other mini camcorder look rather soft. Colours are accurate too, with the bricks on buildings near our offices correctly captured in all their various hues.

Once light levels dip below optimal though, then the 5.33-megapixel sensor starts causing problems. Even 1080p video only needs around 2-megapixels and all those unnecessary extra pixels generate a lot of picture noise. Worse still, all that noise becomes a problem for the video compression, with some ugly artefacts appearing. These sometimes flicker, with detail appearing and disappearing. It’s also darker than the MinoHD overall, with objects appearing in silhouette that the MinoHD resolves into colour. Unusually, there’s a manually controlled LED light for shooting in very dark conditions, handy in nightclubs for example, up to around 2m.

At £135 the HM-TA1 is capable of producing some excellent footage, but only in optimal lighting conditions. As an all-round camcorder the Flip Mino’s footage is less likely to ever offend you. It’s also nicer to hold and use, has built-in memory and an HDMI output. The MinoHD is around £15 more expensive than the HM-TA1, but the price of a memory card will compensate for that difference. If money is a big issue, then the chunkier UltraHD costs around £120 inc VAT.

Mini camcorders are increasingly threatened by HD video modes from digital compact cameras. The key features for their survival are simplicity of use and stylish pocketable designs. In these the MinoHD outdoes the HM-TA1, though this newcomer is still worth considering if you mainly shoot video on sunny summer days.