Panasonic PV-GS31 Mini DV Camcorder

I bought an open box unit 2 days ago from Best buy for $311 and they tossed in a 3 pack of DV tape as we thought it was missing the remote control, CD and something else that was pictured in the manual. It turns out nothing was missing but the GS-35 model had those extra items and that was explained in the fine print in the manual below the drawing of the included items. When I got home and reread the manual, I did feel a bit like a thief. It was a last minute decision as we had chosen another unit and it was definitely missing several items when we checked. Always check open box items very carefully. I really wanted an open box item as Best Buy allows you to return open box items without a penalty in the first two weeks. Items sold as Unopened box items get charged a 15% restocking fee. Since this was my first video camera and had half of the features I thought I wanted I wanted to try it out, learn something, and then move up without paying a penalty. My biggest concern was that if I was going to spend the time and money doing videos of my travels I wanted them to be top quality ... something I might be able to sell. I dream of a motorcycle/back packing trip across all of Asia with a Laptop, and a cam corder and a high speed internet connection to send out my video.

The manual ... is really poorly laid out. I wanted an IEEE-1394 unit and after looking at the manual for 20 minutes I never saw any mention of that or firewire or anything related. The GS-31 does have IEEE-1394 and software can control the camera when in the VTR mode. The USB2 connection gave steady clean 320x240 video for web cam use. I was pleased with both of those. I have yet to learn if the camcorder can be used as a camera only with the digital data going to my laptop as the recorder. In the VTR mode - as expected 4 minutes takes up 1 gigabyte of hard disk space in the DV 720x480 mode. 16 minutes per gigabyte in the 350x240 mode.
the camcorder does great in strong light ... IEEE-1394 control of video capture from tape and USB2 streaming video. It has a built in video light. My wife really likes the camera so we may keep it. Image edges tear when doing a pan, using the built-in light seems to downgrade the camera's image quality. Focusing and exposure correction seem to take longer in low light levels. Maybe this is typical of 1 pound cameras. THE POWER SUPPLY can not charge a battery and run the camera at the same time ... Shame on you Panasonic. Also the light on the charger goes out when the battery is fully charged and is green when charging ... My first day with the camera I had it on the power cord and thought I was charging the battery ... I went out to take my first pix and the battery lasted 10 seconds after what I thought was an all night charge. Then I tried to decide how to handle the problem ... what was wrong battery or charger? User problem - not reading and properly interpreting the instructions. If the camera cable is plugged into the charger, the charger does not charge. Panasonic should have two lights on a charger that sells for $67. One red for not ready to use - charging and one green for ready to use. Also ... the software to use the USB is not in the box you have to down load it at an address given in the manual which isn't correct. After I has wasted an hour on their website, I jumped through the hoops to write customer service and only then did I get sent to a new help area where I was able to download the right software ... after hours of frustration. It would have only cost Panasonic 50 cents to include a CD with nice sales info, a picture tutorial on using the camera and some nice software including the the different drivers I needed for Windows ME, Win2K and XP.