Lots of features on this high-end camera, but missing what counts

I wanted to replace my analog camcorder with a good quality digital camcorder, and the most important requirement was video quality in 16:9 mode. Somewhere I read that this camcorder was designed with 16:9 mode in mind, so based on that and the rave reviews on hearing how the video quality was so sharp I decided to try it out, i.e., buy it and take it back if it didn't work out.

I had also tried out the Sony DCR-TRV350 and took it back because although it had 16:9 mode, the mode was not steady shot and I wanted steady shot for that mode. This camera had optical stabilization which I have read is much better than any electronic steady shot, so I was eager to try it out.

I took some videos indoors and outdoors and thought it had poorer low-light performance than the Sony, a lot of graininess but it was adequate. Outdoors in full sunlight on a clear day, it had great color, probably even slightly richer colors than real life, no graininess, and very good sharpness. It was slightly sharper than the Sony, and the colors were more intense and looked nicer. However, the 16:9 mode produced a video that was not proportionally accurate and made everything seem slightly fat. My wife also agreed that the color was great, but she noticed even before I did that everyone looked fatter in the 16:9 mode. It wasn't much, and my TV could actually somewhat correct for that if I put my TV in "theater-1" mode, but I didn't like that so I took it back.

There are two 16:9 modes, one being a progressive mode that I also tried out. I envisioned a progressive mode as being somewhat sharper, but the first thing I noticed was that the image in the viewfinder now looked letter-boxed, rather than the full-screen but squished look with the previous 16:9 mode. When I played it back, it looked like a letter-boxed video in 4:3 mode; however, it looked proportionally correct. The picture quality was good although I thought it was slightly less sharp than the other 16:9 mode, and I saw sidebars to the left and right and top and bottom of the video. I could expand it on my 16:9 TV to fill up the whole screen, but that mode was designed to show a letter-box video on a 4:3 TV only. This mode can give the video a movie-like appearance because the frame rate approaches a movie, but I don't need that.

Also, I tried out the still shot. It comes with a memory chip, so I put the chip in and set the camera to it's fine setting and highest resolution. The picture quality in that mode under sunny outdoor lighting was very grainy and poor quality, not like a digital camera at all. I think it would blow up to a 5x7 somewhat nicely but not an 8x10.

On the plus side, the audio was excellent, and I could really hear the stereo from cars passing by. Also, the motor hum was very quiet and hardly noticeable unless you really listened for it.

I don't know if it was just my camera or if all the Panasonic DV953's had this same problem with the 16:9 mode not being proportionally correct because I took it back and didn't try another. If it wasn't for the 16:9 mode looking slightly fat on my HDTV, I probably would have bought it.