i adore it , it is a good camcorder and indeed reading the manual is obligatory , for the price i paid (130 euro second hand) it is extremly good, not too light and also not too heavy to handle. it is yet antoher good product form panasonic and i did not read the manual first but i got started right away.
some may say that this is a low end quality of video well i happen to like it even in bad light it performs well.
the only thing that i dislike is the low reolution of the still images (photos) but that is not what i bought this product for. so this costed a star and now it is four stars.
i like that the screen can be tilted in 180 degrees and several angles.
the setup is traight forward and extremely easy , the jogdial responds very well and other controls are in a hand reach .
i also like the Mega o.i.s stableliser witch functions great .
my hardware is ntsc and pal compatible , i only have it one day but this is yet another digital friend of mine..