High performance but entry level model

This camcorder was released in April 05. It is 5th generation by Hitachi who claims to have invented the dvd camcorder. The camera takes regular 3" one side dvd as well as dvd RAM. The dvd RAM cost me $17 at Fry's electronics and can be used over and over and can edit movie in camcorder and record still pictures on the DVD RAM.

Still pictures cannot be recorded on the read only disk but it has a slot for a SD card where the stills are stored.

I decided to get a DVD camcorder because my mini DV by JVC, recording head went bad and cost me almost $300 to fix (I paid $600 for camcorder), then it went bad again and will not fix it obviously.

The dvd camcorder has less moving parts so less should go wrong supposedly. The disk can record 20 minutes in xtra fine resolution and about 30 in fine. Don't bother using standard resolution.

Compared to my mini DV by JVC this is a downgrade. JVC 1/4" ccd, 730A 1/6". 730A does not come with a remote, no built in flash, no flash hot shoe, and no way to download images from camera to PC. The higher priced ones have everything. Downloading from camera is not necessary anymore as can put processed dvd right in cd rom drive and edit video. You need a dvd ram drive to read the dvd ram.

The camera is lightweight weighing about 1 pound. The viewfinder image is not very bright due to very small pixel area. The xtra fine image was sharp and near DV quality. Fine resolution was very good but a bigger CCD would probably make this equivalent to mini DV. This has 16x optical zoom and the higher end has only 10x optical zoom.

It comes with cables to plug into your tv so you can watch the video without having finished filling the disk. Once you process the disk to play in dvd players, you cannot use the disk to record anymore, except for the dvd RAM of course.

The camera turns on quickly and ready to record in a few seconds, comparable to my mini DV. One good thing is, it has a convienent back light button and manual focus button that is easily accessable and I use constantly. In my mini DV I had to hunt through menus to find the backlight and manual focus. Manual focus is necessary when recording in concert hall because unless you are in the first row, the camera will autofocus on the heads in front of you. The bad thing is you cannot manual focus in the viewfinder and have to use the lcd screen which is not magnified so focusing will not be as sharp, but better than autofocus.

The zoom lever is placed at the top of the camera and hard to manipulate with your index finger.

The digital still images are of below average quality and since there is no flash you can forget taking pictures indoors. The resolution is 640x480, lowest on the market. There does not appear to be a frame counter and doesn't show how many pictures you took and can take. I only would use in emergency when my regular digital camera goes dead.

The small battery it comes with seems to last a long time compared to my mini DV. I can easily record one disk on one charge. I ordered a bigger battery on ebay for $30 thinking this would be a power hog. I will get a couple more smaller batteries as lighter to carry and charge lasts long enough. You save power by not having rotating recording head, no motor used to open and close dvd cage.

I chose this over the Sony because the Sony does not use dvd RAM and the 730A has newer technology. The Sony uses their own HAD CCD and is very sharp compared to others.

For $500 it is a good dvd camcorder but if you can afford another $500 get the higher end model with larger ccd.

This is an update 6/13/05. The DVD RAM does not display the video file in a computer DVD RAM drive. Now I know why Sony chose the R/W dvd instead of DVD RAM. Lots of stores including Frys electronics do not even carry dvd ram drives for PC. I got mine at Sams Club for $80. All that shows up is the directory and a couple very small 1k files. The video files is hidden and cannot be read for some reason. Maybe there is no standard for DVD RAM. The reason why I got this thing is because of dvd ram. Therefore you cannot transfer media to PC and make DVD from! Pay $500 more to get download capability, but format may have to be converted, don't know. I will buy a video tv interface card that I can feed the analog output to the input of the card and save it that way. The dvd ram is basically useless in this camcorder.

Another thing is, although the dvd post processing works good and is fast and plays in any dvd player, you cannot edit the video on the PC! It is in vob format and I tried several mpg editors and only partial video loads not all. One editor loads all but cannot edit as different format. What I had to do is buy software that converts the mpg image into AVI then it loads in all editors and you can cut, paste, etc. no problem. Then you have to reencode to MPG and make a new DVD again. The conversion from MPG to AVI takes about 2 hours on a 2.4ghz computer. Mini DV has none of these problems. At least I found a way to edit the video or I would have to return the camera because if you can't edit the video then any digital camera is useless. Unfortunately the ones that can download via usb cost $300 to $500 more.