Good camcorder for under $500
Written: Jul 19 '01
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Pros: Pros:
price, quality, size, IEEE 1394
Cons: somewhat noisy, cumbersome menu navigation, my b&w viewfinder doesn't work
The Bottom Line: Buy it and use the money you save to buy Adobe Premiere and a Firewire card for your computer.
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| paulstrovsky's Full Review: Panasonic PV-DV900 Mini DV Camcorder |
After reading and rereading Epinions on DV camcorders, and checking prices, I settled on a refurbished pv-dv900 for 386.65 plus shipping ($20 for express or something) from pcrush.com. I was particularly interested in Panasonic because I have been very impressed with their consistent quality over the years. I was thinking about buying a Canon Elura 2, but it's a bit expensive for my needs.
If you are reading this, you have probably decided that MiniDV is the way to go (as opposed to digital8), and considering this price, you can't go wrong if you are looking for a replacement for your old vhs-c or 8mm video camera.
Video Quality
Actually, I don't think that the video quality is significantly better with this camera than with my friend's Sony Hi8 video camera, or even my old Fisher 8mm (cheap, but decent). While the sharpness and overall look of the video captured on DV seemed only slightly better than that of the 8mm camcorders, I noticed that certain colors, especially natural greens, are incredibly brilliant and lifelike on this camera, while they are dull and boring with the others.
Please keep in mind that I am very picky about things like this and that for normal people the quality of this video camera is doubtlessly better than that of older, bigger, analog models. For everyday home videos, this camcorder is excellent- except for its low-light capabilities.
Although the low-light setting works OK, the picture is still grainy compared to that of the 8mm camcorders I have used.
To the camcorder's credit, the optical zoom is great, although the light-weight of the camera combined with a full-power zoom often result in shaky footage- there is a digital image stabilization function, which works OK, but makes the footage look somewhat strange and unnatural.
Audio Quality
I was so excited when I found out that I could record in 12 bit or 16 bit pcm stereo, and that with the optional remote (Panasonic wants $30 for it, but I bet one could be found for about half that), it is possible to do audio dubbing.
The microphones do their job well, but one must remember that their job is to record ambient sound & voices of subjects being videotaped- not to record CD-quality sound as the "16 bit PCM" catch-phrase would have you believe. But as I said, for everyday videotaping, this is more than adequate.
Firewire Interface
This is by far the coolest thing about MiniDV- by simply connecting the camcorder to a computer with 1 wire, you can do all of your capture and editing through the computer, without having to touch the camcorder. I highly recommend downloading a trial version of Adobe Premiere 6.0 or higher to unleash the full capabilities of this awesome technology.
Last Thoughts on Panasonic PVDV-900
This is a great camera for the money, and I don't know if it would be worth it to pay much more than this for a slight increase in quality (please note that this is speculation, as I have not used higher-end models). If you want a good camcorder that can be used to create home videos with ease, but is also adequate for creating amateur masterpieces, this camcorder is for you.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 386.65
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Epinions.com ID:
paulstrovsky
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Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 2 members
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