Great little digital camcorder
Written: Jan 21 '02
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Pros: Solid, small & light, takes great footage, and supports Firewire
Cons: Uh... let me get back to you on that...
The Bottom Line: Buy it now, and join the digital video revolution! (How's that for ringing, melodramatic product endorsement?!)
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| jackmahagauf's Full Review: Panasonic PV-DV900 Mini DV Camcorder |
I’ve written a few reviews here at epinions.com by now, and this is the first one in which, truly, I don’t have a single bad thing to say. The PV-DV900 is a lovely little product. When I bought mine, about eighteen months ago, I paid $700.00 for it. It was a great deal at that price. I see that the resourceful buyer could pick one up now for just over four bills. It’s a steal at that price! I love the DV900. I’ve shot tons of tape of my two kiddies doing all manor of various and sundry kiddie things, and haven’t run into a single problem. Sure, the viewfinder doesn’t swivel up and down. Big deal. So use the color LCD view screen – that’s what it’s there for.
The DV900 has consistently taken great footage in all kinds of lighting conditions and scenarios. The image stabilization feature works fantastically, directly combating the fatigue-induced shakiness that results from holding a camcorder in one position for seventy-five minutes straight while your daughter’s ballet class deftly demonstrates first position, third position, tendue, plie, and so on. The auto focus does an adequate job. The DV900 zooms to thirty-something in optical mode, and up to an astounding 300X in digital zoom mode. Caveat: you can’t use the image stabilization feature while operating in digital zoom mode. So if you’re going to use the DV900’s 300X digital zoom to, say, peek through your distant neighbor’s open window, do yourself a favor and get a decent tripod. I don’t have any particular complaints about the quality of the DV900’s stereo sound capture. It probably wouldn’t pass muster at Industrial Light & Magic, but it works fine for the likes of me. I love being able to review freshly captured footage on the camera’s color LCD monitor.
A couple of the other reviewers have described some difficulty in using the Firewire (IEEE 1394) to work correctly. Up until a couple of months ago, I would have agreed. I, too, had some difficulty getting the 1394 interface to function correctly. Generally, I had no problem pulling video in from the camera. I could not, however, get video footage back up the pipe and onto the camera again. No manner of tweaking, driver updates, different software packages, etc. could get this to work. Until, that is, I installed Windows XP. Since upgrading to XP, I’ve not had a single problem pushing fully edited video presentations back onto the camera. This leads me to believe that the problem was not with the camera itself, but the 1394 driver support and/or software under Windows 98. BTW, I use Adobe Premiere 6.0 for video capture, editing, and pushing video back to the DV900.
There is one thing that kinda’ scares me about the DV900. When I open the bottom of the unit to switch Mini-DV tapes, a small, complex tape carrier mechanism begins whirring with the sound of tiny metal and plastic gears, then slowly advances upward until it pops open, revealing the tape. This mechanism looks and sounds so fragile that I’m afraid to hardly touch it. Maybe it’s not as fragile as it appears, but I’m not taking any chances with my cherished DV900. I know, I said that I wasn’t going to say anything negative about the DV900. And I didn’t, right? I contend that the above was only hypothetically negative. So there! :-p
Once again, I really can’t find a bad thing to say about the DV900. It takes great footage, provides flawless Firewire support (Under Windows XP, that is), and boosts my geek ego to nearly unprecedented levels. If you find one for under $700.00, jump on it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 700
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Epinions.com ID:
jackmahagauf
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Location: Lexington, KY
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 1 member
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