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The News -
Camcorders
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Written by Marko
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Monday, 29 October 2007 |
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 The Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1 seems to fulfill the fantasies of many a tech-head: high definition (HD) video at an affordable price. And it does meet the technical requirements of HD, recording at 1280 x 720 at 30 frames per second (fps), also known as 720p. However, the camcorder does not deliver anything near the quality most people would expect from an HD camcorder. We’re here to warn you: the VPC-HD1 is a bad buy.
While the VPC-HD1 captures video and stills to SD cards, an SD card does not ship with the box. We’d recommend buying a 1GB card, at least, which will only hold about 14 minutes of HD video.
Video performance was the clearest indication that the VPC-HD1 is not up to snuff. Despite a large 1/2.5” CCD with 5.36 gross megapixels, the picture could not come close to the sharpness of shots from Sony's HDR-HC1, another, more significantly expensive, consumer HD camcorder. Even worse, the Sanyo could not match the quality of comparatively priced standard definition camcorders. Oversaturation, noise, and sharpness all plagued the Sanyo’s picture.
The VPC-HD1 also captures video in standard definition at 640 x 480. The saturation levels were still very high, and resolution only went downhill. Again, for $800, you could do a whole lot better.
Low light performance was terribly noisy in both SD and HD. Saturation levels were too high and produced uneven color tones. There are worse camcorders in the price class, such as the JVC GZ-MG37, but the VPC-HD1 was far from exemplary.
The VPC-HD1 did not rank highly in our Ease of Use section either. Unlike almost every other consumer camcorder, the Sanyo has neither an Easy mode nor even a clearly defined Auto mode. Newcomers to the video world will be frustrated by the joystick, a terribly foreshortened nub on the rear of the body. It moves in five directions – up, down, left, right, and inwards, the last movement functioning as the “enter” button. Nearly 50% of the time, though, our attempts to move it up, down, left, and right were interpreted as moving it inwards. This is a terribly frustrating process.
Another major handling problem is the menu, which is split into several pages. The VPC-HD1 records stills as well as video, but makes no clear distinction between each mode. Normally, a camcorder would have a switch to toggle between modes and would provide each with its own menu. Here, the menu and manual controls are the same for both. This is true even in situations where still and video manual controls will necessarily be different. For instance, the menu allows you to set the shutter speed as long as 2 full seconds, even though the video, by definition, cannot go any lower than 1/30 of a second. It's impossible to know what the shutter speed really is. Similar problems occur with the ISO settings, which correspond to gain settings.
VPC-HD1 Digital Camcorder
A number of quasi-automatic controls, including multiple focus methods, exposure methods, and a neutral density filter, appear on the VPC-HD1. Fully manual controls include focus, exposure compensation, and aperture and shutter priority modes.
This brings us to the third major handling problem, one which is inexcusable. As you make changes to exposure, shutter speed, and filters, the LCD does not show you how they affect the picture. Unlike every other camcorder, the VPC-HD1 offers no "live view." What does the picture look like with an exposure compensation of +2? Change the setting to +2, hit record, and look at the image. Then hit stop. You cannot see what the changes are without doing this. Sanyo should be ashamed that they brought a product to market without this sort of basic functionality. Still performance, on the other hand, was exceptionally good. This produces our theory that the VPC-HD1 actually uses a still camera’s CCD rather than a camcorder CCD. The stills are very large, by camcorder standards, 2592 x 1944 (5MP), and users take interpolated shots which, although they contain no more information, are twice the size of normal images.
If nothing else, the Sanyo VPC-HD1 shows us why good HD camcorders are not available under $1000 yet. The technology is simply not there. As far as we can tell, the VPC-HD1 is little more than a tricked out camcorder with a still camera chip, shoddily produced in a rush to meet market demands. We don’t doubt that many people will fall for this, drooling at the thought of owning an HD camcorder. You, on the other hand, are now equipped with the knowledge to avoid such traps. Go forth and spread the word. |
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