Posted on: Tuesday, December 23, 2003

DVD camcorders cost top dollar for straight-to-disc convenience

By Elliot Spagat
Associated Press

With DVD players in about half of U.S. households, the idea makes sense.

Why shouldn't camcorders record directly onto a blank DVD, sparing users the trouble of transferring images from a tape to a computer hard drive and then to a disc?

Sony has joined Hitachi and Panasonic in offering DVD camcorders. Hitachi was first, in 2000, and is on its third try. Panasonic jumped in last year, and Sony's models began shipping in October.

Their pitch: just shoot, pop out the disc, drop it into a DVD player and hit play.

Well, almost. The 3-inch discs must be "finalized" before they can be shown on a DVD player, a fairly simple exercise that entails following a few prompts and usually takes only a few minutes.

The convenience comes at a hefty price. All three manufacturers offer models for $900. Hitachi also has one for $1,000, with sharper images in the built-in still camera and a color viewfinder. Sony has models for $1,000 and $1,100.

Compare that to the many high-quality digital camcorders for under $600 using other formats, such as Mini-DV tapes, and you may want to wait a year or two for prices to fall.

Another drawback is the limited editing features. You can delete or rearrange cuts, but for more creative work, like blending scenes and adding music, files must be transferred to a hard drive, just like Mini-DV tapes and other formats available at much lower prices.

I tried the Sony DCR-DVD300 ($1,100) and the Hitachi DZMV380A ($1,000). Both higher-end models offered comparably sharp pictures on my Gateway DVD player.

Both had 10x optical zoom lenses. Both advertise between 20 minutes recording time on a single-side disc for the highest-quality images to 60 minutes for the lowest-quality images.

Both come with rechargeable lithium batteries that last for about 60 minutes of running time. Both capture 1-megapixel still images, no great achievement considering that still cameras offer much sharper resolution at a fraction of the cost.

Now for some differences.

The Sony is much bulkier at one pound, 12 ounces. The Hitachi was nine ounces lighter and easier to hold, an improvement over previous models.

The high-end Sony featured a 3.5-inch LCD color monitor, compared with 2.5 inches on its less expensive offerings and on the Panasonic and Hitachi models.

Both use DVD-R discs, which cost about $8 a pop but record only once. But for in-camera editing, you need rewritable disks. Sony takes DVD-RW discs, which cost about $12 each. Hitachi (as well as Panasonic) uses DVD-RAM, costing about $20 apiece.

The question of DVD-RW versus DVD-RAM — the result of a standards battle being waged by consumer electronics companies — is important for a few reasons.

First, a DVD drive or player may read neither format or may read only one.

Second, if you want to transfer files to a computer for editing, the quickest way is to make sure your computer reads the particular disc format. That way, you can just pop the disc onto the drive. Otherwise, you must transfer the file through a USB 2.0 cable that runs from the camcorder to the computer. You must also install software.

Then again, neither camcorder is for video-editing enthusiasts, even though they include rudimentary editing software.

On the contrary, it's for people willing to pay top dollar for the simplicity of popping an unedited disc straight from the camcorder into a DVD player.