Customer Reviews:
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  It's a great camera December 28, 2004
27 out of 28 found this review helpful
I have owned this camera since July, 2004. I bought it just before we went on our annual family vacation, so it received a lot of use right out of the box. It was relatively easy to set up and start using immediately. The images/quality is great, but also I am using it for capturing family events - not professional. I used the snapshot feature, and it takes a pretty good picture for 1mp, and it's handy to have - although I would generally use my digital camera for snapshots (and now, some video since my camera had video capability also!).
The features of this camera are great, the playback is exceptional. My daughter loves the feature that you can flip the lcd so that the person you are digitizing can see themselves in the lcd, and when I have used the viewfinder during these occasions, and it is very clear and large enough to see.
The zoom is great, although I found that the image is very shaky when zoomed all the way out. I think this is common in most cameras, however.
I think I would have given this camera 5 stars if it were not for the media. What makes the camera very convenient is also one of the more frustrating aspects - but not so much because of the camera, but more because it is somewhat new technology.
I had my first bit of frustration when my DVD-RAM disk ran out and I went to put in a new disk (DVD-R). I had only put in the one disk before, and now I was at a restaurant with no user manual, so I struggled for a while trying to open the disk holder and then trying to remember how it went into the camera. I'm an old pro at it now, but it seemed harder than it had to be (but it could have been those 2 glasses of wine :-)
The next thing you have to figure out is how to get the video on some other sort of media. I was able to drop my dvd-ram disk right into my dvd player and watch it, but now if I want to reuse my dvd-ram, I need to copy it to another medium. I was hoping that the PC would work the same way - but no. I had to hook the camera up to the PC in order to copy the video to the PC, and now I can copy it to a dvd - but I don't think it's a dvd that plays in my dvd player because I had to use a DVD+RW, and my dvd only plays DVD-R/RW. Ok, so that's a PC/dvd compatibility problem, not the camera's fault.
Now, the dvd-r disks from your camera you have to finalize before you can watch them using the dvd player or even read them in the computer. I did not remember this--and it was months from when I copied the dvd-ram video to when I wanted to copy the video I have on the 5 dvd-r disks, so I spent about 2 hours trying to figure out how I could read these dvd-r. Ok - total operater error, but I mention it here so that you won't do the same.
I am now in search of buying more DVD-RAM disks as it seems like they are the easiest with which to deal, and they are re-writeable, but if I don't have the time to move the video (interesting that we use that term - it's not video anymore, right? Should I be calling it digital? Digital movies, I guess.) then I will have another disk to pop in. I'm grateful for the other reviewer who said he used 2-sided disks, because I could not find that information anywhere--and I was afraid to buy the wrong media.
So, my advice is that this camera is definitely worth the money, and it is the way to go if you are going to invest in digital movie camera. I would just suggest that you read up on and familiarize yourself with the different dvd formats, which ones that your dvd player will play, which one your computer will play or burn, and try to get them all in sync - or at least plan out your strategy for moving the digital movies to long-term storage.
 Excellent DVD Camcorder December 11, 2004
38 out of 38 found this review helpful
I've had this camcorder for four months now. My wife and I were going to take our first vacation in a long while. We decided to go to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee and I didn't want to forget this trip so we decided to buy a DVD camcorder.
After researching numerous camcorders including Sony's and Panasonic's, I decided that the Hitachi would be the one. This Hitachi cam is very nice, compact. I have big hands and it is very easy to use, zoom in/out. All the buttons were placed logically where they would be most useful. It is very stylish, people tend to stare at it and ask about it when they see it. I have a new Kodak digital still camera and it is just a bit bigger than it, which is amazing. The optical zoom is excellent and the digital zoom isn't bad but it IS digital and it tends to be pixelated.
I bought six 3" double-sided DVD-RAM disks, because I had a smart plan of never having to run out of space when I needed it. You have to use DVD-RAM to record in X-tra Fine mode and that's all I record in. I get about 17 minutes average recording time on each side the disks. My plan of having six RAM disks was because I never plan to buy any more mini 3" disks as RAM disks are rewritable and these disk won't hold more than an 30 minutes. I knew that all I had to do was record on to the mini disks, transfer them to my computer and combine as much as I can fit onto the larger, cheaper, more dvd player friendly DVD-R's.
The review by marcjacal is mostly about the media, and is mostly incorrect, don't pay attention to it. The media works fine, I can play DVD-RAM's in my computer(I have a drive that reads DVD-RAM). You don't have to buy Maxell, it is just recommended. I bought some no name(Optodisk) disks for fairly cheap($10) and they work perfect. I even accidentally bought the square caddy kind, but it turned out better than I thought because now they are like holders for my disks on trips. I just take round disk out of the square caddy and put in the round caddy that came with the Hitachi.
I have never used the still shot capability, as I have a 4 megapixel still camera for that. If you really want a still from the camcorder and are somewhat tech savvy you can just capture an image from the recorded "film". This will be better quality than a still from the cam if you use the X-tra Fine mode anyway.
This camera has great sound, picks up everything. It does well in lowlight situations and as a previous reviewer stated the sunlight doesn't keep you from viewing the LCD. I use the LCD all the time and it's very cool. I bought a second battery(highly recommended) so it doesn't matter if it sucks the juice faster. It takes about 2 seconds to swap out the battery.
All I have to say in conclusion is that this is an excellent DVD camcorder and I recommend it to anyone looking to jump into this market.
Excelent DVD camera October 14, 2004
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
I 've been using this DVD camcorder for one month already, and it performs very well indoors and outdoors. The picture quality is poor but this is normal for 1MP CCD camera. Colors are very vivid and well distinguished. Using DVD-RAM is easy and so far without any writing/reading errors. The battery life corresponds to the specifications and goes up to 2 hours.
I recommend this camera to everyone who prefers good quality/price.
 Hitachi 550 not 580 July 31, 2004
22 out of 35 found this review helpful
I don't know how many changes have been made in the manufacturing process from model 550. But buyer beware that with the digital media - there are often many errors - like there are when you write a music cd. These write errors cause the data to be lost - I went on vacation and only 4 of the 6 discs I brought were usable after because of random writing errors that occured pretty randomly.
I would recommend waiting for this technology to get the kinks out or going with a different manufacter.
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