 | HD Video Camera Store Navigation | |
|
|
| |
| Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2 7.1MP MPEG4 High Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom | 
 enlarge
| Brand: Sanyo
Category: Photography
List Price: $731.26
Buy New: $589.99
You Save: $141.27 (19%)
Buy New from $589.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  (47 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2491
Media: Electronics
Optical Zoom: 10
Display Size: 2.2
Maximum Focal Length: 63
Minimum Focal Length: 6.3
Has Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 7.1 x 4.8
MPN: VPC-HD2
Model: VPC-HD2
UPC: 086483066498
EAN: 0086483066788
ASIN: B000M51NOU
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
 So so... I wish the external microphone was decent November 28, 2007
Pros:
-Very easy to work with, editable and small mpeg4 files. Great for posting stuff on the internet. Avid or FCP users don't need to capture footage from dv tapes; they just need to import the quicktime files, which is faster.
-Good daytime quality with HD mode
-Small Size
-A few external (but expensive) lenses available
-Decent (though somewhat grainy) pics
-records onto sd cards, which can be 8gb
Cons:
-grainy, significantly worse quality in low light
-As has been noted by many other hd2 users, there is an inherent problem with this camcorder's external audio. External mics, including expensive ones, produce an ugly electrical noise, which seems to be a magnification of the slight electrical noise that one hears in the normal recordings of the internal mic.
- tripod socket made out of plastic instead of metal
- difficulties zooming in and out slowly, though this may vary depending on your luck. My first Hd2 (which I returned due to another problem) was indeed able to zoom in and out relatively slowly. The new one I got can't do the same.The hd2's relatively cheap construction means that the viability of some functions is fortuitous. If you know how to work with avid or FCP you'll be able to add an effect to slow down the zoom, but most people wouldn't want to go through the trouble.
-slow to focus. Even my cheaper and smaller sd-card mini camcorder, the samsung sc-mm10 (which has a 10x zoom) is faster to focus. On the bright side, the Hd2's fixed auto focus does help maintain the focus.
-may look like a gun, especially with an external lens. If you like to record the police, this little camera may give you problems.
Overall, I'd say that the most important change this camera needs is decent external audio. Audio is 50% of your production. If this thing had good external audio I would have given it 5 stars, because it would be a good bargain for the price. I'd like to know what the engineers think is causing the problem. I do know that small gadgets can record good external audio. For example, when I use an external mic with my tiny WS-100 Olympus digital voice recorder I get excellent sound.
Disappointing. November 12, 2007
I previously owned a Samsung Mini-DV camera which is about 4 years old. The poor thing died after many trips to the beach and so forth so I was faced with replacing it. I figured I would "get with the times" and look for a tapeless model.
The Sanyo Xacti HD2 is very easy to use, makes transferring video to a computer much easier, and has a great form factor; however, unless you are standing in bright sunlight, the picture looks worse than my Mini-DV camera. Stills are the same. Great pictures outdoors in the sunlight, but horrible indoors.
This is the perfect camera for outdoor vacations (beach, theme parks, etc...), but not good at all for inside the house shots.
 Great things come in small packages November 3, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I own a high end 3 CCD HD video camcorder, but, in our plans to travel abroad at the end of this year, transporting a large HD camcorder is not in the plan and I wanted an all-in-one for both stills and video rather then bring both a still and video digital camera. I needed something very compact that I could use to get very good still images as well as clear HD video using a common format (MPEG4) that I could easily edit on my PC or MAC. Almost all of the digital still cameras out there that offer video too don't produce video quality like a dedicated video camera, I looked at reviews for a couple of compact HD camcorders and decided to try the HD2 because of it's small profile, it's bright LCD display which "gains up" to allow good viewing even in bright outdoor light (there is no viewfinder so if the LCD can't be viewed outside/bright light, the camera is useless for that situation), best of both worlds (still and video),, plenty of adjustments and customizing in the menu and the ability to store an hour or more of video and many still images on one SDHC or standard SD card. I considered that after trying the HD2, I'd be disappointed and return it to continue to look for something better. It just looked too small to be able to do well for video as well as stills. Well, after using it this week (several hours) and putting it through a variety of shooting tests, I'm very impressed. Like many other video cameras out there, they need sufficient light to produce the best video and this camera is no different. In viewing images on our 47" Sharp HD TV shot on a bright overcast day, the video is superb, colors saturated and accurate and most of all, images are very sharp. I was amazed such a small package can produce such great images. The HD2 also has a very in-depth menu and allows a lot of options and changes to suit a variety of shooting situations as well as manual over-ride of exposure, white balance and other parameters. It also has an incredible "super-macro" setting allowing focus down to about 4 inches from the lens at the wide-angle position of the zoom. Stills I took on some indoor plants using Super-macro resolved every detail. The flash at this position does NOT burn out your image and the light is very well controlled unlike many other digital camera that often burn out image highlights when shooting very close up. You'll get great shots using the flash for extreme close-ups. For distance shots, no problems there either. Still images from the HD will not disappoint and are sharp and well exposed, just be sure to use the higher resolution settings to be fair on evaluating the still image quality. There's also a 16:9 wide screen still setting which yields about a 5mp image, very cool to view on your HD TV and fill the entire screen instead of the 4:3.. There's many editing options in the camera including the ability to crop an image, and then save that cropped images as a new JPEG. Neat! I haven't used it yet, but, I believe you can also grab a still frame from video (in pause) and store it as a JPEG on the SD/SDHC card as well! The battery seems to offer long life, but, it's smart to always carry a spare (memory card too). I purchased an 8Gb SDHC card from Amazon and probably could use only that card to record the entire trip. The camera also uses standard SD cards and with limited use of the non-HC cards I have (Standard SD), I saw no change in performance, although there may be read and write speed gains using the HC card (time will tell). Bottom line is I'm very satisfied with my purchase of the HD2. No complaints at all and in fact, I'm quite surprised how good the images are from such a very small package. It will be a delight to tuck this into a pocket or small carry case during our trip. Well done Sanyo!
I'm an AMAZON fan all the way, and have found that typically they beat any other price, ship very promptly and offer excellent customer service. Go PRIME if you plan to buy from Amazon on a regular basis. What you will pay for a PRIME annual membership will save you far more then that in FREE 2 day shipping or one day/over-night for either 3.99 or if near end of week, (it drops to) $1.99 per item. I've often ordered end of the week and had the order at my door the next day for $1.99. GO PRIME! GO AMAZON!
 Great Little Camcorder October 23, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is the perfect camera for our outdoor activities. Awesome picture! Don't bother if you want to use it inside though, it needs a lot of light to really give you the best picture. This was our choice because of the HD and mostly because it uses a memory card which is super easy to pop into our computer! This camcorder is really rugged, too! I recommend the extra battery and an extra memory card for convenience sake.
Great purchase! October 14, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a great camcorder! I have been using it to film scenes from the Academy. Does a great job outdoors but inside with low lighting, the picture gets a little dull.
|
|
|
The Discount HD Video Camera Store From Aeronautic Pictures. | | |
