Looking Back on 2003: A year of Innovation

by Robin Liss

Published on Dec 30, 2003 12:00 AM
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2003 was a big and exciting year year for the camcorder industry. We saw many new technologies introduced including consumer HD and tapeless camcorders. We also saw manufacturers pushing the price points of their model lines down and a shifting of the industry dynamics. It was a year of change and new things for the world of camcorders.

The year kicked off with the Consumer Electronics Show and the introduction of many innovative products. Possibly the biggest news of the year was JVC's introduction of the first consumer High Definition capable camcorder, the GR-HD1, which they first teased at CES and announced about two weeks later. The GR-HD1 hit the market a few months later. It was an interesting first try, though most people consider the camcorder a flop because of it's poor low light performance. JVC's other consumer camcorder introductions at CES didn't make much news. In September, we saw the announcement of the HDV High Definition camcorder standard. The standard, which uses similar technology as the GR-HD1, was adopted by JVC, Sharp, Canon and Sony. We haven't seen any HDV camcorders yet.

The other major news out of CES was Panasonic's three CCD camcorder for under $1,500, the PV-DV953 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $899.88). The PV-DV953 comes packed with features and proved to be a quality camcorder, arguably the best model of the year for price and performance - moving CamcorderInfo.com to name it the CamcorderInfo.com SuperCam of 2003. The 953 not only proved itself in the lab, but in the stores, becoming a big seller for Panasonic. Panasonic also announced the PV-DV53 (Review, Specs, $199.06) which would turn out to be a great bargain buy. A few months later at the Photo Marketing Association Convention, Panasonic broke the $1,000 three chip camcorder barrier with the announcement of the PV-GS70, a smaller, scaled down version of the PV-DV953. With these introductions, in 2003 Panasonic emerged as the leading manufacturer for quality, feature packed camcorders with good manual control at a bargain price.

Sony completely revamped their camcorder model line at CES, introducing 15 new camcorders, including three DVD models. Although Panasonic and Hitachi have had DVD models in their lines for years, Sony's announcement got lots of attention - the move signaled a year where Sony would move away from concentrating on the hobbyist user towards the consumer, placing ease of use over control. Sony followed with a big marketing campaign for the DVD camcorders this holiday season and they've been flying off the shelves. We also saw a major change in the Sony line with the introduction of touch screens to all their MiniDV models. Sony also pulled away from the popular Digital8 format by reducing the number of current Digital8 models from five to two.

Canon didn't make much news at CES, updating their ZR line. However, the followed during the next half of the year with the introduction of four different Optura models, the 10, 20, Xi and 300. We haven't seen anything new out of Canon's higher end line, which hopefully means we'll see new version of the XL1S and the GL2 in 2004.

At the National Association of Broadcasters, Panasonic previewed some professional quality flash based camcorders. At NAB Canon also made news hinting about the features of their replacement for the XL1S.

Towards the end of the summer, Sony did their midyear line update announcing two new camcorders, the DCR-PC330 (Review, Specs, $599) and the DCR-IP1 at a showy luncheon in New York. The DCR-PC330 includes a large, 1/3 in. chip producing 3 Megapixel pictures, however Sony didn't translate that large CCD size into improved low light quality. The DCR-IP1 broke new ground in the small size category, however, there were also rumors of Sony abandoning the ultra compact and unsuccessful MicroMV format.

We saw the introduction of flash memory based MPEG2 and MPEG4 camcorders with the entrance of new manufacturers into the camcorder market. The computer manufacturer Gateway introduced the tiny MPEG4 DV-S20. Pretec, a digital camera maker introduced the DV4200, also recording in MPEG4. Fisher Scientific, a division of Sanyo, announced the FVD-C1 MPEG 4 camcorder as well. Panasonic, the only major manufacturer to enter the MPEG4 tapeless camcorder arena, updated their D-Snap line with the SV-AV100, which some would argue was the first serious entry into this market.

The Sony DSR-PD150 might possibly win the award for biggest camcorder media star of the year. When the television networks needed a durable and high quality camcorder in Iraq, the PD150 was the choice of almost everyone. When the US Army needed footage of Saddam Hussein's arrest to broadcast to the world, they relied on a DSR-PD150. Another major event for the DSR-PD150, was it's replacement. In the fall, Sony replaced both the DSR-PD150 with the DSR-PD170 (Review, Specs, $2579) and the DCR-VX2000 with the DCR-VX2100 (Review, Specs, $1980). The VX2000 and the PD150 were hugely popular camcorders and so their replacement was a major event, however many users were disappointed with the less than plentiful upgrades.

It was also a big year for CamcorderInfo.com itself. We were mentioned in the summer in the New York Times in a column about buying a camcorder online. The web site was also mentioned on TechTV and on Slashdot, the technology web site. With our first reviews of 2003, we introduced the CamcorderInfo.com camcorder rubric, which we now use on every camcorder review. This holiday season, along with our sponsor B&H we introduced the first comprehensive side-by-side video and low light comparison of all the consumer camcorders on the market. Towards the end of the year, we redesigned the site to be more user friendly and visually appealing. Our traffic nearly doubled throughout 2003, with CamcorderInfo.com reaching between 500,000 and 600,000 visitors each month. The message boards and users group community expanded with the number of users and posts more than doubling this year alone. We've expanded our news operation with more comprehensive news coverage and we're reviewing more products now.

Overall we saw two types of innovation in the industry, the first was technological. The HD camcorders and tapeless camcorders, although not up to the quality of MiniDV models currently on the market, were a good first try and a preview of things to come. The other type of innovation we saw was in pricing. Panasonic gets credit for being incredibly 'innovative' introducing a line full of good bargains. Canon aggressively pushed the price down on their ZR line, breaking the $350 barrier in some stores. It was a great year, and hopefully we'll see more of that innovation in 2004.