Hitachi DZ-HS300A Camcorder Reviewby John NeelyPublished on May 2, 2007 4:00 PM
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Ease of Use (5.0)
The HS300A (Review, Specs, $0) is easy to use if you like heavy doses of inconvenience on a daily basis. Switching back and forth between the convoluted menu button configuration and LCD or viewfinder wastes time and storage space. In addition, that cheap little patch of image adjustment buttons embedded in the LCD cavity doesn’t even come close to the degree of convenience offered by Panasonic’s rear-mounted joystick or Canon’s LCD joystick design. Unless you memorize each individual button placement, you will constantly be fumbling through these dense clusters of ancillary buttons and controls.
The playback features become a labyrinth for anything more advanced than playing and dubbing. Even deleting clips is difficult. By pressing the disc navigation button in DVD, HDD, or SD mode, you can scroll through thumbnails representing recorded footage or stills for SD. In addition, files can be transferred right to a computer without the need to capture within an editing program. This is fast and convenient, but the quality will still be less than 1/3 of MiniDV. Dubbing footage from the hard drive onto a DVD disc is done by simply pressing the Dubbing button. This is where all those random buttons come in handy, but we wish Hitachi had poured more thought into the configuration and ergonomics of their placement.
Handling (3.5)
Hitachis of the past few years have handled on par with other consumer camcorders in some respects. The tall, horizontal design makes for good stability during hand held operation, and the zoom slider and Record/Start/Stop buttons are all functional and comfortable enough. What differentiates the DZ-HS300A (Review, Specs, $0)’s handling from most other camcorders is that Hitachi continues to place the main menu and manual control interface inside the LCD cavity. Other manufacturers have moved away from this design because buttons in the cavity are simply difficult to access while shooting. Any design that positions important controls facing the shooter – either on the LCD or on the back of the body – offers easier access and operation.
When major controls face sideways, you are forced to operate the controls by touch and memory, making the 90 degree adjustment in your head, or position your head so that you can see both the screen and the controls. To make matters worse, the buttons inside the cavity are not raised from the surface so making selections by touch alone is virtually impossible. This camcorder combines two popular convenience-oriented formats with a control interface that is terribly inconvenient, and the result is a device that takes one step forward and two steps back. It’s also a disservice to offer buyers looking for an easy to use camcorder an awkward design that every other manufacturer on the market left behind two years ago.
Now we’ll step down off the soapbox and acknowledge that a DVD-HDD hybrid does offer a level of flexibility that some buyers will find valuable. This camcorder allows dubbing of footage from the HDD to DVD, and a button on the left hand side above the LCD cavity is dedicated to this purpose. Although the 8GB HDD is smaller than those found on HDD-only camcorders, its capacity is larger than a DVD, thus enabling in-the-field archiving when the drive fills up. Anyone who has been frustrated by the limited capacity of DVDs will find this to be a big perk – as long as they are willing to live with an interface that requires user contortion for operating anything other than basic controls.
Menu (3.75)
The Hitachi’s menu structure is intelligently designed, and some key controls are more accessible than on many other consumer camcorders, including manual focus and exposure – both reached via buttons in the LCD cavity. In other words the DZ-HS300A’s menu design is good. The arrangement is also familiar: Press the Menu button, above the LCD cavity on the left side of the body to bring up the main Admin menu screen, then navigate through options using the four-way touch pad. The Select button rests in the center of the touch pad, and the Stop/Exit button just to the left exits your current location within the menu and jumps you to the next level up.
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The menu in HDD mode |
The menu in DVD mode |
The menu is divided into 5 sections or submenus that appear as options on the main Admin screen, as follows: Camera Functions Setup; Record Functions Setup; Date Setup; LCD/EVF Setup; and Initial Setup. The placement of items in each submenu makes sense – but the straightforward structure is not the end of the story.
We find two faults with the menu’s usability, however. The first is speed. Like too many camcorders, the menu has a slow response time to touch pad actions and selections. From the moment you press the menu button, it takes a full 2 seconds for the main menu to appear, and that delay is multiplied by the number of actions you perform. Switching from one AE mode to another took a full 10 seconds to complete the round trip. Performing three tasks – setting manual white balance, turning EIS off, and setting digital zoom to 40x – entailed a 40 second round trip. That’s far too long, especially when many manufacturers have managed to fashion menus that respond nearly immediately. Not only is a slow menu annoying, it can cause you to miss an important shot.
The other issue is less acute – the fact that the menu interface is on the left side of the camcorder. It’s something you can adjust to, but it is less comfortable to work with than a rear-facing interface. Hitachi is the lone camcorder maker to cling to a left-side control arrangement, and it’s a choice that doesn’t do the camcorder public justice.
Portability (6.0)
The HS300A weighs in at 435 grams (just under a pound) without a disk or battery, which is ideal for the tourist who strives to keep their fanny pack light. It measures 61 x 90 x 135mm (2-3/8” x 3-9/16” x 5-5/16”) — compact enough to fit in a small bag or purse, but it's definitely not an exclusively “small” camcorder like the Canon HV10 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $814), which is light years beyond the HS300A. But that’s another review. The good thing about the HS300A is that it’s sturdy. The hand strap is securely mounted to the body, the top-loading disc hatch locks tightly in place, and the LCD hinge is brawnier than most models in its class.
The HS300A comes with a detachable lens cap, which is arguably preferable over an internal lens cover switch. Remembering to close an internal lens is difficult when you’re running from soccer game to soccer game with a minivan full of brats. Although an external lens cap dangles and clanks around, it functions as an alert, prompting you to cover the lens. As far as looks go, Hitachi designed the HS300A very similarly to its DVD camcorders. It’s tall, thin, and nice to look at. Everything else about this camcorder is another story.
LCD and Viewfinder (4.5)
The HS300A comes equipped with a burly 2.7” wide LCD screen, offering 120K pixels. The image is not very exciting, and the color appears washed out. But have no fear—just play with the LCD display brightness and color levels to fix it. This way, you can fool yourself into thinking you are recording a good image. The brightness slider progresses from darkest to lightest in 22 increments, while the color slider moves from almost black and white to saturated, improved color (over the HS300A’s true, lame image) in 20 increments. Both sliders are devoid of standardized, equidistant levels, so use your keen cinematographer’s eye wisely. But again, these controls are only conducive to presenting your final product on the massive 2.7” LCD screen for a crowd of 2 ½ friends. The .2 inch viewfinder cranks out 200K pixels and has its own brightness adjustment in increments of 14 this time. This is probably the best image available on the HS300A. Too bad you are the only audience.
Battery Life (9.4)
We tested the life of the HS300A’s DZ-BP07PW battery pack by slipping the camcorder into full auto mode for uninterrupted recording. The EIS was off, the LCD was open, and no manual control or zoom was engaged during the test. In Fine mode, the battery lasted 93 minutes and 58 seconds, which falls short of the reported 105 minutes of typical record time. The HS300A offers three quality modes—Xtra Fine, Fine, and Standard—all with a battery life of 105 minutes using the viewfinder and 95 minutes using the LCD screen.
The DZ-BP07PW battery pack must be removed from the sliding enclosure in order to connect the AC adapter/charger. This means if the battery is fading and you’re in the middle of capturing priceless dogs-on-rollerblades footage, you must power off, grab an extension cord, find the nearest outlet, plug in, and attempt to grasp the leftovers of a monumental cinematic experience. On the bright side, the HS300A’s battery pack is well placed beneath the extendable viewfinder.