Panasonic Announces VDR-D400 in Japan

by David Kender
Published on Aug 4, 2006 8:00 AM



August 4, 2006 - This week in Japan, Panasonic announced the VDR-D400, a slightly upgraded replacement to the VDR-D300 (Review, Specs, $534.89). The new camcorder will retain most of imaging specs that have made it one of the most impressive DVD camcorders on the market, including the 3-CCD 800K chip set. The major improvement: a 20x optical zoom.

The Panasonic VDR-D300 received praise for its video performance earlier this year, and most of those features will carry over into the VDR-D400. The new camcorder will share its predecessor’s optical image stabilization and 3.1MP still resolution. In addition to the zoom increase from 10x to 20x optical, the VDR-D400 will also accept SDHC memory cards as well as standard SD cards.

It also appears, according to Panasonic’s documentation, the maximum aperture has increased from F1.8 on the VDR-D300, to F1.6 on the VDR-D400. This, along with the increased zoom, indicates that Panasonic has overhauled their lens design.

The new VDR-D400 will also retain features like the 2.7” widescreen LCD and compatibility with DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM discs. It will ship with the video editing software DVD-MovieAlbumSE 4.2 and DVDfunSTUDIO 2.4.

The camcorder is expected to beginning shipping in Japan, September 1st, at an approximate MSRP of 120,000 yen (US$1050). Panasonic USA has made no announcement regarding an update to the VDR-D300.