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Panasonic HDC-SD1 Camcorder Reviewby John NeelyPublished on Apr 2, 2007 6:00 PM
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Ease of Use (7.75)
The SD1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1119.99) is a consumer’s dream. Just take a gander at its sleek, minimalist design. The right side is relatively bare, a big fat mode dial engulfs the back, and the LCD cavity contains an auto/manual/focus switch. Scrolling through the menu using the rear-mounted joystick takes only a few seconds to master, and playing back videos and pictures is cake, thanks to the condensed, tabbed playback menu screen. The only gripe we have is with the SD1’s manual control menu. Half the icons are unrecognizable until you activate them in order to bring up their title. The same applies to the scene mode feature in the administrative menu. The good thing about the SD1 is that it is not chock full of dials, switches, and ancillary options, but rather compact, condensed, and multi-faceted control architecture. This way, memorizing icons and controls will be a lot easier than delving into the convoluted button farm found on a camcorder like the Hitachi DZ-HS300A (Review, Specs, $0) (review forthcoming).
Handling (5.75)
Handling is an area of strength for the Panasonic HDC-SD1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1119.99), though it works best as a point-and-shoot camcorder. The camcorder has a great in-hand feel thanks to the gun-barrel shape of the body, though users with large hands will probably find that their fingers overreach the zoom lever and photo button. Nonetheless, like most other consumer Panasonics, this camcorder can be operated with only one hand – a feat that camcorders from other manufacturers can only approach. This is made possible by the location of all the important controls on the top (zoom lever, photo button) or back (Mode dial, joystick, Menu Button, delete button) of the body.
Panasonic’s joystick-based menu and manual control interface are also key to making this a camcorder that offers access to virtually every feature during one-handed operation. The company has refined the manual control display as well, adding helpful marquees with descriptive text that serve as signposts for each setting. In the hands of an experienced user, the 5-way joystick makes short shrift of such tasks as manual iris/gain setting, white balance setting, and Scene Mode selection. Unfortunately, the efficacy of the joystick can take any camcorder only so far. Compared to the focus dial on Sony’s higher-end HD camcorders, like the HDR-UX7 (Review, Specs, $1119.99) (Review, Specs, $762.19), or Canon’s HV20 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $903), the joystick is a poor control for focusing manually. The MF Assist feature doesn’t go far enough to make manual focus easy, and that’s a big liability in any HD camcorder.
The lack of solid manual focus on the SD1 is a big issue, and leads us to recommend this camcorder as best used as a point-and-shooter. The auto adjustments all operate well, and in bright light, we found auto focus was more trustworthy than manual. If you want to do anything more with your footage than play it back on your camcorder, however, you’ll find that AVCHD remains a sparsely supported format. The only recourse you have at the moment for post work are a handful of consumer authoring and editing applications from third parties like Corel MovieFactory 6 Plus.
The OIS system on this camcorder is its brightest spot, and it did a better job at damping our shake emulator device at Speed 2 than any model we’ve tested. We’d be hard pressed to recommend any $1300 camcorder on the basis of good point-and-shoot performance and a stellar OIS alone. If you are a prospective buyer, make sure you are well aware of the state of AVCHD support, which is slowly improving, and the limitations of the format’s performance.
Menu (6.5)
The menu on the HDC-SD1 cuts right to the chase, and Panasonic diehards should feel right at home in either the Administrative menu or the joystick controller menu. The Admin menu is about as straightforward as they come, and we think this is a good thing. In any operating mode, pressing the Menu button on the back of the SD1 brings up a display of top level Admin menu options for that mode. In recording mode, for example, the options include submenus labeled Basic (Scene Modes, Digital Zoom, OIS, Guide Lines and Clock Set), Video (Rec Mode, Fade Color, Wind Cut, Zoom Mic and Mic Level), Picture (Pict. Quality, Flash Level, and Shtr Effect – all for still photos only), Advanced (Rec Lamp, Zebra, Color Bar, and MF Assist), Setup (Format Card, Display, Date/Time, Date Format, and Power Save), and Language (English, French, and Spanish).
Navigating through the menu is done with the joystick, and for this purpose it’s a great control interface. Panasonic’s menu design also keeps all the options on a given page visible, which means you won’t spend time searching page 1, 2 and 3 of a given submenu for a desired option. On the other hand, this arrangement makes the naming of submenus seem arbitrary. Why all the audio options end up in the video category while Scene Modes makes no sense to us, but at least the one-page arrangement makes it easy to find what you’re looking for.
The joystick menu on the SD1 is similar to those found in Panasonic’s consumer line for years, but it’s easier to use on this 2007 model thanks to the inclusion of banners and text. When an option is selected, such as the fade effect on page 1, a text description appears momentarily along the base of the LCD. Though we generally love the efficiency of the joystick menus Panasonic has included on its camcorders, the icons can lead to confusion especially for novices. The new text banner is a welcome improvement that even long-time Panasonic fans should appreciate. In addition, the Help function, also on page 1, offers more detailed explanations of each joystick option, all but eliminating our concerns over the approachability of the joystick menu.
Portability (8.0)
Not only is the SD1 easy to tote around, it’ll make you look at least five times cooler while doing so. Weighing in at 430 grams, the SD1’s 74x69x142mm frame will fit in a small bag, but not a pocket. It’s light enough to accommodate long treks through the Adirondacks, but you’ll most likely want to purchase a carrying case to protect the SD1’s external beauty. The fact that SD1’s battery chamber has fixed dimensions means it is not possible to upgrade to a bigger battery. And with the supplied battery lasting less than 30 minutes under typical recording circumstances, a second, or even third battery would be a good investment. Also, with 40 minutes to blow on a 4GB SDHC card, you’d probably need a couple more of those as well, and unfortunately, they’re not cheap. Between a backup battery and a few extra 4GB SDHC cards, we’re looking at a couple hundred dollars. Because of this conundrum, we’d say that the SD1 is easy to transport—as long as you have money, or don’t plan on leaving the neighborhood.
LCD and Viewfinder (5.0)
The ample 3” LCD screen has a resolution of 250K pixels and is the only monitor on the SD1. Without a viewfinder, the dependency on the big LCD screen is taxing on the battery, but point-and-shooters with money will not be able to tell the difference. The LCD screen produces saturated, balanced color and a sharp picture. With a 250K resolution, it better hit a grand slam. The hinge on the LCD is not the heftiest, so tread lightly in the handling department. The LCD screen has a series of three raised bumps on the back ridge to provide grip for opening, but we found it was easier to simply grab both horizontal sides in order to fling it open. The Panasonic SD1 includes a VW-BG130 battery pack that slides into a closed slot on the underside of the body. The closed battery slot does not allow for the use of an optional longer life battery, which limits expansion options to additional VW-BG130 units.
Battery Life (9.7)
We tested the life of the included VW-BG130 battery pack for continuous recording, in Manual mode with the LCD set to normal brightness and OIS set to off. The battery on our SD1 lasted 97 minutes and 2 seconds (1 hour, 27 minutes, and 2 seconds). This is in the average range for consumer camcorders, and interestingly surpasses the continuous recording time reported by Panasonic by around 20 minutes.
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