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Panasonic SDR-H200 Camcorder Reviewby David KenderPublished on Sep 3, 2007 5:00 PM
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Compression (4.0)
The Panasonic SDR-H200 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $549.99) records in the MPEG2 format to both the HDD and SD card, common to nearly all standard definition hard disk drive (HDD) and DVD camcorders. There are variations from one manufacturer to the next, but the quality of the compression is largely the same. MPEG2 is prone to producing some artifacting during motion and even in motionless shots. The artifacts can them create a slightly blurry look to areas of fine detail, as was the case here. That’s why the SDR-H200 and the VDR-D310 (Specs, $499), a DVD camcorder, looked identical in image quality, while the PV-GS320 (Specs, $0), compressing in the DV format to tape, looked sharper, despite all three having the same core imaging system.
The SDR-H200 offers three quality settings for the video that correspond to bit rate. A lower bit rate means that more video will fit on the recording media, but the image quality will be significantly reduced. Settings include: XP (10Mbps), SP (5Mbps), and LP (2.5Mbps). In the highest quality, about 7 hours of video can be recorded onto the HDD. In the lowest quality, it fits about 27 hours.
Media (8.0)
The SDR-H200’s offers two recording media: an internal, non-removable 30GB HDD or SD/SDHC card, up to 4GB. HDD is quickly become the media of choice, and it’s easy to see why. They offer the same basic conveniences of DVD – random access to clips and easy importing a computer – without the capacity limitations or fragility of DVDs. The HDD in the SDR-H200 is fairly well-protected with shocks and scratch prevention, but it is by no means infallible. Footage should be backed up routinely to a separate hard drive and/or archived onto DVDs. Partner the capacious HDD with the ability to record onto SD and SDHC cards up to 4GB, and you have a lot of choices before you. The SDR-H200 ships with a 512MB SD card, which holds a much less impressive 3 minutes of video in the highest quality or 12 minutes in the lowers quality.
Editing (5.0)
Editing MPEG2 footage was once a nightmare. It has since gotten considerably easier. Once connected, the files are not easily imported with a drag-and-drop process. Like most DVD and HDD camcorders, the file structure is split up and some kind of intermediary software is necessary to piece it back together. Many video editing programs already have a function like this built in. The SDR-H200 ships with a version of Pixela’s ImageMixer 3, which allows for very simple editing and DVD authoring. This program will also allow you to import the clips from the camcorder.