Panasonic VDR-D250 First Impressions Camcorder Review

by Nick Hyacinthe
Published on Jan 18, 2006 2:00 PM

Intro Performance
Format
 Tour
Auto / Manual Controls Still Features
Handling and Use Audio / Playback / Connectivity
Other Features Comparisons / Conclusion


Compression
Similar to most DVD camcorders, this model captures video in MPEG-2 at a maximum of 8.5 Mbps per second. Stills are captured in the JPEG format. It will be interesting to see how the 3 CCD quality stands up to the heavier compression of DVD.

Media
Media compatibility has been one of the inconveniences plaguing Panasonic DVD camcorders. Past models could only capture onto DVD-RAM and DVD-R. Unlike the latter, DVD-RAM was reusable, but could in turn only be played on DVD-RAM capable Panasonic camcorders or specially designed players. Thankfully, Panasonic has embraced DVD-RW as well – a more popular, cheaper, and more universally accepted reusable format. Not that DVD-RAM is without its benefits: they can be rewritten approximately 100,000 times - 100 times more than DVD-RW - and are more durable.

Editing
Camcorders are not known for their onboard editing prowess. For that, you’ll need a computer and some decent editing software. We can’t wait to play around with this year’s new software bundles from all the manufacturers. No programs were on display a the booth, but we expect major upgrades across the board. People buy DVD camcorders for ease of use, and a big part of that is process by which you get footage from the camcorder to a DVD you can stick in the home DVD player. Last year, most major editing programs could not easily import the file types that DVD camcorders encoded in.



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