Sanyo VPC-HD1 First Impressions Camcorder Reviewby Matt CullerPublished on Jan 7, 2006 10:00 PM
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Video Performance
This is really what it all comes down to, and it's coming first. The Xacti, the smallest camcorder ever to shoot HD, seems too perfect, not necessarily as a device as much as a marketing ploy for Sanyo this year, to be true. It certainly doesn’t hurt the company to put out the smallest HD camcorder ever, but we’ll see if the video is worth a darn. Otherwise, this might be a one-hit wonder, similar to the Fisher FC1 that preceeded it.
The Xacti HD1 includes a 1/2.5” CCD. It houses 5.36 megapixels, and captures video at variety of different levels. The user can toggle between HD and SD capture by way of a button under the LCD of the camcorder. In HD mode, the camcorder can capture video at 1280 x 720 (30 fps, 9 Mbps) and 1280 x 720 (30 fps, 6 Mbps) at Super High Quality and High Quality HD video, respectively. In SD mode, the camcorder can capture video at 640 x 480 (60 fps, 6 Mbps), 640 x 480 (30 fps, 3 Mbps), 640 x 480 (30 fps, 2 Mbps), and 320 x 240 (15 fps).
Low Light Performance
As with video performance, it’s hard to know what to make out of this bad boy. If we take the Fisher FC1 as a precedent, the Xacti HD1’s low light performance should be horrendous. But, then again, we’ll never know until we try. And rest assured, we will.
Either way, this could be the camcorder’s biggest weakness, even taking motor noise and storage space into consideration. It’s hard to believe that this camcorder will be able to top the HDR-HC1’s low light performance, to say nothing of the Sony’s other features, and it’s really not all that more expensive; I mean, if you can shell out $800 for something smaller than your own hand. I know that’s a bad analogy, but you get the point. We’ll just have to wait and see, but I’m not holding out much hope.
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