Hitachi Announces Three New DVD Camcorders

The three new DVD-R camcorders, the DZ-MV200A, DZ-MV230A and DZ-MV270A follow Hitachi's first DVD-RAM camcorder which had some serious playback and recording problems. In a breakthrough the new camcorders can now record the DVD-R disks which are compatible in many home DVD players. Hitachi's press release said the following regarding the new camcorders. ''The DVD format is an exceptional choice for high quality video recording. It offers all of the ease of use benefits associated with disc-based recording and long-term durability that tape-based formats just can't match. In addition, the consumer is no longer dependant on using their camcorder as the playback device since DVD-R adds compatibility with most home DVD players. Hitachi's new DVD camcorders will change the way consumers record and share home video.'' Hitachi claims that the DVD-R disks, which can only be recorded once, can play in most home set top boxes. However, there have been huge problems with playback on home set top DVD Players with the first and second generation of consumer DVD recorders.

The camcorders can also record onto rewrite DVD-RAM disks. These disk play virtually no home set top box players but they are reported to play in all computer DVD-ROM drives. When video is recorded on the DVD-RAM disks, it can be deleted, edited or have effects applied to it with the new DVD camcorders. These are serious benefits for the user.

There were big problems with Hitachi's first DVD-RAM camcorder. Because DVD video requires a lot of encoding, the camcorder had big problems encoding the video. Often video would be choppy, have huge artifacts, be mixed it with other video or be very buggy.

The camcorders also add support for USB 2.0 (and also the older USB 1.1). When hooked up to a computer, the camcorders act like an external hard drive. Users copy video from the camcorder to the computer by using their computer's interface, instead of ''recording'' it to the hard drive with FireWire. This interface is also used for transferring the digital stills that the camcorder takes.

The new DZ-MV200A can record on both DVD-R and DVD-RAM discs. Has a 12x optical 240x digital zoom and a 680k pixel CCD. The camcorder also has electronic image stabilization and a 2.5 in. LCD. The DZ-MV200A will be available in April 2002 with an MSRP of $899.95.

The DZ-MV230A has a 1.1 1/4 in. MegaPixel CCD for higher resolution stills (the video most likely won't be affected. The higher model also utilizes variable bit rate recording, whereas the lower model uses constant bit rate recording. The variable bit rate recording varies the amount of information saved per frame of video instead of always using the same amount. This results in more conservation of disk space because the camcorder won't use more disk space than it requires. The variable bit rate recording might also improve upon many of the recording problems that the first DVD-RAM camcorder had, however we will have to test it to see for real. The DZ-MV230Z will be available in April 2002 with an MSRP of $999.95.

The highest model, the DZ-MV270A has all the features of the above two units but adds a color viewfinder and a 3.5 in LCD. The DZ-MV270A will be available in June 2002 for and MSRP of $1,299.95.

In the past we've come down hard on Hitachi for coming up with great innovative camcorders that push the limits of technology but lack many quality features, and that shoot poor quality video. We've also complained about the inability for US consumers to find Hitachi camcorders. Often Hitachi has come out with an innovative camcorder, only to abandon the format instead of showing the resolve to improve the camcorder to be a useable product. It takes a couple of models to get something really good. It seems however that Hitachi might really be behind DVD camcorders, and that they are working to improve these models to be a useable product for the consumer. Can't wait to review em'!