Panasonic PV-DV702 Camcorder Review

The Panasonic PV-DV702 has a 10x Optical, 700x Digital zoom. The PV-DV702 has a 1/4 in. 1.3 Mega Pixel CCD and a 3.5 in. LCD Screen. The video quality of this camcorder is pretty good.

The PV-DV702 takes high resolution stills at 1600 x 1200 pixels. The stills are saved on SD card through the SD slot on the camcorder. The PV-DV702 includes a Mini USB port for transferring the stills from the camcorder to the computer. Panasonic includes an 8MB SD card with the PV-DV702. The stills are really good, better than any other Panasonic camcorder below this one. The PV-DV702 beats most of the other camcorders in this price range for still resolution because of the 1.3 Mega Pixel CCD.

The camcorder is pretty easy to handle, it's a standard horizontal layout but it's pretty small. Some of the buttons are hard to access though. To access the manual picture features you have to use the menu, which is a pain but this is pretty much standard for most consumer MiniDV camcorders (URGHH!!!!). Something I really like about the PV-DV702 is the many manual features that the camcorder provides. You have manual control over shutter speed, white balance, exposure and gain. You control them by using a jog dial which is a little small, but at least you get control. Manual focus is controlled by a focus ring however.

The camcorder has an IEEE 1394 Firewire in/out port to transfer your video from your camcorder to your computer digitally. The camcorder also has a composite in/out port and an S-Video out port. The PV-DV702 also has a headphone jack. The PV-DV702 also has a microphone jack.

The Panasonic PV-DV702 also has digital electronic image stabilization that can also be enabled during playback, so you get double the stabilization. The PV-DV702 also has a built in light, but it's pretty weak. You can also save 30 second MPEG-4 clips to the SD cards, but the quality is pretty bad. Another neat feature on the PV-DV702 is an audio dubbing mode (only with SP video) which allows you to re-record the audio over pre-recorded video. You can also use the PV-DV702 as webcam using the USB port. Working with Microsoft NetMeeting or similar web cam software, the PV-DV702 can be hooked up to a computer to use it as web cam or a videophone.

In addition, the PV-DV702 includes a remote to control recording and playback functions. The camcorder also includes ArcSoft photo editing software.

The Panasonic PV-DV702 has pretty good video performance with all the standard features. The biggest downside of this camcorder is how that the manual controls are hidden in a menu and the video performance is good, but not great. The PV-DV702 however beats all other camcorders in this price range for still performance. The 1.3 Mega Pixel CCD is better than the 1 Mega Pixel on the Sony DCR-TRV25 and the 1 Mega Pixel on the JVC GL-DV820U. If you want to max out the still resolution of your camcorder while keeping your price down, the PV-DV702 is a great choice. However, it's weak on manual control, and I would recommend looking at the Sony DCR-TRV25 for a better all around camcorder.