Hitachi DZ-MV380

We found the best strategy was to shoot on DVD-RAM, bring footage onto a PC via USB 2, and then use the PC's own DVD burner to write to inexpensive full-size DVDs. A USB driver has to be installed for video, and a UDF driver to access JPEG stills on DVD-RAM. Stills quality, which is nothing special, is the same on disc and RAM.

Two DVD-authoring programs are included. One is a cut-down version of Panasonic's DVD-MovieAlbumSE 3 suite that we saw with Panasonic's LF-D521 burner (see issue 103, p76), which allows editing of video on DVD-RAM. Scenes presented on a timeline can be renamed, marked, split, rearranged, protected and deleted, then exported to hard disk. Unfortunately, the program is slow reading and writing DVD-RAM, and not particularly easy to use. The other program - Sonic Solutions' MyDVD 4 - can burn projects to DVD-R in the Hitachi or to any DVD-Video-compliant disc in a DVD burner, but offers few creative menu options. That said, the DVD-R discs we did create - whether 8cm in the camcorder or a burner, or 12cm from a traditional burner - worked fine in all set-top players we tried, as well as in DVD-ROM drives and burners.

DVD camcorders offer an intriguing, and potentially speedier, alternative to tape. However, we'd choose the DZ-MV380's £580 sibling, the MV350. This offers only 640 x 480 stills but the saving could be used to buy better software, as well as putting some towards a decent digital stills camera.

Author: John Arnold