Customer Reviews

Panasonic PVDV702 MiniDV Multicam Digital Camcorder w/ 3.5" Color LCD, IR Remote, 8MB SD Memory Card

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This camera does everything it claims. Beautiful picture from a one chip device; not many independent controls, but this is designed for auto operation and it does this very well. does not include a firewire cable inexplicably!!! and does not describe the connection upload speeds which would be helpful. USB is one minute per one second of video so put some coffee on. The still chip is directly accessible by Explorer on your PC so it is very fast. Stills are great feature. You can put any size chip in---I used a 128meg chip perfectly although the manual stops at 64 meg---poor documentation. Does a very good job of freezing golf swings!!! and was used for this extensively at Hilton Head last week. OVerall a great camera for the family if you want stills and minidv in one

This might be a fine unit in terms of features, but I've had nothing but trouble with mine. It has been unusable since I purchased it in March, despite my sending it three times to the Panasonic repair center. Initially, it overheated on playback, which caused degradation of the tape and thus the recording. (Because I did not try to play anything back initially, I only realized this problem after the retailer's return window was closed.) The Panasonic service center twice claimed to fix this, but did not. The third time, this problem seemed to be solved, but whatever they did caused a new defect: it will not playback--it inexplicably and immediately goes into fast forward mode whenever I try! It's probably a lemon, which happens, but Panasonic refuses to replace it, so far. I'm surprised that they so resolutely refuse to support their own product at the risk of damaging their brand name. After this experience, I'll never buy another Panasonic product. I recommend that you watch out for this problem with this model, lest it be a design defect. A more important lesson I've learned: always buy from a retailer with at least a 30-day return policy AND test what you buy thoroughly within that window.

I use this to record my kids athletic events and to date the unit has performed flawlessly. Picture quality is excellent, recording made in a gym look great on playback.

The camcorder is pretty easy to handle, it's a standard horizontal layout but it's pretty small. You can also save 30 second MPEG-4 clips to the SD cards.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.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. 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.

Feature wise this model is OK, although it is missing two key features: color viewfinder(useful under bright light) and analog input(dubbing analog tapes). However my unit has been having mechanical problems right after the waranty expired. The camcorder would refuse to load any cassette, more often than not the tape will get jammed inside the camcorder. I had to cut off one recorded tape (thus losing my recordings) to get it out of the machine. Switching different brand of tapes did not help either. I do not recommend this unit at all.

The best MiniDV camera, it has all you need!!!.