Customer Reviews

Panasonic SVAV100 D-Snap MPEG4 Digital Video Recorder w/10x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

(...) I purchased my Panasonic SVAV100 D-Snap tapeless video recorder three days ago from a retail store - within the first six hours (six hours in a car without Internet access) I was ready to return it. I could not get the MPEG2 video to play outside the camera. The supplied software, as it has been aptly described by others in the above reviews, is one of the worst applications I have seen in recent years - as one reviewer put it "what were they thinking?" I was ready to return the camera - really - I was making plans to go back to the store - then finally got to the Internet and I read the oh-so-simple comments on the this review board about renaming the .MOD to .MPG and I completely changed my mind about the camera - the results are spectacular!

"What an engineering marvel" we all said upon seeing the results on the PC. With the camera producing native MPEG2 files it was doing what I expected it should do - files that can be edited with any desktop video editor. I still can not believe the - no other word for it - `blunder' on the part of Panasonic's marketing and software groups. This is the only tapeless video recorder under $800 (I paid $600 with a mfg. rebate coupon) that produces native DVD quality MPEG2 files - period. Why don't they just say that? Why don't they suggest renaming the .MOD to .MPG and call it a short cut for advanced users? It's just weird.... My impressions point-by-point:

First Light Setup - 10/10 - (out of the box and shooting video as fast as I could unwrap the plastic - very easy - PC software on the other hand ... read-on below...)

Ergonomics - 9/10 (minor same points made by others - no tripod screw, buttons - though not needed for most functions while capturing images - require a bit getting used to located under and behind the flip screen)

Camera menus usability - 10/10 (what you need for each mode - where you need it)

Convenience (read: size) - 10/10 (you will always take it with you - you will find yourself taking video and capturing moments like never before)

Image quality - 9/10 (Carl Zeis was a genius - no CZ lens here; white balance quite sensitive, but good - though there is a manual mode and this videographer needs to master it for low light, contrast-y, indoor shooting)

Image stability - 10/10 (as good as my image stabilized binoculars - even with the optical zoom extended)

Accessories - 9/10 (comes with all you'll need - but why is the charging system - brick and tray assembly - larger than the camera itself? Charging batteries separately in a small form-factor unit is a must - out-of-the-box, Panasonic requires batteries to be charged in the camera - apparently there is a third-party external charger available separately. I'll be buying one soon!)

Recording Capacity - 10/10 (this may surprise you - I use the NORM MPEG2 - that's 22 minutes - good but not quite DVD quality - on the supplied 512M chip and over 40 minutes on a 1G chip - how much video do you need to shoot anyway? For family and activities - I've not had a problem - plus I can dump the chip to hard drive in a few minutes. At $60/Gig - buy a couple chips. The 2G chips are soon to be sold and 4G chips are on their way - that will be three hours of video on one chip!)

PC Software - 0.0001/10 - (total utter failure on Panasonic's part. Fortunately it is not required at all - as I came to find out. Simply take the chip out, plug it into your SD chip reader - desktop or laptop unit - copy and rename the files - there is even a freeware utility available on the Internet)

Did I mention convenience `-) 10/10 !

When I first looked into this product I was in a quandary - I worried about cutting edge: "high wow factor - low performance" - "sounds too good to be true" - I took a chance anyway - I am happy I did. For more info - excellent source: Do a Web search on "SVAV100" and "Jack Brown" - you'll find an excellent "SVAV100 Forum" - Panasonic should give this group part of their marketing budget - they are far more competent.

This is a great little camcorder for having with you at all times to take short videos. You will have to download often to your computer since the SD card cannot hold much. These .MOD files for MPEG2 take up a lot of room. Most people don't like to watch long videos anyway. You will have this camcorder with you when the bigger one will be at home or in the car. The supplied software is not worth a dime. It cannot keep up with your files if you need to move them. Get Moonlight El-ecard MPEG2 Player software from the Internet. You can also transfer the videos to VHS, 8mm or DV tape. Actually, they look better doing this (then watching on your TV) than by viewing them on your computer.

Even after reading about all the 'problems' with the SVAV100 I decided I still had to have one. I wanted a way to capture video of my daughter without looking like the proverbial "dorky-dad-with-a-video-camera." This camera lets me do that.

But, surprisingly, I've either not experienced these problems or found very simple workarounds for them. Here are some examples:

Software: there are numerous, high-quality editing programs that handle the task of editing MPEG2 video with aplomb. Most offer free demos so you can decide which works best for you at no cost.

.MOD file format: simply change the files extension to .MPG and nearly any video tool (Windows Media Player included) can read the MPEG2 files produced by the SVAV100

CODECS: I have WinXP running on a fairly new PC - I didn't need to install anything to get up and running.

SD Card: the camera records 10 minutes of MPEG2-fine on the included 512M card (I get just over 20 minutes from a new 1G card). Between the two cards, 30 minutes of storage covers all the video situations I've encountered.

Battery-life: I have found replacement batteries for less than $15 each. I carry a couple of fully-charged backups which provide all the battery life I could possibly need (certainly more than enough juice to fill both SD cards, and then some).

Anyhow, this has been my experience to date; YMMV. Overall, I am very pleased with the quality of the camera and it's output.

Finally, I'd like to give kudos to Jack Brown for establishing an extremely useful SVAV100 users' forum (see URL in his review here). It contains a wealth of information and is definitely worth checking out.

The advantage is that it is small and light, even smaller and
lighter than my cannon power shot camera. The biggst problem is
battery life, it claimed that it would be capable shoot about
60 minutes continuously, but in my experience, the battery is
gone before I finish all 20 minutes SD capacity (in Mpeg2 normal
mode).

While the Pansonic D-SNAP has the potential for usable video quality, you need to realize that it is going to take atleast an additional $799 card to make it functional. To reach a useful quality, the D-SNAP uses a high speed Panasonic version of the SD card, which is now available as a special version 32x SD card by other sources. Today, people try to get the best price for a 30 - 60 minute DV tape at $5. With the D-SNAP, you'll be shopping for a $799 32x SD card, with 1 gig of storage, so you can move from 10 minutes of video to a whopping 20 minutes (which really is the bare minimum) at $799. Also, beware that the manual is clear that the high speed write times will wear down the card, and you need to run special procedures to help reduce the errors which will start occurring.

The goal with compact devices is to make recording on the road possible. So if you can avoid 2 devices, one for STILLS and one for videos, this goal is possible. However, while most cameras today consider anything less than 2 megapixels (2 million pixels) for STILLS bare minimum, the D-SNAP can only do .3 megapixel (330 thousand pixels). You can't even print a high quality wallet size.

The quality of the video is there with the D-SNAP. But the STILLs are completely unacceptable and you will be paying thousands of dollars to get 30 - 60 minutes of video.

The Sanyo Fisher is equally as compact, very solid construction, provides 3 megapixels for STILLS, and provides the resolution (30 frames per second) and size (640*480) required for TV. It also comes with a 512kb card, BUT it achieves 20 minutes of DVD-like quality or 45 minutes of VHS-like quality (which is very good), out of the box. It uses more recent compression technology to write at multi-mb speeds on a normal SD card. You even get 30 frames per second to meet your 360*240 PC requirements, which provides more than an hour of video. The interface is much better thought out on the Sanyo (everything is there at your finger tips, whereas the Pansonic makes you want to rip off the LCD at times because the controls are at the side). The focus is 6x zoom optical on the Sanyo, instead of 10x like the Panasonic, which is still excellent. And the ISO levels and features are exceptional. Bottom line, you can live with any downside of the SANYO. You can't live with the downsides of the Panasonic.

I've had the AV100 for about two months, and I'm still infatuated. Which isn't to say that I don't have my criticisms.

First, the good stuff:

It really is small enough to fit in a pocket, which means that you will carry it everywhere, which in turn means that you'll get video of things you otherwise wouldn't catch.

The SD storage media is obviously very compact, and if you have the adapter, you can stick it right into your computer for transfer and editing.

The camera's optics and design are excellent, and amazing in a package this size.

The downsides (none of which take away from a five star rating in my view):

The file format is a little funky for computer editing: you will need to install codecs, rename files, and use less-than-top-of-the-line programs to edit your video. Adobe Premiere Pro can't handle MPeg2 video, for example, so you'll have to convert your video or use a different program.

No tripod adapter. Okay, the camera's small, but why didn't panasonic put one of those little screw-in holes in the bottom so you could put it on a tripod if necessary?

For owners (and prospective buyers), I've set up a user group bulletin board at http://www.jackbrown.us/camera It's got good tips and tricks for this camera.

I have 2 other MPEG4 camcorders but the SVAV100 beats them in MPEG4 recording. In MPEG2 recording, nothing comes close. This unit is really amazing. I could not believe the quality of the video! I bought this camera after reading all the posts in JackBrown's forum which, incidentally has been down for over a week now -- I started a website forum of my own at http://forums.merinotv.com to help those who may be thinking of purchasing this item. Please feel free to post anything like comments, help, etc. I did not find any difficulty other people have claimed regarding not being able to play the MPEG2 video. In fact I tested it in my 2 PC's, 2 laptops and PC tablet, never did I have to rename the .mod file to .mpg. MS Video Player, Elecard and QuickTime as well as other players were able to play the video. For editing, I only use Sony's Vegas and did not have any problems editing. So all you people who have been holding purchasing this product, you can now get the SVAV100 at very good discounts. I got mine for $499.00 plus tax with free shipping.

I am just adding this to my review. I just purchased a Sandisk Ultra II 2GB SD and I am able to get 45 minutes of recording in MPEG2. That is enough recording time for most. I heard 4GB SD's will be coming out too but will be in the $400-$500 range. You can find 2GB SD's priced between $179-$199.

The camera works as advertised, but I couldn't find any software that could convert the .mod files to something useful. Even the software that comes with it fails to convert the files to a standard format. I have a new XP Pro desktop, and Windows Media Player, Roxio Video Wave Movie Creator, and Windows Movie Maker do not play the files, convert the files or burn the files. Neither does the software that comes with it. I contacted Panasonic, and they said, "We appreciate your frustration. However, Panasonic does not offer software that will allow you to convert the mod.
files. At this time we will relieve ourselves from any further e-mail correspondence regarding this matter." The software that comes with the Product is advertised to convert the files and it does have Panasonic's name on it. That aside, I did find Ulead VideoStudio 7, which can burn the files to DVD. The quality isn't horrible. It will only burn the highest quality video which looks 'ok' on my tv. This means that I can only get 10 minutes of video per 512 MB SD Card. The fact that the SD Cards used by the camera are not standard should be emphasized. You cannot just use any SD Card. Please, do yourself a favor and keep looking for a better choice. This camera is definitely not ready for market.

I've had this for about a year now. Battery life last about an hour and generic replacement batteries from Ebay work fine. WARNING! USE ONLY PANASONIC MEMORY SD CARDS IF YOU WANT THE MPEG2 (DVD) QUALITY RECORDING!. The manual says a card of at least 10megs/sec recording time is needed for Mpeg2 recording. BS! I bought Sandisk Extreme3 SD cards (20megs/sec recording speed) and IT DOES NOT WORK! Panasonic 1gig sd card are about $179 at B&H Photo and at J&R Electronics. Panasonic came out with the 20megs/sec recording speed sd cards so the standard 1gig should drop in the future. I take this snowboarding and YES it withstands all day worth of tumbles thanks to no moving internal parts. I lost the battery cover at Mammoth Mtn and bought a replacement from Panasonic's 800 number for $7+$5ship+tax. I download the sd card from a card reader to my comp hard disk and record it straight to a dvd via Roxio DVD creator. No widescreen recording but the quality is almost dvd like on Mpeg 2 mode (704 x 480 lines of resolution on Fine Mode and 352 x 480 on Norm mode) assuming it has enough lighting. Records 10 mins on Fine mode and 20 mins on Norm mode with the included 512meg card and double those times with the 1gig card. AGAIN ONLY PANASONIC SD CARDS WILL WORK FOR THE MPEG2 RECORDING. Any sd card will work for the Mpeg4 recording mode and the picture mode which are pretty much useless due to the lack of quality. Yes you need several Panasonic SD cards if you want to record alot. Word is that Panasonic AKA Matush. will come out with the 4gig and 16 gig sd cards for their larger video camera with the widescreen recording. Imagine the price of these cards!

Pros: size, no moving internal parts, dvd quality recording, stereo sound recording, wind cut sound recording.

Cons:EXPENSIVE PANASONIC ONLY SD CARDS NEEDED, 20 min max MPEG2 recording with 1gig card, Battery life only 1hr.

As cool goes, this little camera is right up there at the top of the list. I took it to Hawaii, and sometimes forgot to video because it was so light in my pocket that I forgot I had it!

Operation of the camera is very easy. Navigation is good. Ergonomics are quite good...even the scrolling arrows are angled to fit the normal angle of your hand.

The lens quality seems good as well.

Now, the problems:
Many people have griped about the recording time on the SD card at 20 minutes or so. It never seemed to be much of an issue for me because I downloaded the SD card regularly.

But that was the biggest problem.

The included software seemed to install fine, but when I plugged the camera in, it would not launch. The computer recognized there was SOME device out there, but it could not communicate. Panasonic sent me (quite quickly) a replacement CD, but installing it on that computer and another one did not change the results: it would not download from the camera.

Panasonic suggested a bad camera and that I exchange it. I returned it, but exchanged it for a different camera.

That decision was not solely because of the defective camera. I found the video quality was not what I expected. In addition to overall quality, the camera had a great deal of difficulty in full sunlight. In mid afternoon shooting, the contrast seems to overwhelm it. Highlights are completely blocked, and strong shadows are opaque black. Maybe this is true of all video cameras, as I have little video experience, as opposed to a lot of still photo experience.

After using this camera, I believe that this is a precursor of where video is going. Within 5 years, I think the vast majority of camcorders will record to solid-state memory cards instead of tape.

But...this little camera may just be a bit too far ahead of its time.