Very Good First Camcorder To Learn On | Panasonic SDR-H40 40GB Hard Drive Camcorder with 42x Optical Image...

camera & photo: Panasonic SDR-H40 40GB Hard Drive Camcorder with 42x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

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	• Panasonic SDR-H40 40GB Hard Drive Camcorder with 42x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Panasonic Panasonic, 2007 average customer review:based on 27 reviews view larger image
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Good video. Tough to edit.

This is a great little camera for the price. I have no doubt about that. However, I've been having too many problems with the editing process. The software that comes with the cam doesn't make things easy. What's more, I can't seem to get the videos to display well in Windows Movie Maker or Media Player. The quality is grainy in these programs and the 16:9 size is squished to 4:3, rather than displaying the black bars on the top and bottom. I've changed the settings in Windows Media Player and it still doesn't work.

The quality of the video is great. The zoom is simply amazing and the OIS is downright impressive. I just wish they made putting these things on your computer a little easier. It should either come with better software or a recommendation for a program to buy that natively understands the hardware. I would buy after-market software if I knew it would work with this camera.

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Very Good First Camcorder To Learn On

I'd been contemplating a camcorder for several months, and when the funds became available, after careful thought, I bought this one. Why:

1) The buil-in 40 Gig hard drive is a huge blessing. More than adequate for my needs
2) Small size and ease of use and learning for a first timer like me
3) A lot of good features for the price
4) Better optical zoom than many in this price range (42X optical, 2000X digital)
5) More than acceptable sound quality (I may even add a mic later to enhance this)

I was also aware of some of the limitations of such a unit. For lighting, I did purchase a small LCD movie light that definitely helps in dim situations, (I may een get an infra-red light for night shots).

Ah, the infamous enclosed software question. Simple, I DON'T USE IT!

Instead, I just simply copy the video files onto my 500 Gig external HD when the unit is hooked up to my PC. Then, I edit them in different software altogether (in my case, uLead/Corel Video Studio 11, which works way better than the enclosed Panasonic software by far and offers much more functionality and features, not to mention ease of use).

No, it's not going to produce a cinematic epic (you'd need at least a $40,000 broadcast quality unit to do that with) but it'll not only captur your life's moments but it can be utilized to produce a pretty cool low-budget film if you're so inclined, heck I've produced some comedy videos with footage from this thing in part and was very pleased.

My only real MAJOR grip is the battery, I just wish it could last more than one hour! Are there batteries compatible with this unit that will go 2, maybe 3 hours? At least they were kind enough to include a charger/power supply.

Looking for a good place to start camcordering, this is a good one!

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records MPEG-2 video files to built-in memory * 800,000-pixel CCD (380K effective) * digital photo mode with top resolution of 640 x 480 * 2-11/16" widescreen LCD * 42X optical zoom lens (digital zoom to 2000X) *

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6