Panasonic HDC-SD1 High Definition SD Camcorder Review
HDC-SD1 – High Definition SD Camcorder from Panasonic
Panasonic’s HDC-SD1 marks the company’s first foray into the consumer HD video. The HDC-SD1 is the first camcorder that has the ability to record AVCHD video to SD/SDHC flash memory cards. The HDC-SD1 camcorder does not stop by just being interesting or cool, but it marks the start of a revolution. It is a camcorder that can capture images at 1080i resolution without the need for tapes. It has planted the consumer HD flag in the realm of flash media. Having a very stylish look, it also boasts to have some of the most impressive features in the industry. Yet, it has left us wanting more in some of the major areas. The following review takes a close look at each of the features of Panasonic HDC-SD1 High Definition SD Camcorder.
Small, sleek and stylish:
Recording high definition 1,440×1,080-pixel AVCHD video to SD cards, the 500grams body of Panasonic HDC-SD1 3 CCD Camcorder is comparatively a bit smaller than that of the camcorders that use other formats. It is having a tabular shape that makes the camcorder seem to be a bit too bulky in hand to admit as truly compact. The major weakness in the design lies in the fact it lacks the bulky DVD drive, hard drive or a tape compartment that the other camcorders possess. It has an advantage of some extra height that provides a good solid grip to the camcorder.
Large display:
Panasonic HDC-SD1 has a lovely 3″ LCD screen that has a resolution of 250k pixels. The display looks mammoth for the overall size of the camcorder. With this inclusion we can sense that Panasonic has included a larger screen in order to pull the consumer crowd that takes into account a larger monitoring pane too. This SD1 display has no viewfinder. Once you flip open the display, it can be rotated to a full 270 degrees, providing you with a sharp balanced image. Top of the display houses a power LCD button and a auto or manual focus switch. Above a L shaped plastic cover port is the SD/SDHC card slot, inside which you will be able to find an AV jack, component jack, mic input, and DC jack. One annoying design blots is that, the LCD screen must be opened to power the SD1 and so, a cord hampers your viewing space. The camcorder refuses to operate unless the SD card slot door is closed, which is very advantageous as it bars dust and debris from spoiling your precious possession.
The lensy front:
The front of HDC-SD1 is all lens. It possesses a 12x optical zoom lens having a massive 43mm filter diameter and a focal length of 4mm-48mm. An automated lens cover is available that gets activated when the camcorder is switched on and off. This is a good feature that will be very handy for those who have a forgetful memory when it comes to flipping a manual lens cover. The automated lens cover also eliminates the need of an external lens cover and its corresponding clinkings. It has very delicate inner mechanics which is good in one way, but might easily break over time or with rough handling. Fish eye and telephoto lens add-ons can be made with the help of the lens threads which is a very vital necessity when the serious videographers are taken into consideration. Beneath the main lens is the white balance or the remote sensor with an embedded recording lamp. The left of the lens has a flash for the purpose for digital still images. The disadvantage of the side mounted lighting is that, it is more likely that it would cause uneven lighting. Panasonic must have adopted this kind of a design in order to save space.
Controls in the sides:
The right side of the Panasonic HDC-SD1 Digital Video camcorder has a blissful design. Its body is crafted in such a way that your palm fits in the camcorder like a glove. Next, you will find a rigid plastic port cover that houses the USB terminal and a HDMI connection. One stupidity that is very evident in the design is that, the speaker lies on the gray patch, exactly in the location where your palm meets the camcorder, which would lead to the obscuring of the playback speaker and muffling of the playback sound.
The controls at the rear of the camcorder:
The rear end of the camcorder has a hefty mode dial. This control allows you to shift between the video or picture recording, playback and also the computer connecting modes. The big, prominent silver button in the center is the record button. Towards the right of the mode dial lies a joystick that can be easily accessed with your thumb. This joystick allows you to fiddle with all the menus one-handed. And just below the mode dial is the menu button and the trash button. Beneath all the controls in the rear of the Panasonic HDC-SD1 is its battery chamber. Since, the camcorder has a very limited size, it cannot afford to have a bigger battery. The battery provided has only a typical 25 minutes lifespan for a typical recording session. We advice you to have an arsenal of backup VW-VBG130s with you always. Panasonic has made sure that it has not wasted any space though.
Features:
Panasonic has offered HDC-SD1 High Definition Camcorder a reasonably broad set of features, but falls short occationally when it comes to the implementation of these features. For instance, the shutter speed cannot be set below 1/60 of a second manually. Since Panasonic has combined the iris settings with that of the gain controls, it highly confuses some of the users when they try to change the iris settings. At and below f/2.8, the SD1 reports in decibels and from 0dB to 18dB, it is adjustable in 3dB increments. At 0dB it displays ‘open’, and then gets narrower in f-stop, at various increments, to f/16. Beyond f/16, it reports ‘close’.
Though there lies a logic in combining them, as both the controls allows you to increase and decrease the exposure, each of the controls tend to produce different side effects when changed. the shutter and the iris settings too tend to act more like priority modes than manual modes. Panasonic has not offered you any means by which they could be changed independently.
The other shooting functionalities included are backlight compensation, five scene program modes, MagicPix night mode, a tele-macro mode, soft-skin mode, zebra stripes, an audio wind filter and zoom microphone. The MagicPix night mode drops the shutter speed below 1/60. Panasonic HDC-SD1 also has the Auto Ground-Directional Standby which is nothing but a term used by Panasonic to ensure that the camcorder goes to stand-by mode when it is held upside down.
Compression:
Panasonic HDC-SD1 HD Camcorder makes use of the AVCHD compression which is a consumer oriented flavour of MPEG-4 H.264 compression that supports both 720p and 1080i. The AVCHD format is 50% more efficient than that of the MPEG-2 HDV compression. It allows for HD encoding at lower bit rates than HDV’s fixed rate of 25Mbps of between 9 and 24Mbps.
Still photo mode:
There is no dedicated still photo mode in Panasonic HDC-SD1, yet photo can be captured in video mode when the video recording has been paused or even during active recording. As the manual indicates, stills captured during video recording are lower in quality due to the fact that priority is given to motion picture recording. The only resolution that is available is that of the camcorders HD resolution, which is, 1920 x 1080. The still images look good and since the colour error is low, the images are quiet accurate.
Performance:
Panasonic HDC-SD1 SD Camcorder is equipped with three ¼” CCDs. Each of these ¼” CCDs offer gross pixel count of 560,000 and an effective pixel count of 520,000. In bright light conditions, the SD1 produces fairly good images. The outlines and the borders of the image looks better than the Canon HV20. It also possesses the same levels of in-camera sharpening that Sony HDR-HC7 has. The saturation levels have been clearly boosted and sharpening measures have clearly made the images look much sharper. The balance and the colour strength are excellent. The manual white balance is not entirely accurate and tended to shift the picture slightly green. Most of the color pallet ended up looking similar to the Canon HV20, which showed very good balance. You will find that the Sony HC7 is much more saturated. The two major unwanted stuff that can be noticed with the picture quality of the Panasonic HDC-SD1 AVCHD camcorder are, noise and motion artifacting. In bright light, the noise is too much that you would not expect form a high end camcorder like this. And the other fact is that the camcorder is having atrocious levels of trailing. Overall, we can say that the picture quality of SD1 is sharp, but a lot must be improved upon.
The video resolution is good and in par with the other HD camcorders. As the AVCHD camcorders tend to produce more noise than that of the HDV camcorders, their low light performance tends to suffer a lot, and it does not have a great deal of sensitivity too. The Panasonic HDC-SD1 is equipped with an optical image stabilization, or OIS system to reduce the effects of camcorder shake on recorded video. OIS stabilizes the image by physically isolating the lens element from the camcorder body, sometimes using gyroscopes or motors. The EIS reduces vibration by generating a digital buffer around the margins of the frame, and unlike OIS, reduces the resolution of recorded video. OIS systems tend to be found on higher-end camcorders like the SD1, and are the better of the two stabilisation methods.
Audio:
The HDC-SD1 records Dolby digital, or AC-3 surround sound audio, which allows for up to six discrete channels of sound and supports mono and stereo usages. Panasonic has given the SD1 a 5.1 channel built-in microphone with a zoom function. There are three microphone level settings that apply to all five channels at once, but not independently. The microphone level setting include Auto, Set+AGC, and Set. Auto activates the Auto Gain Control and the recording level is adjusted automatically. Set+AGC allows you to set a desired recording level, but keeps AGC on to reduce noise distortion. Finally, Set deactivates the AGC so that natural recording can be performed.
The Panasonic HSC1U: the modified version
Actually Panasonic had re-released the HDC-SD1 CCD Camcorder under a different name with some minor tweaks. It was called the HSC1U. There were some minor cosmetic change and the major change was in the gamma curve which was modified to closely match their range of proline camcorders. Another noticeable change was the addition of an external DTE recording unit and hence boosted the overall price by a considerable amount.
Box contents:
The box contents include the Panasonic HDC-SD1 high definition SD camcorder, 4GB SDHC Memory Card, VW-VBG130 Battery Pack, AC Adapter, AC Cable, DC Cable, Remote Control, Button-type Battery, AV Cable, Component Cable, USB Cable and a HD Writer CD-ROM.
Panasonic offers its HDC-SD1, one year warranty.
Verdict:
The HDC-SD1 is a fantastic cutting edge piece of technology that finally does away with the need for tapes. It is small and light, delightfully easy to use and most of all takes superb high definition images. The AVCHD codec means that few editing applications will handle it, but there are already two packages on the market on the way and more to follow. If you like being at the cutting edge, the HDC-SD1 is highly recommended.
Read Panasonic NV-GS230 Camcorder Review in Panasonic Camcorder Section.
Panasonic HDC-SD1 Camcorder – Technical Specifications, Features
| Manufacturer | Panasonic |
| Model Name | Panasonic HDC-SD1 HD SD camcorder |
| Model number | HDCSD1 |
| Camcorder format | AVCHD |
| Camcorder Class | Consumer class |
| Dimensions (H x W x D) | 2.6″ x 2.9″ x 5.4″ |
| Weight | 15.2 oz |
| Display | 3″ LCD display – TFT active matrix |
| Remote Control | Infra red |
| Digital Zoom | 700x |
| Effective Sensor Resolution | 1.5 megapixels |
| Optical Sensor Type | 3CCD |
| Optical Sensor Size | 1/4″ |
| Digital Video Format | AVCHD |
| Image Stabiliser | Optical |
| Min. Shutter Speed | 1/50 sec |
| Max. Shutter Speed | 1/8000 sec |
| Shooting Modes | Digital photo mode |
| White Balance | Custom, Presets, Automatic |
| White Balance Presets | Indoor, Outdoor |
| Exposure Modes | Program, Automatic |
| Flash | Built-in |
| Widescreen Video Capture | Yes |
| Still Image Format | JPEG |
| Flash Memory | 4GB Flash – SDHC Memory Card |
| Supported Flash Memory | MultiMediaCard, SD Memory Card |
| Image Storage | JPEG 1920 x 1080 |
| Media Type | Flash card |
| Effective Flash Range | 3.3 ft – 8 ft |
| Lens type | Zoom lens – 4 mm – 48 mm – F/1.8-2.8 |
| Focal Length | 4 mm – 48 mm |
| Lens Aperture | F/1.8-2.8 |
| Optical Zoom | 12x |
| Lens system type | Zoom lens |
| Min focal length | 4 mm |
| Max focal length | 48 mm |
| Auto Focus | TTL contrast detection |
| Filter Size | 43 mm |
| Focal Length Equivalent to 35mm Camera | 38.5 – 462 mm |
| Focus Adjustment | Manual, Automatic |
| Zoom Adjustment | Motorized drive |
| Self Timer Delay | 2 sec , 10 sec |
| Connectivity | 1 x Microphone, 1 x USB, 1 x Composite video/audio output, 1 x Component video output, 1 x HDMI output, 1 x SD Memory Card |
| Additional Features | Direct print, Built-in speaker, PictBridge support, USB 2.0 compatibility, Backlight compensation, Display brightness control, Dolby Digital 5.1 channel recording, Dolby Digital AC-3 (2 channel) recording |
| Package contents | AC adaptor, AC cable, DC cable, Battery pack, Component video cable, A/V Cable, USB cable, SDHC Memory card, Remote |
| Cables Included | 1 x A/V cable kit and 1 x USB cable |
| Battery | Li-ion rechargeable battery |
| Warranty | One year |
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