Hitachi DZMV550A DVD Camcorder w/18x Optical Zoom

Decided to buy the DZMV580A just before my wife's birthday so we had great quality movies during our 8 day Mexican Riviera Cruise. Regretfully, I have had to twice exchange my camera for a new one (Thanks to Circuit City's 14 day exchange policy.)

Had two problems: The first camera failed to finalize two irreplacable discs citing disc errors in Memorex (1 disc) and Maxell DVD-Rs (1 disc.) Two other Memorex discs wouldn't work in the camera even though initialized OK supposedly. For both the finalizing and initializing, I did just as the manual says and used the charger and power adapter and not the battery.

Circuit City said had to be a camera problem so gave me a new one. That on just went back last night after I found my Christmas video going in and out of focus, even though my wife was sitting in one spot taking pictures of our grand daughter decorating our Christmas tree in the same location. The new camera we picked up seems to have overcome that auto focus problem.

But for solution to the Finalizing issue; RECOMMEND STRONGLY THAT NOBODY REPEAT NOBODY FINALIZE A DVD-R ON THEIR HITACHI 550A OR 580A OR ON A PANASONIC V50 OR V70 UNTIL THE IMAGE IS TRANSFERRED TO YOUR COMPUTER HARD DISK. DON'T COUNT ON BEING ABLE TO FINALIZE THE DISK AND MOVE THE IMAGES TO YOUR COMPUTER BY THE DVD IN YOUR CAMERA.

THERE HAS TO BE A FIRMWARE OR HARDWARE PROBLEM IN THE CAMERA.

Other than that, I am continuing to fight out of sync audio with video recorded on a DVD-R. Seems like the sound starts recording immediately when a scene starts, but the video is delayed, and the video when it starts up is exactly the same point as the audio which recorded a couple of seconds sooner. Take a picture of somebody talking and see what I mean.

Chuck

I purchased this on a lark at a Circuit City store that was closing, so I only paid $450 and could return it with no restocking fee (because it was "open box"). For taking movies I really loved it. The image quality was very nice, the controls were fairly logical and easy to figure out, and the image stabilizer worked very nicely. On a cold Chicago day (20 deg F) I brought it into a butterfly garden (78 deg F and VERY humid) and the lens defogged faster than any other I've owned and the recorder was unaffected. The only problem was what to do AFTER shooting the video.

If you use the DVD-R discs (about $2 each at Sam's Club), you need to "finalize" the disc before it can be played in a regular DVD player. This takes 23 minutes and requires using the AC adapter, which is unacceptable. And you get poor DVD menus. Or, you can use the re-usable DVD-RAM discs ($18 each in stores, $6 on the internet) but these discs won't work in most DVD players or computer DVD burners.

So, I took some video with DVD-R discs, and it came out fine, but I didn't like spending $2 apiece for discs that held 30 minutes of video with poor menus.

And I took some video with a DVD-RAM disc. This video came out a little nicer, but was a little more work. First I had to download the video onto my computer (a late 2002 model Celeron). That was easy enough through the USB cable. If I updgraded to USB 2.0, it would be even faster. Then, on the computer, I loaded the video files into the DVD burning program. This was very un-intuitive, but I figured it out. Then the program burned my DVD. It took almost an hour, which is unacceptable, but the result was a beautiful and professional looking DVD disc. A more up-to-date computer, with a Pentium 4 processor and faster hard disk, probably would have done this task in much less time.

So I reluctantly returned the camcorder. I say reluctanly because it fit my hand almost perfectly, and I really enjoyed the quality of video produced by the DVD-RAM disc and software. Really it was much nicer than my Sharp VL-NZ50 camcorder. However, I didn't like time consuming requirements to get a disc that would play in a DVD player. Also, my old camcorder works fine, so it was hard to justify buying another one. I gave it 4 stars because of the price I paid. After I returned it to Circuit City, I looked at the regular price for this model and it was $699. I wouldn't pay $699 for this. In fact at $699 I would only give this 3 stars. For $699 I expect a 5 star++ experience.

My advice If you want a DVD camcorder, and you have a good computer with a DVD burner on it, and you are computer literate, and have $700 to burn, then you will be able to enjoy using this camcorder. Otherwise you will hate it. I'm going to hold out another year. By then the price of this model will be much lower, and there will be new models much easier to use.

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I bought this camera with high hopes as it was recommended by Consumer Reports. I have had very mixed results. Using the camera is easy. No problems there. However, as soon as I am done with a disc the problems begin. First of all, I have had 4 out of 12 discs not finalize correctly. This causes the DVD to NOT be copyable. Basically, if my DVD ever scratches or gets lost, my video is gone forever. Big problem.

I just videotaped my daughter's first birthday. Got 27 minutes into it, when the DVD gave me an error message and the disc is officially done. I can't ever get this video back.

In summary, if you are willing to lose your most precious memories every so often, and don't mind not having a back up copy..this camera is great. Otherwise, you might want to shop with some other vendor.

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We ordered one from QVC last September 30th. I just started to use it in December 25th 2005. I have been having trouble with buying -RW and -R discs. It came with Maxwell -R and one -RW. I purchased -RW Sony and it would not read any of the three discs. I Purchased -R Memorix and out of 10 discs it was able to read and format only 6 in the package. I suggest to be careful when buying discs and opening carefully. Check with the stores return policy. Other than this concern the camera functions well. Amazon has a better price than QVC also.

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I like it for what it is. It can't use the DVDs I would like it to use and the one I got didn't have the remote or the software, but I guess I have to find a way to compensate.