Panasonic VDR-D100 DVD Camcorder with 30x Optical Zoom

I did a lot of research before buying this camera. We could have bought a higher quality digital camcorder for less or higher quality MiniDV camcorder for the same price. What led to our final decision to purchase this camcorder was the fact we could record straight to a 8cm DVD-R, finalize the disc on the camcorder, and play it directly on our DVD player or DVD-ROM player on our computer. We didn't want to deal with sticking cables and wires into the TV, electrical outlet, and camera to playback footage. And we also didn't want to deal with the cost and trouble of transferring footage onto DVDs to keep in our video library for the future.

For those of you who like to edit, re-record, create effects, etc., you need to purchase special software separately, but with a DVD-RAM disc, you have the ease and convenience of doing it all from your DVD-ROM on your computer. You can also download it with the USB cable, but it is nice to be able to just pop it in the DVD drive and get started.

If you are only interested in playback, DVD-R discs are sufficient; however, you can't erase or record over footage on DVD-Rs, only DVD-RW and DVD-RAM discs.

The picture quality of the camera is adequate. It isn't grainy, but smooth and actually very nice in the right lighting, especially outside on a sunny day. It doesn't have a built-in light, so you have to be aware of the right surroundings and environment for recording. I would give the picture quality a 3.75 out of 5. If you want better quality, you will need to buy a more expensive DVD Camcorder. Considering how far we have come over the years with home video technology, it definitely beats those days images were out of focus and grainy. You can't compare it to TV and movie camera quality, but I think it is pretty darn good for home videos. The zoom is good, but of course it takes some time to focus if you zoom in or out too quickly. The stabilizer is pretty good, but I keep it off for the most part to get better picture quality. If you plan to move around a lot, use the function, but expect to lose a little quality in the process. What basically happens when using the stabilizer (with most cameras, I believe) is that the image movements are slightly delayed. The sound quality is adequate, but if you are recording when it is windy, you will pick up a lot of the wind sounds unless you block the microphone with your hand.

The only problem I have had so far is with the discs. We bought Panasonic DVD-RW discs and can't get them to play on our computer or in our DVD player. We ended up purchasing Sony DVD-R discs and they play with no problem. When I called Panasonic about their DVD-RW discs, they didn't have a good answer. The representative told me to make sure the DVD-RW discs are compatible with my players. I told her they may not be compatible with my DVD Player, but it should be with my new computer software. The representative just repeated herself and eventually said there isn't any difference between Sony and Panasonic discs (interesting). They make the claim that Panasonic discs work the best in the manual, but now I know better.

Overall, this camcorder is a great value (you can't beat the price for this DVD technology), average to good quality picture and functions, is excellent for the ease and convenience of DVD playback and storage, and is really easy to use.

**UPDATE: We were having trouble with playback of a few discs again, so we took some of these discs to a video recording shop to have them transferred to a regular DVD. The manager there explained that with this DVD Camcorder technology, people are getting errors on their discs when they move around too much when it is writing. For example, you film and then you either shut off the camera or switch it to playback mode, right? Well, apparently during that particular time if you jostle the unit too much, you may get a disc error that could be unrecoverable. He recommended keeping the unit very still when you switch to playback mode and wait for it finish writing to avoid this problem. Unfortunately, their company has had to transfer many camcorder DVDs to regular DVDs and this is not a problem unique to this Panasonic camcorder, though higher quality and higher priced ones may have less problems. Bottom line is that DVD camcorder technology in general is still developing and improving and there are still a few bugs in it.

The picture is fine at this price.

I bought the Panasonic VDR-D100 for my daughter because she usually doesn't want to do anything with the computer like edit video. When we gave it to her the first thing she asked was, "can I edit the movies?"

I did a quick test to make sure the DVDs would finalize and work on another DVD player with success on 3 computers and 3 DVD players. I didn't find anything the disc wouldn't play on.

Then I started up Vegas Movie Studio Platinum which I use to edit my miniDV movies. I selected IMPORT from DVD and it went straight to the miniDVD and loaded in the files where I was able to edit and add titles, music, sound effects and a voice over if I wanted to.

Since I already bought DVD-R/W discs she will be able to reuse them if she ever edits the movies because you can unfinalize the discs and reformat them.

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You can do better for the money. The image quality is below average and low light is really bad, even for a novice camcorder. I'm glad to see the price has come down. The camcorder did not come with the software needed to capture video or even play the dvd on my computer(it really should have). I would do more research and choose a camera that is right for you. I found many online camcorder review sites very helpful. I returned it and bought another panasonic with 3ccd technology. It has much better picture quality. If you want really good night vision go with sony. I would not recomend this camcorder to anyone.

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We purchased the Panasonic VDR-D100 as our first video camera after the birth of our daughter. We wanted the ability to record directly to DVD, playback on our DVD player and be able to edit on our computer. Just as the last reviewer stated; getting the DVD-RW discs to recognize on our computer was the main problem. We wanted to be able to do this so we could do the simple editing functions like dividing and combining on the camera, but then embellish a little with transition shots and cleaning up the video on our computer. We also wanted to upload the video through YouTube online to our blog.

After a little research and working with the CSRs at Panasonic, we were able to figure out we needed 1) a Driver 2) authoring software and 3) software to recognize and play the DVD-RW on our computer. For less than $20 (including shipping) Panasonic sent us DVD-Movie Album SE 4.2, which included the driver (reads the DVD-RW, but no editing is allowed) and DVDFunStudio 2.4 (authoring software, which allows editing).

After tinkering with it for about an hour I realized the manuals (in PDF on the program) are not very easy to understand for a novice like myself, so I opted to forego the authoring software for Microsoft MovieMaker. I needed the DVD-Movie Album SE 4.2 though regardless to be able to recognize the DVD on my computer. For less than $20--that wasn't bad at all.

My review was editing focused because that is the major downfall of the camera. I wanted to share how we got around that downfall and how pleased we are with the result. I created my first edited video of our daughter and was able to save it to my computer, upload it through YouTube to our blog, then save it to a regular DVD (to get it off our computer) and re-use the DVD-RW disc to save us a little cash.

I don't know enough about video cameras to tell anyone if it is good or not, really. It was inexpensive and it does well with my shaky abilities, so we are very pleased. It has a decent mic and is fair in low lighting situations.

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This camcorder is awesome!! Easy to use and the instruction manual breaks things down for you Barney Style:)

The battery only lets you record continuously for about 2 and a half hours (more than I need) so you may want to have a standby battery waiting if it's nessasary.