Panasonic VDR-D150 DVD Camcorder review

Like Tim Henman the Panasonic VDR-D150 has much potential but doesn’t seem to finish well. The camera looks great, it’s slim and fairly lightweight, it’s got a ridiculously powerful zoom and you can just aim and shoot. It also allows you to record on DVDs and SD cards which is handy and comes with a decent size screen that has good resolution allowing you to see what you’re shooting. However it’s the finer details that it falls flat on such as the SD card only works when taking stills and the DVD only working on a player with no way of converting it to your computer. But having said that if all you’re looking for is an easy to use camera and the ability to store away those magic moments in a DVD case, for the price and quality, the D150 is pretty good.

Design
It’s sleek and silver and a delight to look at. The Panasonic DVR-D150 is tall and thin, with a 2.5 inch screen that sits on the side and easily flicks open. On the opposite side is the DVD holder, with the SD slot tucked away at the base of the camera. And all the functions you’re likely to use are handily located at the back of the machine on a dial or at the top within reach.

Setup/Installation
Once the battery is charged there's little to do other than start shooting.

Features
Probably the most notable feature on this camcorder is its rather large zoom. Press the zoom button and watch the lens go, and keep going until you’re so close to the subject you could almost touch it thanks to the 30x optical zoom. But while it’s handy, even with Panasonic’s OIS stabilisation system you still get very shaky footage unless you happen to have a tripod attached.
The ‘corder holds 8cm DVDs which get rid of the whirring of tapes, but, and there seems to be some buts, there’s a good four second delay before the DVD compartment opens and then takes a few seconds further while the camcorder recognises the disc before you can start shooting any footage.
If you want to take photos you can use the SD slot, but you can’t store moving images on to the SD card, it has to be the DVD.
Once you’ve shot your footage the camera allows you to combine frames together or even split them at any given point. And there’s a handy fade mode that adds a bit of pizzazz to your movies.
You can either use the viewer or the two and a half inch screen to look at what you’re shooting and all the main controls are operated by the wheel and nipple at the back of the camera or at the top (which is where the zoom button is located).
The camera has automatic or manual controls for aperture, focus, shutter speed etc and these are all operated by using the nipple too.
Press the zoom button and the tele just keeps going and going, ending at a massive 30x optical magnification. The usefulness of this is questionable though – at 30x, it’s near-impossible to avoid shaky footage, even with Panasonic’s impressive OIS stabilisation system.
Battery life is pretty good and once you’ve got it charged up it lasts for several hours.

Performance
Video quality is alright on the whole, although here are occasional glitches. The night view mode isn’t anything to write home about and it takes a while for the exposure to settle but on the whole in natural daylight or limited florescent lighting the picture is good. The still pictures are of an average quality – they’re not as good as a top-of-the-range digital camera but as an alternative to shooting a movie it’s not bad.
What is good is the sound quality – the mic at the front of the camera picks up voices easily and records it at a decent quality.
However a big drawback was not being able to transfer the footage on to your computer. If you simply want to watch it from the camera or using your DVD player you’re fine, but if you wanted to send an MPEG4 to your relatives you’d be scuppered because there’s no way of transferring the footage to your PC.
And a big letdown which caused real irritation is the navigation nipple - it’s far too sensitive and keeps missing the queue.

What's In The Box?
Camera, charger, AV cable, manual.

Overall Opinion
Though it's not a stellar example of DVD camcorder technology, the Panasonic VDR-D150 delivers above-average video and stills, in a compact, comfortable package at a reasonable price.

by Babita Wakelin