A review of the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA6 Digital Movie Camera

The Sanyo Xacti VPA-CA6 is a combined digital camera and camcorder which promises to produce great stills and sharp movie footage. Sanyo have cleverly named it a Digital Movie Camera to incorporate the two functions, which many other competitors have failed to catch up on and continue to name them either a Digital Camcorder (that can take stills) or a Digital Camera (that can take short movies). So, we think that Sanyo deserve a pat on the back for the clever title, but do the two functions live up to the promise?

Design

As a compact digital camera, the Sanyo Xacti VPA-CA6 is capable of capturing clear 6mega pixel images and in order to achieve accurate skin tones and low noise in dark areas the 6.37, total, mega pixel CCD and Sanyo's proprietary image-adaptive data processing technology has been included. As well as the ability to capture these digital still images the Xacti CA6 has an MPEG4 engine to compress large, high quality Movies into smaller files and recording with the MPEG4 will ensure exceptional clarity and detail. The Sanyo CA6 will also act as a web cam to enable you to communicate with other people over the internet. Another great feature is the dual action of taking a still image whilst filming as you only need to press the shutter release button whilst filming and you have yourself a still image of your movie. Image stabilization is included with the Sanyo Xacti CA6, but will be interrupted when using the dual action feature that we have just mentioned. It is such a handy feature and operates in both wide-angle and telephoto mode, giving every shot a professional and focused finish. When playing back images on the LCD screen, 9 images will be displayed at once for ease of location of a particular image and they can all be played back continuously in the Slideshow function. The editing possibilities are endless with the in-camera options (Art Mode) and also with software packages, you can send homemade Movies and Still images to friends and loved ones.

We were taken aback with the mega speedy 1.3 second start-up time of the Sanyo Xacti VAP-CA6, as once out of the box and switched on we were ready to go and start making our Movie. The dual action of taking still images whilst filming works really well and although did slightly interrupt filming was really easy to do. The menu system was extremely user-friendly and was simple to navigate, especially with the talking navigator that will assist you in exploring the functions of the camera when you first start using it. The playback, editing and connection to our TV and computer was all really easy too, which was such a relief as sometimes there are so many cables and wires that it can take ages to work out where they all go, but with the Sanyo Xacti CA6 it was simple and the manual was so user-friendly, we followed it Xactly and didn’t have any troubles at all. Sanyo claim that the Xacti CA6 is weather proof (NOT waterproof) and is ‘protected from splash in all directions’ but it cannot be immersed in water so don’t go experimenting with it. The images we achieved were exceptionally clear and sharp, however did show grain when held closely. The video images were good and clear when the subject was stationary, but when we panned the camera round or if the subject moved, the images looked slightly blurry. In low light situations that video was too dark to use and the flash didn’t compliment still images well.