Sanyo VPCHD2000A Xacti 8MP High Definition 1080P Black

Convenient camera with some small drawbacks
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Overall, I am very happy with this camera. If you own a Mac, this is the camera to get because of the iFrame option. All you have to do is import the video into iMovie or Final Cut, and start editing! No waiting for the video to be transcoded, because the camera shoots in the same video format that the programs use. Transcoding is the reason that most people, (including me), never get around to editing their video on computers. It used to take hours just to get the video off the camera into an editing program. Of course you don’t have to use iFrame. It also records in 1080p, 1080i, 720p, and so on. You can even do slow motion video at 600fps and 240fps. (Not HD) The slow motion is a fun feature. 16x zoom is more than most HD camcorders. You can also take a 2MP photo at the same time you record video.

The camera has a cold shoe to mount a light or a microphone. It has a mic jack and an earphone jack. It comes with a dock and remote control that can be connected to your computer, external hard drive, or TV with HDMI, composite, component, and usb. All cables are included except for the HDMI. You can even plug the dock directly into an external hard drive and offload the video files onto it.

It does have image stabilization for both the camera, and the video. The camera takes pictures equivalent to a point and shoot, and has a pop up flash. (you have to manually turn it on – not automatic) The video is equivalent to other HD cameras, and I am happy with the low light performance. There are many manual settings you can use to improve the low light quality. ISO settings to 3200, exposure compensation, white balance, and so on. You can make shortcuts to the settings using the toggle switch.

A few negatives:

The lens cap is too small and pops off. I solved this by buying a 40.5 UV lens filter to protect the lens, and the cap snaps firmly into the filter.

You cannot plug a USB cable directly into the camera. You have to use the dock. It would have been much more convenient if you could charge the camera with the USB. You can plug the power cable directly into the camera. That doesn’t help if you don’t have an outlet handy.

All the video cables are used on the dock only. This doesn’t bother me too much. I just leave the dock near my TV. I don’t plan on playing video from the camera anywhere else except for at home.

If you record constantly for about 20 minutes, (video file hits about 4GB size), it starts a new file, and there may be a gap of missing video. This is not because of the camera, it is a limitation of the SD card formatting, but other cameras deal with it much better. This doesn’t bother me either, because these types of cameras are not meant to be used for constant use. Home videos don’t need to be that long, and you shouldn’t be boring your relatives to death like that.

The zoom is difficult to use for still photos if you have the video set to HD (16:9) and the photo set to 4:3. You can zoom in to the subject, but the subject you had framed correctly in 16:9, now appears further away in 4:3. Using the same aspect ration for both video and photo resolves this problem. There is a photo preview button.

I am very happy with this camera, and I will actually get to enjoy editing my home videos right away without waiting hours to transcode my videos before I can start. I’m sure there are other cameras that have better quality, (at a higher price), but what good is it if you just let the videos sit in a closet, on a tape or SD card, and never do anything with them?!

Best technology, near perfect dual camera yet useless
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
This is an amazing camera in every way except if you are getting it for the hi def video, please do not. Even the most inexperienced novice will realize what a beautiful hi def video this has if only you could actually watch it. No matter what Sanyo tells you, it basically has no image stabilization what so ever. I just cannot imagine a company that would make such a hi tech feature rich camera and not give it the one thing it needs to make it near perfect and that is optical image stabilization. Why spend this much money on dual camera when you can get a much smaller just as good still shooter for a lot less and many of them have ois.

AWESOME
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
We just got this out of the box and so far its been an aswesome buy.

Sanyo Xacti HD2000
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’m not a video boffin, so don’t really understand the techno stuff, but I really like my new video camera. It is easy to use, compact, and really quite an attractive piece of equipment. It also seems to have really great video quality, as long as you have a steady hand as I understand there is no image stabilisation wizardry. It also has a great battery life and stores a good amount of video or pictures on a 16GB card.

The only negatives I’ve found so far are that it doesn’t have a brilliant still picture quality, it seems to be the equivalent of any point and shoot still camera, but then I think this is true of all dual cameras.

It is also much better in good light, but manages fairly well in artificial or moderate light.

So for those amateurs out there, I would reccommend this camera, but shop around as you can get them for as little as £350/$550 (new).

Hope this helps, I spent ages researching different cameras before buying this one, and I haven’t yet regretted it.

Hot off the Boat, The New Xacti With iFrame Format Recording
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I received the unit and have been testing it out in various shooting settings and resolutions. Right away I really appreciated the .mp4 format of the recordings and the simplicity of working with the files (on a Mac w/iMovie9). Honestly, on a fast mac, working with any of the size/formats the camera records seems to be quick and easy.

I’m a little disappointed that the iFrame format doesn’t turn out to be a big of a deal as I thought it would be. iFrame is a nice compromise between 720p and 480p with low file size and a wide screen format. Shooting 720p @ 30fps seems to work just as well, with Quicktime deftly handling bouncing the clips down to a variety of formats including ipod, appletv, 480p, 720p, etc.

There are two slow down modes, the slowest the files do not play natively on my mac.

The transfer speed seems a tad slow thru the USB connection to a known USB 2.0 connections. Remedied with the purchase of a third party card reader, which is also mush easier than using the base stand for transfers.

The unit lacks a usb or video connection on camera so you have to use the stand or a card reader for transfers.

On tripod this cam works well. Hand held noticed some camera shake issues that seem to be inherent with the xacti line as opposed to the Canons (based on reading other reviews). Turning the motion stabilization of or off didn’t seem to make much of a difference in informal shooting sessions. iMove seems geared to take a very long time to analyze clips for shake. best to get a tripod or monopod for better shots.

The still image quality is just ok. The 8 megapixel claim falling far short as the camera bumps it down to 2 megapixel while shooting video. Even in photo shooting mode the images leave a bit to be desired. Adequate for trips and events, but not worthy of replacing a good point and shoot.

I noticed some bluish glowing spots in some videos early on. The lens is wide angle enough to have some reflection problems. Zooming in, just a little, get’s rid of the glowing spots.

The various shooting modes worked fine for around the house and yard. The 1080p highest quality mode seems to be struggling to remain sharp, even in good light. For the price you almost can’t compare this cam to those costing thousands more. Despite this subtle flaw the hat tips to the Xacti when taking into considering the time and HD space saved using the native .mp4 files, along with easy archivability, and native playback with no transcoding.

Under studio lighting it was easy enough to use the many menu controls to set the white point and exposure, as well as adjusting the settings. One trick I’ve found that can dramatically improve low budget set shots is to use the exposure and focus lock commands to keep the Cam from hunting or altering the exposure while shooting in a attempt to get the best shot. The little thing, means well but sometime you have to think for it.

Overall a nice and small, modern, consumer cam. With some tweaks high quality shots are possible. For mAc users the easy accessibility makes the Xacti a strong contender – though the iFrame format, at least for now, may be more hype than feature. Last years model might do for those not willing to for out extra to early adopt.

Image stabilization is an issue.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Good camera overall but image stabilization is the real issue. The most basic videos have noticeable shake to them. The video quality other than the shake is very good. I bought it for iFrame but when I tried it the video quality was not very good. You have to use the full 1080 HD at which time it is not in iFrame format and imports take a long time.

Way To Go Sanyo
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Sanyo VPC-HD2000A Xacti 8MP High Definition 1080P (Black)

This works great, for everything I need a pocket video camera to do it handles it.

I shoot sports video, I use this camera with my large HD cameras. Now that I have it I am not sure how I worked without it.

Full HD all the way. thanks Sanyo!!

Perfection, but only for techies.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ll be honest, I started getting skeptical when I started seeing the reviews here. Lots of commentary about people not receiving proper tech support, horrible stabilization, and lack of gapless recording. These seem far from reasons to warrant a single star, but alas, I still took the plunge. I played around with the Canon HFS100 before settling with the sanyo due to the major savings for basically the same CMOS sensor and lens aperture. I use a Velbon 540 and stabilization is not an issue even when running. For anyone on the fence about this, really look at the stuff posted on vimeo using stabilizers and wide angle lenses. Now Like I said, this camera is for tinkerers, if you know what the roadblocks are and don’t mind them, get ready to enjoy a truly amazing camera. Who is this not for? The average Joe and Jane recording Bobby’s Piano recital will hate this thing, just like they would hate a DSLR.

[...]

PRO’s:

+Image quality and optics among the best for a consumer camera under $2000.

+External Mic input

+60FPS means semi-slowmo shots that turn out awesome.

+high speed recording neat even if it lacks quality.

+Lenses and filters available to shorten DOF and do wide angle or telephoto shots.

+H.264 is easy to work with, and lightning fast to transcode using nvidia’s badaboom.

CON’s:

-zero stabilization (fix: buy a Manfrotto 585 for $99)

-internal mic on back of LCD (odd, real odd)

-not for “My MOM”

-some of the interface is quirky.

-no electronic viewfinder.

CAUTION – Poor Customer Support and Service from Sanyo
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
Regrettably, I haven’t been able to spend much time out in the field with this camera because it showed up with a broken lens cap. While Amazon customer service will take care of this for me, I thought I’d reach out to Sanyo to get a replacement lens cap. They are very difficult. Not only do you have to fax them a copy of the invoice, you also have to send them the serial # off of the bottom of the camera. (Which is a pain if you mark your calendar to call from work since they are only open during “business hours” and not on thee weekend and you didn’t know this before you called.) This initial experience with Sanyo leaves me very hesitant about wanting to do business with them again or encouraging others to do the same.

Bottom line is I think Sanyo’s policy (and strict adherence to that policy) for the replacement of a plastic lens cap is quite remarkably stupid.

P.S. I very calmly told the customer service supervisor that I would be posting this review if my concerns were not addressed. They weren’t, so here it is. Just the facts…

Got the Serial # and called back. I got a new story that because it is within 30 days of purchase my only recourse to this problem was to deal with Amazon. No help from Sanyo. When I asked for a supervisor the “Customer No-Service” representative hung up on me. Called back and this time instead of being hung up on I was transferred into oblivion by “CSR #1″. Called again and transferred to a voicemail system by CSR #2. Called again and spoke with “CSR #3″ #3 added a new wrinkle. In order to get a replacement lens cap, I not only need to send them a copy of the invoice, provide them with the serial #, I also need to send them the old lens cap “for evaluation.” Upon hearing this added news I again asked who I needed to speak with in order to register my extreme dissatisfaction with Sanyo’s handling of this matter. I was placed on hold and after a few minutes he came back and told that “If you email me a copy of the invoice, include the serial # in the body of the message and attach a photo of the broken part, I’ll see if I can get a replacement part for you.” I explained that a picture of the broken part would not show anything and that I wasn’t satisfied with hanging up based on a hope that #3 could resolve this for me. I wanted to know what was going to be done. Finally got Supervisor on the line. He told me that regardless, it would be weeks before a new lens cap could be shipped to me because they are back ordered and have to come in from overseas. Perhaps I’m not the only one with this problem, because he said that there were at 7 other people waiting on the same part. So, I am going to send the darn thing back to Amazon and wait for another manufacturer to introduce an iFrame compatible camera. What a darn shame all around that instead of having a happy customer Sanyo has a consumer that will never purchase one of their products again — all for their intransigence about sending me a replacement lens cap. If they had handled it nicely I probably would have waited. What could doing so have cost them, a few bucks at most? ON THE POSITIVE SIDE, this is why I do most of my online shopping through Amazon. What a terrific, consumer friendly company this

Questionable reliability!
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
My Sanyo camcorder had a red-pink vertical stripe on the far right side of the picture and after 4 months, it no longer records both video or stills. I just get a system error message. No help from Sanyo on this issue because I bought this camcorder outside the US. They said I must pay to fix their defective camera. So now, the barely new camcorder is just a paperweight.

After reading what C. Caine, who is qualified for support, went through with Sanyo, I WILL NEVER BUY FROM SANYO EVER AGAIN!!!!! C’mon, how much does a freaking lenscap cost? And the goodwill they would have gained by doing the right thing just by sending him the lenscap is priceless!

It’s time to let the market decide! Let’s only put our hard earned dollars into companies that STAND BEHIND THEIR PRODUCTS AND RESPECT THEIR CUSTOMERS. The age of disposable consumer goods is over!

Loses 10 seconds of video every 22 minutes
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
As others have pointed out, the Sanyo VPC-HD2000 (and VPC-FH1) will lose about 10 seconds of video every 22 minutes (or so) when the file size hits the 4Gb limit for the FAT filesystem. At this point, the camera opens a new file and loses about 10 seconds of video in the process.

Other camcorders (Canon, Sony, etc.) don’t seem to exhibit this issue. One way manufacturers work around the issue is to buffer the video input during the switch over so that no frames are lost. I’m assuming that, given the price, Sanyo had to cut corners here.

I like to set up my camcorder on a tripod and just let it run for the length of an event. If I’m filming a recital, for example, I don’t want random 10 second chunks missing. For me, this is a deal breaker.