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Photograph courtesy of Panasonic
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By WILSON ROTHMAN
Recently, Panasonic has been introducing video-intensive products that write to flash memory card, and it's causing a stir: they're fine on quality but often questionable on quantity. The latest, the SV-AV100, kicks off the D-Snap line of ultra-compact electronics.
Unlike earlier "convergence" devices, Panasonic's SV-AV100 is decidedly a camcorder, albeit one you can carry in the pocket of your jeans. Instead of housing the bulky mechanics of a MiniDV cassette recorder or DVD-RAM burner, it writes DVD-quality MPEG-2 video straight to Panasonic's small-size, high-capacity SD memory card. The designers' biggest space-saving challenges were fitting the all-important 10X optical zoom and the 2.5-in. LCD screen.
The AV100 behaves like most camcorders, complete with electronic image stabilization, low-light mode, etc. Its size means that the record and zoom buttons are easy for anyone to reach, and the large, multidirectional LCD is great, although it suffers from glare in direct sunlight. An accompanying cradle lets you not only play back video immediately on TV, but also encode video from sources like a VCR or TiVo.
The product ships with a 512MB SD card. That's the lowest amount of storage Panasonic felt comfortable providing, and rightfully so: at the best quality ("Fine" MPEG-2), you only get 10 minutes of recording time. While I discovered that "Normal" MPEG-2 looks fine on 99 percent of the world's television screens, you only get 20 minutes per 512MB card on that setting. (At the highest MPEG4 video setting, you can get up to an hour, although those files won't be DVD ready.)
Although there is reason to believe Panasonic's reps when they say 20 minutes suffices for most camcorder scenarios, you might feel under-equipped without a full 60-minute tape. One suggestion? Buy another card. I've seen 512's as low as $135, and the 1GB should be hitting superstores soon. It's a splurge on top of a splurge, sure, but if you're considering the AV100, you're the kind of gear lover who doesn't mind dropping a few bucks to out-Jones the Joneses.
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