Photo gallery: Panasonic HDC-SD1Design
The high-definition, SDHC-based HDC-SD1 shares a similar silver plastic body with its DVD sibling, the HDC-DX1. It sports a slimmer form factor, however, thanks to its eschewing of the DVD drive which adds significantly to the height of the HDC-DX1. The more slimline visage is a double-edged sword though. Unless you have small hands the HDC-SD1 requires more effort to grip and over long periods of time this can become rather tiring.
Also the relocated controls are less convenient than the ones we remember from the HDC-DX1. The zoom toggle, photo shutter and five-way manual control joystick are within easy reach of one's thumb and index finger, however the mode dial and record button require a stretch of the thumb to reach -- not great when you're trying to avoid shake in your videos. Also the beige plastic grip which replaces the DVD drive looks and feels cheap, with exposed screw heads. Certainly not the impression that we expect from a product that retails for two-and-a-half grand.
The menus were responsive and well laid out, however the camera lacked a recording priority mode -- so, if you're deep in the bowels of the menu system and your dog starts dancing the tango, you'll have to exit the menu system first before you can record. And it's impossible to exit the menu system with a few presses of the back button on the manual control joystick, you have to stretch your thumb across to the under-sized Menu button.
Features
Except for the recording medium, the HDC-SD1 shares identical specifications with the HDC-DX1: a 12x Leica zoom lens, optical image stabilisation, recording in AVCHD format, a 3-inch LCD, 5.1-channel mic and three 1/4-inch CCDs. Included in the HDC-SD1's asking price is a 4GB Panasonic SDHC card. This should be good for an hour's filming.
Playing back video straight to TV is easy, with cables supplied for component and A/V out, and an HDMI port too. Installing the HD Writer program that Panasonic supplies allows you to copy your cinematic creations to PC, burn them to DVDs or edit them. It may also be the only way to view your masterpieces on your PC, as we were unable to find any codecs which would allow us to view the Panasonic's M2TS files on Media Player or Media Player Classic.
Performance
Unlike the HDC-DX1 which suffers from a slow start-up time -- 10 seconds plus -- the HDC-SD1 starts up in about two seconds, although the automated lens never ceased being noisy. Playing back our footage on an HD Panasonic projector left even the sceptics knowing that HD is the way of the future.
Image quality
The image quality was excellent with no visible compression artefacts during playback, with the only blemish we could find being a slight fringing on the edges of some red objects. Zooming in and out is slower than in most other consumer camcorders we've tried, and that suits us just fine because faster electric zooms usually require you to have the fine touch to zoom without causing viewers to suffer nausea.
The zoom mic function adjusts the levels of HDC-SD1's five microphones depending on the optical zoom level to focus on the voice of your subject. If, however, you're zooming in on streetscapes and monuments, we recommend that you turn this feature off as it can be rather disconcerting.
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