Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2000 camcorder review

Will this help you crack Hollywood?

Reviewer: Stuart Miles
Review Date: 28 January 2009
Manufacturer: Sanyo
Price as reviewed: £549
Latest price: compare

Our score

8/10

Full Review

Sanyo has updated its flagship pistol grip camcorder with the new HD2000, but has the update been worth it? We get recording to find out.

Compact but chunky, the new HD2000 replaces the HD1010 and takes a similar form factor. The pistol grip design means that you get to hold it in one hand while your thumb becomes the key-controlling element. A widescreen display that can be rotated 180 degrees offers the vital statistics.

The HD2000 offers what Sanyo calls a "Dual camera", basically offering you a still and movie camera in one device. Switching between the two modes is as simple as pressing a button and you get a 16x optical zoom with which to shoot.

Aside from the array of controls, the camcorder offers a pop-up flash when in camera mode and a hot shoe for adding additional accessories like a directional mic, top light, or any other gadget you can think of.

Elsewhere there is a 2.5mm mic socket so you can improve the sound recording capabilities, something worth bearing in mind if you are planning on filming in noisy environments.

Footage is stored on SD card rather than an internal solid state or hard drive and with cards now ranging up to 32GB in size swapping out cards is very easy.

If the idea of taking the card out of the back isn't for you, the HD2000 comes with a docking station. On the plus this doubles as a charging station, making connection to the PC or television easy (it's got an HDMI socket - cable not in the box) and a nice place for it to live on your desk. The downside, however, is that you won't be able to connect the VPC-HD2000 any other way.

When it comes to controlling the camcorder or digital camera elements the menus have been kept as simple as possible: this is clearly a device aimed at consumers rather than indie filmmakers.

While the "normal" menu is simple enough, Sanyo, not taking any chances, has opted for a switch on the widescreen display that allows you to turn on a simple menu. It reduces your choices to three: movie recording quality, focus mode, and flash options.

Back in the menu that actually gives you some control you get to set video resolutions, photo resolutions, scenes, filters, flash, whether you want video or photo stabilisers turned on, focus modes, ISO (up to 3200) and then the usual array of white balance, exposure, as well as a host of other bits and bobs.

When it comes to video modes, this being the flagship model, you get Full HD quality recording (1920 x 1080) at 60 frames per second. In real terms that's 19 minutes for a 4GB SD card and although the quality of playback was impressively crisp and clear, it's worth noting that the VLC movie player running on our MacBook Pro 2.33GHz laptop complained that our computer wasn't fast enough to process the information. QuickTime struggled too. If you're planning on editing HD, then it's not just your camera you're going to need to upgrade.

Back to the camera and there are some nice features; the ability to set the white balance for example or the 12 face detection mode.

On the still camera front you get an 8-megapixel resolution camera that allows you to snap up to 13 images continuously before it creaks to a halt. It's strange that Sanyo is pitching this feature as a plus considering Casio clearly dominates the continuous shooting mode with the EX-FH20 and EX-F1 and that's before you mention the yet to be available EX-FC100.

It's also worth noting that the camera might be able to snap shots quickly, but not quickly at the press of the button. We were amazed that button press to shutter time was deathly slow - it might say dual camera on the box, but we wouldn't recommend this being your first choice camera.

So what is the result? Well it's probably as you would expect, the camcorder, although geared towards the novice rather than indie, offers you lots of scope in an easy to use form factor. We like the design, we like the SD card slot, we like the basic menu that doesn't go about trying to confuse.

The camera might in Sanyo's mind be worth a double billing, but it's a far cry from it. It's a nice addition but we would still advise you carrying around a digital still camera if you're looking to snap decent pictures. The 8-megapixel camera doesn't really cut it if you are looking to crop in on the action and the shutter lag means you'll miss the action too many times if you've got to rely on it.

On the battery life front we are as impressed as we are with the video footage. 135 minutes recording, 350 minutes standby with the camera living up to those claims. It's certainly better than Canon's HG offering whose battery seems to die very quickly.

Verdict

At £549, plus the PC or Mac you are no doubt going to have to buy to actually edit the footage you've captured, the Sanyo VPC-DH2000 is a nice camera, but one that you'll probably find you aren't making full use of.

The still camera isn't a complete waste of time, for example it's helpful that you can grab pictures while you record but it's not the reason you should be buying it. The trouble is at this price you could probably get something that is more feature-packed if you are looking to make the next Blair Witch Project.

For ease though, it probably is worth checking out. If the price was slightly lower, which it no doubt will be online, this is one still worth a closer look.

Full tags

Cameras, Camcorders, Sanyo, Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2000

UK Shopping

Jessops.com, Amazon.co.uk, ebay.co.uk

US Shopping

BHphoto.com, Amazon.com, ebay.com

Comments

60 fps means fields per second not frames per second.

Also, if they haven't added optical stabilisation then it's still rubbish for anything that isn't tripod based. Posted by Adrian, UK
"60 fps means fields per second not frames per second."
It actually does shoot at 60 FRAMES per second - which is one of Sanyo's selling points for this camera.

"...and a hot shoe for adding additional accessories like a directional mic, top light, or any other gadget you can think of. "
I've also seen where it also comes with a COLD shoe NOT a hot shoe.

"The downside, however, is that you won't be able to connect the VPC-HD2000 any other way."
I believe it also has component out and USB out on the docking station in addition to the HDMI port.

I'm interested in this camera as it seems to offer alot, but I'd still like to see and download some footage and stills (under various lighting/exposure conditions) to look at so I can properly decide for myself.

As a side note, Canon has had the Powershot TX1 for over a year now, which is as much a "dual camera" IMHO.

Colin Posted by Colin Rootz, Jamaica via USA
"Also, if they haven't added optical stabilisation then it's still rubbish for anything that isn't tripod based."

Again, it seems as though they have added image stabilisation to this model, but I have yet to hear a report on how it (the OIS) performs...

Colin Posted by Colin Rootz, Jamaica via USA
It does have optical stabilisation for both the video and still modes Posted by stuartmiles, United Kingdom
It's electronic image stabilisation - like the HD1010 I own. It's like saying a Mini is a fast car. Compared to nothing it is. Compared to a Ferrari (i.e. Optical IS) it's pants. Optical shifts glass around and Sanyo don't know how to do that yet so they use the computer to lose pixels at the edges to make the image look stationary..

And yes, it's 60 FIELDS PER SECOND. That's the law (whoops, slipped into Judge Dredd mode). 60 FRAMES per second refers to ye-oldie FILM cameras. In this modern digital world it's done in fields per second. And if Sanyo's marketing department say frames then they are plain wrong (and I can't see anywhere Sanyo saying it's frames).

**** Science bit ****
Progressive and interlaced are how HD video is defined. Interlaced shows alternating fields (or lines for non-techies). Progressive shows each field in order. So 30 FPS interlaced is the same as 60 FPS progressive in the amount of 'frames' captured. Both take 60 fields of information in one second. However if you freeze the image, the 30 FPS shows up as half a picture - every second field (line) is blank. Move to the next image and the same picture is there but what was an image is blank and what was blank is an image. Since they are shown rapidly the human eye sees them as one image. Rapid action though (runners, F1 etc) shows up as jerky action because HD TVs don't do interlaced that well - except for very high kit aka expensive ones. Progressive shows the whole image and results in a better/smoother action. IT also means you can get one frame and make it a digital photo rather than trying to merge two images.
So, 30 FPS takes 60 IMAGES per second but each image is only half the real picture. 60 FPS takes 60 IMAGES per second which are individually a real picture.
Goto http://www.sanyo.com/news/2009/01/21-1en.html about half way down, they show what I'm trying to put in words which works better illustrated.

30 FRAMES per second would take only half the images of a 60 FRAME per second camera which in film terms means your roll of film lasts twice as long but movement is not as smooth - so suitable for Gone with the Wind but not for Need for Speed !!!!

**** Science disclaimer - yes I know it's really 29 point something/59 point something but that's just nit-picking isn't it ?

Hope that clears everything up :-) Posted by Adrian, UK
Thanks Adrian,
I've worked with cameras and video a bit, so I do grasp the concept of fields vs. frames. I genuinely thought (hoped?) that this camera truly did capture full FRAMES instead of synthesizing them from fields. However, even further to this, it seems you're saying that even higher-end cameras (HVX-200, EX1 etc.) do the same! I'm fairly sure this is NOT true. I've had a look at the article you mentioned on the Sanyo site, and it doesn't seem to shed much light on how they synthesize frames, but rather just shows the difference between frames and fields in an illustration.

The reason for the strange number of frames (29.97 as opposed to 30) is because that missing 0.03 frames are given up in order to send "colour burst" signal data - which higher end equipment used for locking video signals with external equipment (genlock).

Also, I concede that the HD200 DOES NOT have OPTICAL image stabilisation, which is achieved by minute adjustment of actual glass lens elements, but it DOES include ELECTRONIC image stabilisation, which involves minute adjustments to the captured pixel data.

Cheers! Posted by Colin Rootz, Jamaica via USA
Colin is absolutely correct on the use of "frames" for the correct definition.

I have been a broadcast / electrical engineer since the 1950's and the definition has ALWAYS been frames.

Posted by Larry, USA
I agree with Colin and Larry. I also work in the industry and it is frames and not fields. The HD2000 records 1080 60p and as far as I am aware is the first camcorder in the world to do this. With interlaced video you get two fields to a frame. Interlaced video has been around for a long time (1930's) and progressive is much more recent (1970's). Progressive was around earlier but interlacing was the adopted technology for movies and TV. It is only since the dawn of computers that progressive has made its comeback. Early broadcast restrictions prohibited 240p (NTSC) & 288p (PAL) in the broadcast environment but this was not the case in a computer environment and hence the return of progressive scan.

Interlaced video also suffers from interline twitter (anti-aliasing), which is different to flicker. e.g. a man wearing a stripey shirt would appear to be wearing a shirt with moving lines. This is because of the way interlaced video is played back. Interlaced video uses intentional blurring to reduce this twitter effect and this is why the picture is not as sharp as the eqivalent progressive scan picture.

Also your old film cameras recorded at 24 frames per second (23.97fps) and not 60 frames per second. PAL records at 25 frames and NTSC 30 frames (29.97fps) Posted by phil, UK
I think it's pretty obvious to anyone who works in the industry what the difference between fields and frames is. Thanks to Larry and Phil for backing me up on this. There's nothing wrong with being mistaken about this technology as it moves pretty fast and the theory can be a bit confusing. What IS wrong is awarding a prize for an incorrect comment after industry professionals have kindly pointed out that the comment is incorrect! I'm certainly not competing for any prizes by giving information, but it does bother me that the publishers of this article would fail to verify the information they're giving a prize for, and make it seem to their readers that the wrong information is actually correct! Posted by Colin, Jamaica via USA
Phil,
I would also qualify your statement:
"The HD2000 records 1080 60p and as far as I am aware is the first camcorder in the world to do this."
by adding that it's the first ULTRACOMPACT consumer camcorder to do this, as the Panasonic HVX200 (along with others) has done this since it came out years ago. Posted by Colin Rootz, Jamaica via USA
This website discredits itself for awarding a prize to tecno-babble which is boldy and erroneously described as "science". Clearly neither Adrian, the prize winner, nor this website judge has the technical background for understanding video. Adrian has it entirely wrong! Posted by Scott, United States
Thanks everyone for your comments above. We've double checked with Sanyo, who themselves has they tell us double and triple checked the information in the comments and it seems Adrian is wrong.

In light of this we are re-awarding the prize to another commentor on the site.

Basically we screwed up. I could blame the intern but as we don't have one that wouldn't be fair. We try to be as open and honest on Pocket-lint and unfortunately we occasionally get things wrong.

What's great is that there are plenty of people who have sprung to help our readers fine the right answer.

Thank you for your help and support in making Pocket-lint strive to be better.

Stuart Posted by stuartmiles, United Kingdom
I've heard it has pretty good low light performance. Also a wide angle lens attachment available from Sanyo. I didn't see mention of the high-speed capture modes of which there are 2, however, they are not HD or even SD resolution, but lower: 448 x 336 @240 fps and 192 x 108 @600fps. Posted by Colin Young, Jamaica
I'm not sure, that I would try to use this to break into Hollywood, but there's some fairly innovative features that make this camera of good use for DI, quick storyboarding or roughcuts.

You could easily use this for proof of concept. Posted by Corey J, United States
I had the HD1000 and was pretty happy with it: easy handling, acceptable low-light performance, decent video quality and better than expected photo quality. It being my first camcorder I can't compare it to others though.

However, if you're thinking about using this camcorder underwater, then be warned: EPOQUE's EHS-1000HD underwater housing for the HD1000, HD1010 & HD2000 is leak prone and NOT TO BE TRUSTED. Plenty of people have reported floodings with this housing, resulting in the total loss of their camcorder (just check it out on e.g. wetpixel). Mine got wasted after only seven dives. Posted by enceintes pc, france