Sanyo's
Xacti line of pocket-friendly HD camcorders have been almost universally praised... when shooting outdoors. When trying to log clips in dim light, however, the story has been quite different. The outfit's
VPC-HD2000, which was unveiled at CES this year, came out looking decently strong from
PhotographyBLOG's review. The handheld packed in "more features than you'd expect," but the lofty price tag kept it from being a real contender. Sadly, the poor low light performance was grandfathered in, though the broad range of selectable ISO options were appreciated nonetheless. All in all, reviewers seemed to hold back on giving their wholehearted recommendation due to its price and the so-so image quality; in other words, you should probably avoid this one until its successor comes out, after which the MSRP may better reflect the benefits.
posted Feb 12th 2009 1:38PM
It seems silly to review an HD camcorder without reviewing the HD recording abilities. That's like HiFi magazine reviewing a BMW 540 and not driving it.....
Did you checked it's low light performance? It is universally praised for it's low light performance not the other way around. It appears to be a very unique camcorder at the moment only one to offer 1080p60p at 24Mbps. Low light sensitivity down to 5 lux and produces acceptable picture quality at around 11 lux a benchmark never achieved before by any pocket size camcorder. Only major complaints are it's upright design, lack of optical image stabilization, warm colors (depends on user's taste). Some website have reported noticeable chromatic abrasion and distorsion. Most of these deficiencies are minor and not very noticeable except for it's stabilization. It is valued well below the competion as it over performs most of the camcorders from top manufacturers in most of the catagories. Please make sure you check the camcorder before you write a review, otherwise you are undermining the credability of your website. Thanks
I have owned my Xacti HD2000 for 4 days now. Purchased it from Plemix.com in Hong Kong via the web. (Paid $545 plus shipping/handling of $39). Arrived via Fed-X 2 days later (day and a half actually).
The camera is wonderful, but I did have a complete failure of the AC adaptor yesterday.
I was waiting for my iMac to render images in iMovie with the camera was in standby mode. It spoke to me and said "low battery power" something like that, and that was it. I was unable to get the charging indicator to light no matter what I did.
Since I'm employed as an electrical test engineer... I determined that the AC adaptor wasn't putting out 5.0V, and ran out to Radio Shack to get a 5.0V 2A replacement The numbers are IMPORTANT. If you go over 5.0V, you can damage the camera, under likely 5.0V it won't charge the battery. Below 2A, it might not have enough current. Over 2.0A is OK but it's overkill.
Now I'm back up and running... The Offensive sub-standard Sanyo produced component has the following identification:
Sanyo Model VAR-G9.
AC Input AC100-240V~ 50/60Hz
DC Output 5.0V 2.0A
The TIP is positive polarity.
Thanks to Radio Shack, I'm back in business. Camera working (taking a charge) fine now.