Quick Review Camcorders : Hitachi DZ-MV580

The DZ-MV580 ships with a 1/3.8 inch CCD with 400K effective pixels for video (960K gross, the DCR-DVD201 has 1.07MP gross). This is an upgrade from the image found on both the DZ-MV550 and the VDR-M70 (1/4 inch, 680K gross). The camcorder’s low light performance definitely reflects this upgrade, showing good crisp colors at 3000 lux and 60 lux, only at 15 lux showing signs of degradation. From the DZ-MV550, the DZ-MV580 also includes a hot accessory shoe, to plug all your stuff into and a more advanced wide screen mode, though it is still digitally enhanced.

Manual controls on the DZ-MV580 are nothing new and nothing shocking. They include the ability to manually adjust focus, exposure, and white balance with Automatic exposure adjustments for shutter speed and iris. This is the same set up as the DZ-MV550 and the two Panasonic camcorders. Again, these controls are unfortunately hidden beneath the camcorder’s LCD screen, and are therefore not very convenient for the on-the-go user.

With its ability to record JPEG stills to DVD-RAM disc and SD card at 1280 x 960, the Hitachi DZ-MV580 is a step above its predecessor, the MV550, which could only capture at 640 x 480. JPEGs can be recorded to SD or Multimedia card or DVD-R/RAM discs. While an extremely large number of stills can be recorded on the DZ-MV580 at a relatively impressive resolution, these stills are not of good enough quality to be considered a factor in recommending this camcorder.

Also, while the DZ-MV580’s low performance is the best of DVD camcorders this year, its LCD screen is, with Panasonic’s DVD camcorders, the worst. Also, Panasonic and Hitachi DVD camcorder models includes a large square battery which juts out from the back of the camcorder causing the view from the viewfinder to be inconvenient and cumbersome. The DZ-MV580 includes a USB port, an A/V port, and an S-Video port, as per usual.

All in all though, there is not much to talk about. The DZ-MV580 is the best DVD camcorder this year because of its price over its performance. Both excel past any other DVD camcorder. The DZ-MV580, while suffering from the same problems in manual control and handling as other DVD camcorder, particularly Panasonic models, still surpasses in performance, and while Sony DVD camcorders may have slightly more convenient format, Hitachi still rules house performance-wise.

Hitachi DZ-MV580 - THE BOTTOM LINE Rating: 94.25

Likes

- Low light performance - Price - Hot accessory shoe

Dislikes

- 10x optical zoom - Mediocre format convenience

Hitachi DZ-MV580 Compared to the...