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Review: Sanyo Xacti VPC-PD2BK camcorder
#2
2jfa 
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- Group: New Members
- Posts: 3
- Joined: 25-August 11
Posted 27 November 2012 - 03:59 PM
I bought this camcorder when it was about $110, about 18 months ago. It does very well on sunny days, very good video in full 1080p. The h.264 compression I'm sure does reduce quality a bit and so I wish there was a option to increase the bitrate. Also there is a 30 minute time limit on videos because it only supports FAT32 formatted SD cards, not NTFS. I wish it would automatically continue recording in a new file. This could be fixed with a firmware update.
In low light conditions, video is slightly grainy, and pictures too. This is to be expected from a thin small pocket camcorder.
Zooming is nice, and you can enable optical zoom while doing video too. A gripe though, when zooming in/out while taking video, it goes very slowly and the software reduces the volume of the treble sound frequencies from the microphone in an effort to limit noise of the zoom motor in the video audio stream. However this also heavily affects the sound of the environment and I wish one could shut off this audio changer feature.
Also I wish it had an option to zoom in/out optically at full speed while taking video.
I have had the zoomer get stuck once, but by lightly tapping it on a table and helping rotate with a few fingers let it overcome the internal resistance and complete it's movement. This happened after the unit fell, and I know that some other reviews say that the zoomer can get stuck and it's junk, but you can fix it yourself by helping it turn (gently).
The zoom motor isn't weak, it normally doesn't bog down when opening up or zooming in/out.
Flash: Very nice! It can flash in low power mode, when the computer senses that not much flash is needed or more might make things washed out. Then it can also do full super bright flash. This is all automatic.
Computer interface: Wish it was USB3, but then again even class 10 SD cards don't saturate USB2. I like the feature of the camcorder in that it is a USB card reader and you can access both the internal memory and the SD card on your computer.
Battery life: 1 hour at most. Doesn't seem to matter what quality you are filming at, or resulting bitrate. Perfectly reasonable since each battery pack is maybe 2.5 watt hours and the camcorder is doing lots of math for the encoding and running the screen and autofocus. The small battery helps keep the weight and the size of the camcorder down.
Aftermarket batteries on Amazon are cheap, get the good ones, don't buy the cheap ones that claim 1200mAh or 1300mAh, that is a total lie when the OEM battery is 700mAh. It's hard to find a good aftermarket battery but they are very inexpensive, as well as the aftermarket chargers.
So far the best aftermarket battery I've used are 'GT max' brand/labelled. Supposed new OEM batteries on Ebay can be had for around $8 shipped whereas cheap aftermarket is around $2.80 shipped. I don't trust the aftermarket Wasabi brand of batteries for $7.50 each and a supposed 3 year warranty which I bet is a fake warranty.
Powering on the camcorder can be tricky. If you put in the battery and then immediately press and hold the power button, it won't turn on. You have to wait about 7 seconds between putting the battery in and starting to press the power button, then it will turn on. It is a weird glitch but once you know about it you just bypass it by waiting 7 seconds. If the battery is already in the camcorder for a while you can turn on and off the camcorder at will without delay.
Autofocus; You cannot shut off or adjust autofocus manually. This is annoying if you are using the camcorder as a dash cam, as it likes to focus on the rain drops on the windshield rather than the road. There are easy ways to try to get it to not do that though. It is a little bit lazy with autofocus adjustments while filming, it often won't change the focus as it should when you are filming something far away versus close up. Or a room versus a close-up of an object in a room. It will usually correct the focus if you tell it to optically zoom, then you can zoom out again if you wish and the video is in focus. You can also try to make the focus change by pointing the camcorder at a bright light source at the distance of the object you want to film, it will probably adjust the focus then. As a last resort you could also stop filming and press the 'take picture' button to stage 1 of 2, where it will focus. (The camera button is 2 stage press down). A firmware update could refine all this.
Body: Card/battery bay door can hang out easily rather than be latched in. Not a big deal though.
Audio quality and bitrate; Awesome. The stereo microphones work very well. About as good as you can get without going to HD audio. It is 48KHZ sampling rate, 16-bit, and variable audio bitrate between around 182Kb/s and 255Kb/s AAC audio, which if I compare that to MP3 it's basically CD quality stereo audio since AAC is a bit more efficient than MP3.
Audio quality is not affected by choice of video quality.
Video quality bitrate; 1080p; About 12Mb/s, doesn't change much when staring at a wall vs a bunch of action. Around 13.5Mb/s with action.
480p; About 3.1Mb/s
In conclusion, it's a wonderful, light weight camera but desperately needs a firmware update. Great hardware but needs new software!! Not a big deal though. I honestly love it. If it ever breaks I'm buying a used one.
I rate it 4.5 stars, which rounds to 5 stars
how to adjust settings and do advanced things with the VPC-PD2
photo quality: left arrow
video quality: right arrow
flash settings: press flash button
camera timer delay feature: hold the "SET" button for a second or two to access the menu.
Camera main settings menu including image stabilization, language, optical zoom while filming and more, hold down the flash button for a second or two.
To shut off the annoying voice notifications, when the camcorder is off, press and hold both the power button and up button. The camcorder will turn on and a menu will pop up where you can disable stupid noises.
To adjust volume level while playing back a video, the photo button is volume down, video button is volume up
To fast forward or rewind the viewing of a video you are watching, left arrow/right arrow. To pause a video, that is the up arrow. To stop, that is the bottom arrow
To extract a frame (picture) out of a video you've taken, pause the video, then hold the camera button and it will save it.
To delete stuff, while in review mode, press the trash button, which is also the flash settings and master camcorder menu button.
To take pictures while filming, hold down the picture button.
There is a shortcut to watch a slideshow of what is on the memory card but I forgot how.
There is a shortcut to startup the camcorder in a special mode just for viewing the contents of the memory card, where the optics don't come out but I've never figured it out.
In low light conditions, video is slightly grainy, and pictures too. This is to be expected from a thin small pocket camcorder.
Zooming is nice, and you can enable optical zoom while doing video too. A gripe though, when zooming in/out while taking video, it goes very slowly and the software reduces the volume of the treble sound frequencies from the microphone in an effort to limit noise of the zoom motor in the video audio stream. However this also heavily affects the sound of the environment and I wish one could shut off this audio changer feature.
Also I wish it had an option to zoom in/out optically at full speed while taking video.
I have had the zoomer get stuck once, but by lightly tapping it on a table and helping rotate with a few fingers let it overcome the internal resistance and complete it's movement. This happened after the unit fell, and I know that some other reviews say that the zoomer can get stuck and it's junk, but you can fix it yourself by helping it turn (gently).
The zoom motor isn't weak, it normally doesn't bog down when opening up or zooming in/out.
Flash: Very nice! It can flash in low power mode, when the computer senses that not much flash is needed or more might make things washed out. Then it can also do full super bright flash. This is all automatic.
Computer interface: Wish it was USB3, but then again even class 10 SD cards don't saturate USB2. I like the feature of the camcorder in that it is a USB card reader and you can access both the internal memory and the SD card on your computer.
Battery life: 1 hour at most. Doesn't seem to matter what quality you are filming at, or resulting bitrate. Perfectly reasonable since each battery pack is maybe 2.5 watt hours and the camcorder is doing lots of math for the encoding and running the screen and autofocus. The small battery helps keep the weight and the size of the camcorder down.
Aftermarket batteries on Amazon are cheap, get the good ones, don't buy the cheap ones that claim 1200mAh or 1300mAh, that is a total lie when the OEM battery is 700mAh. It's hard to find a good aftermarket battery but they are very inexpensive, as well as the aftermarket chargers.
So far the best aftermarket battery I've used are 'GT max' brand/labelled. Supposed new OEM batteries on Ebay can be had for around $8 shipped whereas cheap aftermarket is around $2.80 shipped. I don't trust the aftermarket Wasabi brand of batteries for $7.50 each and a supposed 3 year warranty which I bet is a fake warranty.
Powering on the camcorder can be tricky. If you put in the battery and then immediately press and hold the power button, it won't turn on. You have to wait about 7 seconds between putting the battery in and starting to press the power button, then it will turn on. It is a weird glitch but once you know about it you just bypass it by waiting 7 seconds. If the battery is already in the camcorder for a while you can turn on and off the camcorder at will without delay.
Autofocus; You cannot shut off or adjust autofocus manually. This is annoying if you are using the camcorder as a dash cam, as it likes to focus on the rain drops on the windshield rather than the road. There are easy ways to try to get it to not do that though. It is a little bit lazy with autofocus adjustments while filming, it often won't change the focus as it should when you are filming something far away versus close up. Or a room versus a close-up of an object in a room. It will usually correct the focus if you tell it to optically zoom, then you can zoom out again if you wish and the video is in focus. You can also try to make the focus change by pointing the camcorder at a bright light source at the distance of the object you want to film, it will probably adjust the focus then. As a last resort you could also stop filming and press the 'take picture' button to stage 1 of 2, where it will focus. (The camera button is 2 stage press down). A firmware update could refine all this.
Body: Card/battery bay door can hang out easily rather than be latched in. Not a big deal though.
Audio quality and bitrate; Awesome. The stereo microphones work very well. About as good as you can get without going to HD audio. It is 48KHZ sampling rate, 16-bit, and variable audio bitrate between around 182Kb/s and 255Kb/s AAC audio, which if I compare that to MP3 it's basically CD quality stereo audio since AAC is a bit more efficient than MP3.
Audio quality is not affected by choice of video quality.
Video quality bitrate; 1080p; About 12Mb/s, doesn't change much when staring at a wall vs a bunch of action. Around 13.5Mb/s with action.
480p; About 3.1Mb/s
In conclusion, it's a wonderful, light weight camera but desperately needs a firmware update. Great hardware but needs new software!! Not a big deal though. I honestly love it. If it ever breaks I'm buying a used one.
I rate it 4.5 stars, which rounds to 5 stars
how to adjust settings and do advanced things with the VPC-PD2
photo quality: left arrow
video quality: right arrow
flash settings: press flash button
camera timer delay feature: hold the "SET" button for a second or two to access the menu.
Camera main settings menu including image stabilization, language, optical zoom while filming and more, hold down the flash button for a second or two.
To shut off the annoying voice notifications, when the camcorder is off, press and hold both the power button and up button. The camcorder will turn on and a menu will pop up where you can disable stupid noises.
To adjust volume level while playing back a video, the photo button is volume down, video button is volume up
To fast forward or rewind the viewing of a video you are watching, left arrow/right arrow. To pause a video, that is the up arrow. To stop, that is the bottom arrow
To extract a frame (picture) out of a video you've taken, pause the video, then hold the camera button and it will save it.
To delete stuff, while in review mode, press the trash button, which is also the flash settings and master camcorder menu button.
To take pictures while filming, hold down the picture button.
There is a shortcut to watch a slideshow of what is on the memory card but I forgot how.
There is a shortcut to startup the camcorder in a special mode just for viewing the contents of the memory card, where the optics don't come out but I've never figured it out.
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