Hitachi DZ-GX5060E

The Hitachi DZ-GX5060E DVD Camcorder, this is a great quality camcorder that captures the footage on to 8mm (Mini) DVD disks. I decided to get this camera in Curry's, because:
I didn't Want Mini DV tapes (I think their getting a little old now)
I needed a good camera to take on holiday, and to make youtube videos outside.

I'm going to set this review up in a few sections, Design, On screen Options, My Opinion, and Accessories.
...The design of this camera is quite sleek, although not that light or compact. It fits into my hand nicely, but could be a tad lighter. The colour of the camera is silver and Grey. On one side their is the 8mm Disk drive, which allows you to put in DVD R, RW and RAM Disks. So far I have been using TDK DVD+RW Disks.
On the other side you have the screen, with pulls out, and can be tilted and twisted around to the other direction (For making ... more

The Hitachi DZ-GX5060E DVD Camcorder, this is a great quality camcorder that captures the footage on to 8mm (Mini) DVD disks. I decided to get this camera in Curry's, because:
I didn't Want Mini DV tapes (I think their getting a little old now)
I needed a good camera to take on holiday, and to make youtube videos outside.

I'm going to set this review up in a few sections, Design, On screen Options, My Opinion, and Accessories.
So, here it goes.

DESIGN
The design of this camera is quite sleek, although not that light or compact. It fits into my hand nicely, but could be a tad lighter. The colour of the camera is silver and Grey. On one side their is the 8mm Disk drive, which allows you to put in DVD R, RW and RAM Disks. So far I have been using TDK DVD+RW Disks.
On the other side you have the screen, with pulls out, and can be tilted and twisted around to the other direction (For making videos of yourself) When you open up the screen, behind it are a few controls, FULL AUTO, FOCUS, EXPOSURE, BLC, DISPLAY, QUICK MENU, A reset button. There is also an SD card slot, which you can use for taking pictures. Above those buttons, there is more, SELECT, MENU, DISK NAVIGATION, STOP/EXIT, and all the rewind play buttons.
The screen on this camera is not a touch screen.

On the back, there is a place to put the battery or mains adapter, a Film, Photo, Off, Card Toggle ring. A lock toggle. And an disk eject button. On the top, you have a sleep, restart button. A zoom in or volume slider. And a picture snapshot button.
On the front you have a microphone, a red light that shows when recording, and a door that reveals 2 ports, an A/V port (TV Input) And a USB socket. This camera has no firewire capabilities.

ON SCREEN OPTIONS
Once the camera has turned on, you will see instantly, and be able to shoot straight away (Ensuring a disk is inserted) Once you have finished filming and need to rip the disk to your computer, or want to watch the DVD on your television, you need to press the finalize button behind the screen. You can only finalize if you are plugged into the mains (Which is really annoying!) If your using DVD RAM Disks, you can edit quite a lot of your footage on the camera, and put it straight onto your DVD player. With RAM disks you can also delete desired clips. If your using DVD R Disks, You will not be able to reuse them, or do any editing. On DVD RW disks you can not edit on the camera, and when you want to delete a clip, you can't you have to "Format" The whole disk. This is annoying when space needs to be used effectively.

MY OPINION
Personally, I love this camera, its great for shooting movies, Although I feel I havnt made the most of its features yet, as I have only been using DVD RW, but with RAM disks you can to much more (I think I'll purchase some this year) The main negative of this camera, for me, is that when recording is does not turn of auto-matically, this has really been problem for me, as by mistake, I pressed the REC button, and it wasted all my DVDs Space, and also drained the battery, and I was on a day out, and I couldn't use it for the rest of that whole day. So I think I should invest in a spare battery too.
People said to me that I should not buy this camera, as I won't be able to edit them on my computer easily but then I realized, I can, I put the 8mm disk into my computer, rip it using a freeware program. Then just import it into my editor. Also another thing to point out is that I have not used the SD card photo feature yet.

I decided to buy this camera as, DVDs are newer, and tapes are starting to get really old. I now wish I'd have got an SD card camcorder, because its easier, and you don't have to finalize. They may not hold much, but I only make youtube videos. But sometimes I'm glad I bought a DVD CAM because I can record more when I go on holiday.

ACCESSORIES
In the box, you get these.
A crappy shoulder strap (Invested in a bag)
I nice comfy hand strap (I always use this)
USB Cable (I don't use it, I just put the DVDs into my PC)
A/V TV cable, This is great to view your footage, and also good for filming so you can see yourself on a larger screen
No DVD disks were Included, Nor an SD card.

So my main view on this camcorder is good, except from the sleep on the camera is not very effective, and its a bit bulky.
I could of got a hard drive camera, but didn't because they cost almost double. I aspect they'll come down in price soon. I bought this camera from Curry's for £200, and begged them to give us some free DVD disks with it, which they did Yay!
Thanks for reading my review on this DVD Camcorder, thank you and, Ciao.

P.S I almost forgot, their is no remote with this model! 

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