For the last few weeks I have been searching for as many reviews as I could on the Sanyo HD 1010 to help me make a decision on which camcorder to purchase. Because I could only base my decision on the 4 reviews that I read here (which did help immensely), I thought I'd share my opinion of this camcorder to help other potential consumers make up their mind.I should tell you that I am a professional wedding photographer (still images, 14 years) so that you have a reference point of who's telling you what. I received the Sanyo HD 1010 3 days ago, and had the entire weekend to play around with it.
The quick answer: For my purposes, I love this camcorder. However, this camcorder is not for everyone-you should determine what you plan on using the camera for before deciding to purchase (see below, two paragraphs down).
My wife and I love to travel. I was looking for a camcorder that tooks great video, was portable and took decent still images. The 1010 does just that. I've looked at the Canon HF 100 and the Samsung HMX20C and they are also small, but the 1010 just feels smaller to me and more portable. I own a Sony PC9 which was a great camcorder in its day, but it has stayed at home the last five years. (I like to have a camera that I can put on my belt clip or is light enough to dangle from my neck.) The video's that I've used have come from point and shoot cameras that took decent video clips. The image quality (from the point and shoot cameras) is certainly not as good as mini DV, which the PC9 is, but it was always there for the taking. I only recently became interested in shooting better quality video as the size of these new camcorders have come down recently. Understand that I am not replacing my still camera (the Canon G7 is my travel camera) and don't recommend anyone to replace their still camera with this all in one camcorder. However, the 1010 does take nice stills (a little oversaturated, but quite acceptable). You obviously can only use one camera at a time, so when you are using the 1010 and want to snap a quick photo while you're shooting video or you stop shooting video, it's nice to know you can get a decent photo with this camcorder.
The reason this camcorder is not for everyone is the poor image stabilization. If the 1010 had optical image stabilization, it would be hands down perfect! Does this ruin it for me? NO. Most people have a tendency to overuse the zoom lens and pan too quickly. Most of my videos are taken at wide or mid range (travel, scenic footage and family gatherings). When I do pan, I hold the camcorder as steady as possible and SLOWLY pan, almost exaggerated. I do this whether or not the camcorder has image stabilization. You shouldn't rely on the image stabilization as a crutch. If you use good techniques for average subjects your videos will be fine. I shot 12 minutes of a family birthday party using the techniques I described and my videos were fine, no "motion sickness videos". However, if plan on buying the 1010 to videotape your young children or children's sports, I don't recommend this camera. That's where a good optical image stabilizer will shine.
Ok, my observations:
* As I said, I love this product. It produces beautiful videos, better than any camcorder I've ever owned. I tried all the different quality settings and decided to stick with the 1080i 60fps as my permanent setting. On this setting, I didn't see any artifacts, or lagging, when panning with image stabilization (IS) off. I really need to do some more comparisons with IS on, but this is my initial impression. I looked at my brother in law's HI Def Sony with him. He's a computer/techie expert and we looked together and both agreed on the same things. The 60fps settings on both the 1080i and 720i were better than the 1080p 30fps and 720p 30fps settings. I know everyone makes a big deal about the 1080p setting, but 60fps LOOKS better. It's smoother. The 1080i and 720i at 60fps are very close in quality on the High Def set, but on my 36 inch Sony, the 720i when panned had some artifacts (don't know why; didn't happen on the Hi-def set. I'm sure you techies know). But the reason I'm going to leave it on the highest quality is two reasons: 1.) You should always record at the best setting. You can always down convert, but you can't upconvert. 2. ) With the software(Nero 8) that comes packaged with the product, I am able to burn a standard DVD taken from 1080i 60fps footage. As others have said, I cannot view the footage at normal speed (views jerky) on my PC(windows XP, laptop, dual core), but I can still burn it un-edited to a DVD which plays beautifully. I don't have time anyway to edit videos on a PC. What I CAN do, is splice the mpeg 4 clips together in the camera (very easy to do!) and/or edit them in camera, and then burn to the DVD. It's not Hi-def quality, but it's DVD quality and still better than any other home video that I have ever produced. I plan on getting a separate USB drive to keep my "albums" in Hi-def and play them back on Hi-def TV, and use the DVD's as a lower quality (but still good) back up and/or to share with family/friends. FYI, the 12 minutes of footage took roughly 50 minutes to burn. Not bad! I haven't researched recording on to a Blu-Ray in Hi-def, but even if it's not till next year, the hi-def footage will be there when I'm ready to.
* I love the size. Not really pocketable as some people claim (a jacket yes, pants, no), but small enough to put on your hip or dangle from your neck (I use a Canon neckstrap made for their Elph camera's).
* You can "pull" high quality jpegs from your video footage. I was really amazed at how good the images are when you do this! Very clean and smooth.
* The holster case from Sanyo is so-so. It's ok for a house party or short term use, but the clip is not tight on the belt and there is nothing to prevent the camera from falling out if you snag the case on something or have excessive movement. I bought a UV filter to protect the lens and the lens cap does not fit very snug on the filter. The filter falls off EVERY time I put the camera in the holster. I will look around for an aftermarket case to use instead. I would not use the holster outside of the house.
* The controls/menus, etc, are GREAT. I have never had a camera that navigates so easily and quickly when looking to change settings. This is a big plus and not to be overlooked.
* I use a Transcend 8gb class 6 card and it works fine. Did not seem to take a long time to write the file to the card, but my longest clip was only 3 minutes. Maybe if I shot longer footage, a faster card would make a difference.
* Low light footage is FINE. People have complained about the grain in the low light footage. I don't have an issue with this. In very, very low light you are going to get grain. Of course! Here's my experience. I took my family footage at night at a well lit house (lighting from the ceiling, high-caps) and there was no grain. When we went to the dining room for the birthday cake singing, the lights went off, and a single candle lit the room. I had the camera ISO set to AUTO, which appears to me to set the lowest ISO that will take an acceptable video. That's the way it should be. Anyway, when the lights went off, the video went black for a split second until the ISO adjusted to the candle, and the video had some grain but was fine. It's not a professional camera. This low light problem that reviewers are complaining about is a non-issue. When the lights went back on, everything shifted back to normal.
* I had no problem with focus hunting. There was very little of it and it was not noticeable. There was one time when the camcorder shifted completely out of focus but only for a split second. It seemed no different from any other camcorder that I've owned.
* I'm thinking of getting the wide angle converter (for the travel usage), but don't really have an issue with the widest angle of view. Yes, I would have loved a 28mm equivalent, but the 38mm is fine.
* Battery life seems fine, not an issue. Again, haven't used it too much, but I did get two equivalent batteries on Amazon for twenty bucks.
* I find the pistol grip to be quite comfortable and easier to hold than the more common "palmcorders". Also, I use two hands to hold the camera and keep it steady. I keep my left hand on the LCD screen. This helps steady the camera and keep down the jerkiness when zooming in tight and also panning.
* The flash is pretty good. I was very surprised. However, I found that when I used the flash, it seem to oversaturate the image vs. when I turned the flash off and used natural light.
Conclusion: Great camcorder, great video results. Don't let the image stabilization issue stop you from buying this product unless your primary purpose is taking video of your young children and sports action.
Pros:
light weight
intuitive menu system
REALLY good screen
4MP digital camera
full HD camcorder
can take still pictures while making a movie (I love this feature!!!)
the WOW factor, because every-time I pull it out to use everyone around me goes WOW, what kind of camera is that. no one believes me its a HD camcorder!
so light and small it can fit in your car/purse/back-pocket/pez dispenser.
cons:
price for me this wasnt a issue. I was able to replace my camera and add a HD camcorder for a reasonable amount.
grip I would like to have seen the grip area be a bit larger. I have found a way to make it ft nicely in my hand, but if the grip was either larger or came with, say, a plastic extender maybe that you could put on the bottom it would be great. I have put the camera in 6 different peoples hands and they all said it felt nice after holding it for a few minutes. You just have to find a way that it is comfy for your hand size.
screen rotation the one and only thing , if I were the designers of the HD1010 that I would change (and now you'll see how nitpicky I am being). If the viewing screen would rotate to the front I could hold the camera in front of me, look at the screen and know I'm in focus / in the shot, and make a quickie recording. Sort of a looking at the camera, blair witch kinda shot. It only rotates to the top and bottom, not to the front. just a wishlist thing. thats the absolute worst thing about the camera so far.
Comparing it to all of the complaints of the HD1000, I can say everything that was complained about in the HD1000 has been fixed. Sanyo even admitted that this is not supposed to be a whole new model, only a upgrade to the HD1000. By that I mean all of the autofocus issues I read about with the HD1000 have been resolved. as a matter of fact I couldnt MAKE it have a focusing problem. I've tried low light, bright light, moving subjects, even the fan in my living room. everything focused perfectly.
The camera takes great pictures also. They turned out better than any digital camera I have ever used, albeit I have always used more of the personal point and shoot olympus / nikon type. Dark rooms, outdoors, inside with fluorescent bulbs, you name it the pictures have been better than what I expected.
Like I said, I have had 6 other people try using it, from my girlfriend with really small hands to a guy I work with who is 6'7" and has Andre the giant hands and they have all loved it. I have not told anyone how to use it. Just handed it to them and said 'I just got a new camera, try it out and see what you think.' With no instructions everyone has taken both movies, pictures, and had smiles while doing it. Its rare to find something electronic that anyone can use with no instructions given and the HD1010 is something you can use straight out of the box. It really is fun to use.
bottom line, if you are looking at getting a camcorder, this one deserves a close look. I am very picky when it comes to electronics, and I am amazed at what they have done with this camcorder/camera. Everything I expected when I ordered it has been greatly exceeded. Great camera, ease of use, quality of the product overall, and in the end quality of the movies it makes... you cant go wrong.
UPDATE
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thanks to everyone who mentioned you can rotate the lens to the front. I was wrong about that, you can! well, that pretty much zero's out the thing I wanted them to change so, my new complaint is that it doesnt come with Kevin Smith to make better movies with it :)
Buy Sanyo Xacti HD1010 4MP MPEG4 High Definition 1080i/1080p Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom Now
Before HD camcorders became available I had a DV (tape based; standard definition) camcorder. The trouble with DV camcorders is that it is time-consuming to (1) import the movie into the computer and (2) encode it into a suitable format. Needless to say, because of the hassle I wasn't making very many home movies. Then I purchased an Xacti C4. This camera made a big difference. It was tiny, easily fit in the jeans pocket, the image quality was decent for an SD camera, and most importantly, no post-processing was needed! All you had to do was drag & drop files from the camera to the computer. No waiting for the tape to wind. No re-encoding needed either because the file format is already MP4. To watch the movie on TV all I had to do is drop the file into iTunes, then wirelessly stream the movie to AppleTV. It doesn't get any easier than this.Then HD cameras became available. My first HD camera was Sony HDR-HC1. That's a pretty decent camera. But once again I wasn't making very many movies because HDR-HC1 is tape based, which means a time-consuming process is needed to transfer the movie and to encode to H.264 MP4 format. So I purchased an Xacti HD1010 hoping to repeat my success with the old Xacti C4 but in HD this time.
My first impression when I got the HD1010 was that it is larger and heavier than I expected. This is not a big camera by any means, but my expectations were set by the tiny Xacti C4, and compared to that camera the HD1010 seems big and heavy. It won't fit in my jeans pocket either (unlike the Sony HDR-TG1, the smallest HD camcorder available today.)
What about image quality? I shot a test footage in low light. I was not impressed with the image quality. Fine details seemed to be missing apparently due to heavy noise-reduction. I then decided to compare the HD1010 with my old Sony HDR-HC1. I held the Sony in one hand and the Sanyo in the other and simultaneously shot test footages using both cameras, in a semi-lowlight situation. Initially the Sony appeared to have much better image quality. But that was the raw uncompressed footage. I encoded the Sony footage into H.264 and adjusted the bitrate so that the resulting file is about the same size as the one from Sanyo. Now the Sony and Sanyo quality seemed comparable. In fact the Sanyo seemed to have more accurate color. But the big difference was in image stabilization. I didn't know how good Sony's image stabilization was until I compared it to the Sanyo. The Sanyo movie is very jittery. This is with Sanyo's image stabilization on, and with zoom set to 1x. For HD camcorders stabilization is important, and the HD1010 disappoints in this department.
Another disappointment was that although the MP4 files from the Sanyo are compatible with QuickTime they are not compatible with AppleTV. AppleTV expects 720p 24 fps (frames per second). Sanyo supports 720p but it uses 30 fps, not 24 fps. As a result the file has to be converted before being streamed to AppleTV. It is easy enough to convert using iTunes, but it takes a long time. The resulting file is 960x540 not 1280x720 because iTunes gives priority to preserving the fps and at 30 fps AppleTV only supports 960x540.
I like the fact that this camera comes with a soft case. For comparison Sony charges $50 extra for a soft case for their competing HDR-TG1.
Bottom line: I am a little disappointed because the camera is bigger and heavier than the Xacti C4, the files are not immediately compatible with AppleTV, and most importantly the image stabilization is poor, which means you have to use a tripod. For comparison the Canon HF10 has optical image stabilization and it has a 24 fps mode, both of which would have helped me. The Canon is more expensive but it has 16GB of internal memory which HD1010 doesn't.I've had the HD1010 for 2 weeks now, I have fiddled with most of the features and used it mainly for filming my kids. I am a Mac user so I can't tell you about the windows software that comes bundled with it.
This is a very good little camera, its small enough to carry in your pocket (I wear cargo shorts a lot) and it has great start up and ready to shoot times (the time it takes you flip open the screen when in sleep mode, a few seconds more when complete off.
First the bad.
To date (Aug 7, 2008) 1920 x 1080 /60 fps does not work with any software I have on my mac (imovie 08, VLC player, Visualhub video converter). Nothing, it shows a green screen or a static partial video fields with audio. I think this is a codec issue that will work it self out in later releases of the software. I emailed Sanyo tech support 2 days ago and still no reply. I am not impressed with them at all.
All other formats 1920x1080 /30, 1280x720 /60, 1280x720/30, 1280x720 /60, 640 x480 /60, 640x480 / 30, 448x336 /300
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