The best single chip camcorder

Author's Rating:

Pros: Has everything you need

Cons: Umm.. none!

The Bottom Line: 
If you are ready to spend about 800 dollars, then add 200 more and get this one. You can't go wrong with this camcorder.

Author's Review
I think the Canon Optura Pi is the best single chip camcorder you can buy. And when you think about it, its not priced that high. I say this after about three months of researching various camcorders on the market (and choosing this one).

I was on a shoe-string budget (who isn't!) and I wanted the best value for money. That means the Sony camcorders were out. Because you pay about 200-300 dollars more for the brand. Also, I couldn't find a Sony with Progressive scan CCD in this price range. Most of them are "interlaced" meaning they capture every other line of a frame and in the next frame the missing lines are captured. Difference is not visible to the naked eye but in a digital camcorder, when you transfer the video to your computer, you cannot take high quality pictures out of your video. Of course, Sony gives you the option of taking high-res (not too high though) still pictures anyway. But I prefer to shoot only video and take the good shots out of my video. It gives you more natural looking stills (no more "say cheese"). In fact, some of the stills of my daughter I have taken this way look absolutely stunning. OTOH, a friend has Sony TRV120 and he showed me some pics of his new born son taken with his camcorder. Though his son looked fine :-) the picture quality was like.. well.. a cross between black-and-white and badly lit color photos. And if you put my daughter's photo alongside, you will run out and buy the Optura Pi -- NO CONTEST!

Only after 1400 dollars does Sony make some serious models. And compare that to JVC which gives you a Mini-DV Camcorder for 500 bucks and their models with Progressive scan CCD can be had for as little as 700 dollars. This makes a solid case for buying a JVC. But for two issues: 1. Their camcorders have a cheap feel, and 2. The results were.. umm.. not so great.

Canon's Optura Pi, OTOH, is as good as it gets. It has a solid feel to the body, it weighs just perfect for a camcorder. The 3.5 inches LCD looks brilliant and is definitely better than the small sized camcorders which have a 2.5" LCD. Its certainly a big advantage to shoot with a 3.5" LCD especially because the camera size does not feel too big compared to the REALLY small camcorders like Canon Elura or ZR10.

The best thing about the camcorder though is the low light performance. I have been recording mostly indoors -- my 6 months old daughter. And when I am shooting from a distance (so as not to distract her) I get a better look at her in the LCD than with my naked eye. The moment I switch to Auto mode, it looks dark, like other camcorders would, but when I switch to Low Light mode and it lights up like daylight. You have to see it to believe it! The only problem is the motion jarring that happens in Low Light mode. But when you are shooting your child's movement, its not a problem. Only when I tried it outdoors, under a street lamp, it looked like a problem. But even then, the Auto mode gave satisfactory results.

I have had this camcorder for about a month now and I have enjoyed every moment of using it. Initially, I was attracted by the price-feature comparison of JVC's (DVM90u and DVM500 looked good. Actually, DVM70u also looks good but has "issues" with motor noise so it was out of the short list) Also, I liked the size of Canon's Elura 2 and Elura 2 MC but they both have a digital image stabilizer (and so do the JVC's BTW) and that affects the image quality especially in low light. The regular Elura, OTOH, has an Optical Image Stabilizer but then its hard to find and its a three year old, discontinued model which is not a very good thing when you are buying technology.

Back to Optura Pi, its battery life is a decent 90 minutes. Features, not very many but all the basic features are there and only the more fancy ones are missing. In fact, some of the effects provided in this one are rarely used so what good is it to have 20 more types of effects? Just the fade to (and from) black comes in handy sometimes but even that can be added while editing so its utility is questionable.

Capture to PC and camera control from the capture software was smooth and wonderful. I have learned most of the basic editing techniques and I absolutely *love* the control and flexibility afforded in PC editing (NLE). I have Ulead's Media Studio Pro 6.0 and I have tried Adobe's Premiere (very tough to learn and crash prone), EditDV by Digital Origin (trial version came with the camcorder) and some other free utilites too. EditDV is good but it captures and exports in Quicktime format which is not a good thing since you have to install Quicktime drivers if you want to share the videos with someone. Overall, I like Ulead's MSP 6.0. Its stable, has a good interface, is easy to learn and does almost everything you would want it to do. It was the first one I tried and gave up immediately. But after trying all others, I have not only come back to it, but I have grown to *love* it. A typical cycle would go like this:

1. You shoot all the video you can
2. Capture in 10 minute clips into .avi files
3. Import one clip into the timeline. Take the scissors tool and place cuts in suitable places.
4. Remove the unwanted portions and join the clips again.
5. Move the clips around, building a storyline, thinking about any titles you may want to add
6. Add any transition -- mostly stick to plain cuts or cross fades.
7. Add the titles.
8. Export to MPEG2 format for archiving (better quality) or to MPEG1 for sharing (universal support)
9. Delete the avi and copy the mpegs to a CD-R
10. Start over.

Very flexible and quite simple.

As for the camera, its a must buy. Oh and a word about the vendors. Research www.deja.com for the vendor you choose. I had almost made up my mind to buy it from The Digital Dog after searching for prices and finding theirs the lowest (for any camcorder). I spoke to them a few times, they sounded very good. But then a search on deja and all bets were off. They have a reputation for ripping off people. The best ratings were given to Profeel and OneCall. I dealt with Profeel and have no regrets. Paid a little more but had peace of mind.
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