Panasonic VDR-D230 DVD Camcorder with 32x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black)

I am a total novice to video cameras let alone DVD cams. This little camera works great! I love the 1000x zoom feature.

One thing that people in the other reviews had problems with was mini-dvd's not working. Well - if they would have read the little book, they would have seen that the camera only works with DVD-R or DVD-RW discs. Not +R or +RW. Yes! There is a difference.

Still picture feature was a selling point for me. It takes great digital stills.

Great, easy to use, light weight, and user friendly!

The Panasonic Vdr-D230 is my first official camcorder. After going through about 5 camcorders and finding something wrong about them, I bought this camera and it is now one of my best friends. What I was very impressed with was the picture quality of the video. I was stunned. For a camera in this price range, you're not going to find too many camcorders with good picture quality. This does. The quality is vivid and brings the colors out. You can adjust the color and brightness on the camcorder's options. Quality is grainy and a little fuzzy at night, but isn't most camcorders?
What I wanted was a Camcorder that could work friendly with my computer and upload my homemade videos to Youtube. This camera is perfect for it. Connect the camcorder to the computer, export the files into mpeg, and covert into avi. for my video editing software and I'm done. And the real cool thing is, is that the quality to my picture doesn't downgrade. :D
I really like the structure to this camcorder as well. Easy to hold. And that it has the black coat instead of the silver coat. It'll probably be less likely to scratch like the silver coating camcorders.
This camcorder has some features along with it as well. Most Panasonics do. Like Soft Skin Mode, and MagicPix. With DVD's; I just put in some *Panasonic DVD-RW* disks and they work great with my camcorder :D

Pros*
Very Vivid Picture Quality
Computer Friendly
Nice Sound
Structure of Camcorder
Brand Name

Cons*
More Features would've been nicer

I can't find too many *cons* for this camcorder because there really isn't anything wrong about it. Everything came with the package that I wanted with this camcorder. I'm very impressed with Panasonic, they're my favorite :]
Can't not wait to make more videos with this in the summer.

Recommended for a Youtuber, and the First User.
Overall Grade* A-
Jordan

M boyfriend gave me this a my birthday gift. I was wanted a camcorder since i like making movies and videos and i use to use the long time ago video camera. I LOVE the fact that the camera is small and easier to handle, that its not heavy and does not act as excess baggage. The only thing i dont like about it is that the battery last for less than 4 hours. I enjoy recordering and catching the moments of simple nonsence but most times i cant because when we are in the middle of having fun or something exciting is happening thats when the battery goes died but apart from that i love this camcorder.

The camera records great. The problem I had was I wanted to place the recording onto a standard DVD so that it could be viewed by others. I had to read the directions very carefully and then experiment. I bought some Sony DVD RW disk and those were formated in VR,"Video Recording" and then the software provided reconized them and was able to open it up with DVD Movie Album program. Once opened and the video was there I pushed the Export button to save it onto the computer. Once down loaded I closed that program and opened DVD fun studio program. Then I selected the tool button on top and then selected the collect tool from there. A box popped up with an untitled video in it. I clicked the video then selected the arrow at the bottom to move it to the other box. Then I pushed OK and the video down loaded. Then I selected the size of DVD I wanted to put the video on in the lower left hand corner, a standard DVD is "12cm DVD". Then I pushed the burning buttom. With the mini DVD removed and a blank standard size DVD in the player/burner you just watch it work. It takes about 10 minutes to down load to the computer and 10 minutes to burn the DVD. I have tested it and it plays in the DVD player hooked to the TV. There are alot of features to figure out and I'm still working on them a little at a time. It is quite the camera but for awhile I was not sure if I would ever get it to work the way I wanted to. In fact I gave up several times but finally got. I think it will do anything if you work at it long enough. Recording is the easy part, tranferring the video to another product can be difficult to say the least.

We bought this as a gift for our kids and so far it seems to do a great job. It is easy to use and the picture quality is fine.