Performance

This is really what it all comes down to, and it's coming first. The Xacti, the smallest camcorder ever to shoot HD, seems too perfect, not necessarily as a device as much as a marketing ploy for Sanyo this year, to be true. It certainly doesn’t hurt the company to put out the smallest HD camcorder ever, but we’ll see if the video is worth a darn. Otherwise, this might be a one-hit wonder, similar to the Fisher FC1 that preceeded it.

The Xacti HD1 includes a 1/2.5" CCD. It houses 5.36 megapixels, and captures video at variety of different levels. The user can toggle between HD and SD capture by way of a button under the LCD of the camcorder. In HD mode, the camcorder can capture video at 1280 x 720 (30 fps, 9 Mbps) and 1280 x 720 (30 fps, 6 Mbps) at Super High Quality and High Quality HD video, respectively. In SD mode, the camcorder can capture video at 640 x 480 (60 fps, 6 Mbps), 640 x 480 (30 fps, 3 Mbps), 640 x 480 (30 fps, 2 Mbps), and 320 x 240 (15 fps).

Low Light Performance

As with video performance, it’s hard to know what to make out of this bad boy. If we take the Fisher FC1 as a precedent, the Xacti HD1’s low light performance should be horrendous. But, then again, we’ll never know until we try. And rest assured, we will.

Either way, this could be the camcorder’s biggest weakness, even taking motor noise and storage space into consideration. It’s hard to believe that this camcorder will be able to top the HDR-HC1’s low light performance, to say nothing of the Sony’s other features, and it’s really not all that more expensive; I mean, if you can shell out $800 for something smaller than your own hand. I know that’s a bad analogy, but you get the point. We’ll just have to wait and see, but I’m not holding out much hope.

Format

Compression

The Xacti HD1 captures still photos in the JPEG (DCFI, DPOF2, and Exif Ver 2.23) format. Video is captured in standard MPEG-4 compression, and JPEG (DCF, DPOF, Exif Ver 2.2). This video is compressed much more than that of MiniDV tape, which will no doubt affect its quality. MPEG4 camcorders traditionally over compress video to make it look really bad. The decent flash and hard drive camcorders on the market, including Panasonic's SDR-S100, use MPEG2, not MPEG4. Also, the next-most-expensive HD camcorder, Sony’s recent HDR-HC1, captures video with MPEG-2 compression to fit onto MiniDV tape. We've also mentioned that the data rate is a third of the Sony. After watching some of Sanyo's booth demo video, although it's not a formal test, it confirms that the video doesn't look great and is highly compressed.

Media

The Xacti HD1 records all of its data onto SD Memory Card, which is perhaps one of the biggest drawbacks to the camcorder. We all know how expensive 2GB SD cards are, and a full 2GB SD card can only hold 28 minutes and 45 sec of highest quality HD video. Recording to SD also seems to be what is limiting it's data rate to such a slow speed.

Editing

A highly successful method of editing HDV footage is certainly still in the works, though progress is being made every day. Unfortunately, for a camcorder that records HD video to SD card, your footage might be a bit harder to be easily incorporated into the editing scene. Editing capabilities for camcorders capturing HD footage onto tape will probably be tackled first. And also, though the video and manual control are pushing the limits, this cam is designed for point-and-shooters (read: those who won't edit their video) which makes it even more unlikely that a good workable editing solution will soon be found.

Tour

For a frame of reference, Sony’s HDR-HC1, their lowest-priced HD camcorder designed for consumers, features a 4:3-aspect, 1/3-inch CCD and features 1.49 effective megapixels in legacy 4:3 MiniDV video mode and 1.98 effective megapixels in 16:9 HDV video mode. The Xacti HD1 shoots in native 1280 x 720, which is a 16:9 ratio. However, the Sony HDR-HC1 has a datarate of 25 Megabits per second while the Sanyo has a data rate of 9 Megabits per second.

It’s really hard to know how this camcorder is going to perform, but all the signs point to poorly. Its great-great-great-grandfather, the Fisher FC1, which also sold for eight hundred bones back in the day, shipped with a 1/2.7" CCD with 3.2 gross MP, which was tremendous for a camcorder at the time, but its video performance was for the birds. We’ll never really know until we get it in the testing room. Stay tuned.

**The Front **

The front of the Xacti HD is pretty barren. It features the termination of the camcorder’s lens barrel, which is tilted upwards, as on the Fisher FC1. The camcorder’s infrared sensor is located below the termination of the lens barrel.

**The Right Side **

The right side of the Xacti HD1 features the camcorder’s battery slot, a slider-opened panel. The camcorder’s speaker is located above this panel. Above this and inching towards the side of the flash are the silver button for popping up the flash, and the rubber port cover.

**The Back **

The back of the Xacti HD1 is the main control panel for the camcorder. It features the main controlling device, the camcorder’s joystick and the button to enter the camcorder’s menu system. Below these buttons is the switch to toggle between record and playback modes. Below this switch, the user will finder the camcorder’s SD media port, covered by a small panel door. Towards the top of the back of the Xacti HD1 are the camcorder’s two capture buttons, one for still photos and one for video. In the middle of these buttons is the camcorder’s zoom toggle.

**

**

**The Left Side **

The left side of the Xacti HD1 features the camcorder’s LCD screen which folds up and away from the bottom half of the left side. Featuring nothing besides the screen on the folding panel itself, the Xacti HD1 features three buttons underneath this panel. They include the camcorder’s on/off button, the button to toggle between normal and HD shooting, and a button to switch to burst mode if capturing photos.  

The Top

The top of the Xacti HD1 features the camcorder’s pop-up flash along with the button to pop it up. Along with this is the camcorder’s external microphone port covered by a small, round rubber port cover. All of the camcorder is covered in quality, sturdy gray metal, which is accentuated with streaks of silver and grayer metal portions. Overall, the camcorder is much sturdier than the earlier Fisher FC1; it has the feel of a top shelf camcorder in the body of the lowest of the low.

Auto / Manual Controls

Picture & Manual Control

*Automatic Control *

The Xacti features automatic options for every manual option it has and usually a few preset options as well. Auto Exposure (AE) presets include: auto, sports, portrait, nightview, landscape, fireworks, and lamp, and can be selected in the menu system. Whichever mode you chose is linked to the Program option for manual exposure control on the camcorder; when one of the other exposure modes (explained below) such as Aperture or Shutter is selected, the Program AE feature deactivates.

There are automatic controls for both shutter speed and aperture as well as white balance available in the menu system, and these automatic adjustments seems okay, though not quite as good as Sony’s automatic controls. On such a small camcorder, adjustments aren’t expected to be stellar, but for an HD camcorder, I was hoping for something a little better.

Three Spot metering options exist for exposure in order to help guide the camcorder in its automatic adjustments, which is kinda nice. They include Multi-point, central-area, and Single-spot metering, and are available in the menu system. Also in the menu system are focal metering options of 5-point auto focus and spot auto-focus. Automatic options for ISO also exist.

*Overall Manual Control *

For such a small camcorder, the manual control options are impressive. When we get this bad boy into the testing tent, we’ll be able to give you a better estimate as to exactly how good these options are, but as of right now they seem comparable in scope to those of the JVC Everio series, though perhaps slightly more expansive.

The Xacti HD1 offers manual control over focus, exposure (both shutter and aperture), and white balance, and while it is amazing for such a small camcorder to feature such a wealth of control, it also wouldn't be taken seriously as an HD camcorder if it didn’t.

Zoom

With 10x optical and 100x digital, you can really feel the zoom in this little guy. I can’t say whether the motor noise will show up on the audio track, but we had a huge problem with motor noise on Fisher’s FC1 (made by the same company) a couple years ago; that camcorder had a design remarkably similar to this Sanyo’s. Our testing should reveal whether or not this is the case. Fortunately, if motor noise is a problem because of the optical zoom, at least you can purchase an external microphone and hook it up to the microphone jack on this little beast. Perhaps anticipation of this motor noise problem prompted the jack’s inclusion; after all, I think this is the smallest camcorder to feature an external microphone.

*Focus *

The Xacti HD1 features a variety of focusing modes, both auto and manual. Inside the camcorder’s menu system are four manual focus options. They include: standard range, full range, "MF"—manual focus, and macro. Standard, full, and macro options function almost as presets, or windows to govern the automatic and manual focus ranges of the camcorder. MF allows users to manually adjust focus using the joystick. It has 22 steps.

When not in the menu system, users can press down on the joystick, towards the little flower icon, in order to engage manual focus. This appears as a horizontal meter on the bottom of the LCD screen. While a bit cumbersome to use, especially with only the LCD screen for "eye-balling" adjustment, it is nice to have manual focus so close at hand. Such a small joystick with so much control…

For still capture, the Xacti features two auto focus modes, 5 point and Spot, switchable in the menu system.

*Exposure (Aperture) *

There are multiple exposure adjustments available on the Xacti HD1. The first is a simple exposure offset system, easily accessible using the camcorder’s joystick. To engage the offset system, the user presses to the right on the joystick, and then can toggle, either left or right, moving a cursor across a meter from lighter to darker. The offset system range is from +/-1.8 EV at 0.3 EV increments.

The camcorder also features typical manual exposure with standard F-stop steps. To engage manual F-stop adjustment, the user must set the manual exposure mode in the menu system. Four modes are available: Program, which adjusts exposure according to Program AE; Shutter, which allows for manual adjustment of the shutter with F-stop automatically compensating; Aperture, which allows for F-Stop manual adjustment with shutter automatically compensating; and Manual, which allows for manual adjustment of both shutter and aperture. The F-stop range is from f/6.8 to f/3.5.

The Xacti HD1 also features three exposure measuring modes, so you can select how you want the camcorder to adjust exposure. It then does so automatically. These modes include multi (for metering across the entire frame), center (for central metering), and spot (for single spot metering).

Shutter Speed

Manual shutter speed rates for still photographs include 1/2-1/2000 of a second. In the burst shooting mode, rates from 1/15-1/2000 exist when the flash is not used, and from 1/30-1/2000 when it is used. A maximum four second shutter speed is available, which is what Sanyo calls "lamp" mode. For video recording, manual shutter speed levels from 1/30-1/10000 exist. Shutter speed is adjusted using the camcorder’s joystick to select manual shutter speed in the camcorder’s menu system. Users then adjust the rate by moving the joystick, as in exposure adjustment. To manually control the shutter the user must be in either the Shutter or the Manual exposure modes.

White Balance

A number of white balance options exist on the Xacti HD1, as on the JVC Everio camcorders. These options include a number of automatic modes, some of which act like exposure presets in that they anticipate certain environments and light temperatures. Presets and Automatic modes include: Auto (full auto TTL), Sunny, Cloudy, Fluorescent, and Incandescent. Full manual white balance adjustment is available as the Sampling option.

White balance must be searched out and adjusted in the camcorder’s menu system using the joystick.

Gain

There is no manual gain option on the Xacti HD1, though a number of ISO features exist (see other features).

Still Features

**

**

**
**

Still Features

With its 5.36 MP CCD, the Xacti HD1 can apparently capture ten megapixel stills (10MP--3680 x 2760). There has got to be some interpolation going on here. More believable are the five megapixel stills (5MP--2595 x 1944), the two megapixel stills (2MP--1600 x 1200), the one point two megapixel stills (1.2MP--1280 x 960), and the point three megapixel stills (0.3MP--640 x 480). To be frank, this camcorder’s still performance may be able to pull it out of the garbage if its video performance and low light performance sucks. The camcorder is small enough to provide excellent portability, like any five megapixel point-and-shoot digital camera, and with the added bonus of taking (albeit possibly mediocre) HD video on the side, it might be a decent buy as a hybrid. That said, eight hundred dollars is quite a lot for a hybrid, especially after the charm of having the world’s smallest HD camcorder wears off.

The Xacti HD1 does feature some still features worth noting however. It offers manual ISO adjustment, with options of 50, 100, 200, 400, and when in lamp mode, 3600. When video is being captured ISO levels of 200-800 are available when it is adjusted automatically and 200-1600 when it is adjusted manually. There are different flash modes, too; auto, forced, off, and red-eye, with a slow synchro mode possible in Night View mode. All of the other manual controls used in video mode are available during still capture, especially because there is no difference between still and video capture modes.

One last big downside, however. No card is included with the camcorder.

Handling and Use

Handling

The handling of the Xacti HD1 suffers from the same problems that the Fisher FC1 did, though it’s not quite as bad. The Xacti HD1 largely features an identical design to the Fisher, which may contribute to some gnarly motor noise; however, some alterations have been made. The main one is the move of the flash from a built-in place on the front of the camcorder to a flip-out compartment on the top. Overall, the Xacti HD1 feels a lot sturdier than the Fisher too, featuring a lot less plastic and a lot more metal. The zoom toggle is than the Fisher, a lot worse than many much much much cheaper camcorders.

The Sanyo's battery

LCD/Viewfinder

The Xacti HD1 features a 2.2-inch Organic Light-Emitting Diode Display (210K pixels). It has four levels of brightness and can rotate 285 degrees. This is a slightly bigger display than the Fisher FC1's (1.5"). This new verbiage ('Organic') surrounding the screen is hard to place. They’re saying it offers a clearer picture and that "Trademark features of OLED display technology are expanded viewing angles and up to 5,000 times faster response speed when compared with conventional display technologies, enabling smooth playback of rapid movements." We’ll see. There is no viewfinder.

Audio / Playback / Connectivity

Audio

The Xacti HD1 features a built-in stereo mic located on the front side of the LCD screen, and a built-in mono speaker located on the right side of the camcorder. Fortunately, the camcorder also features an external microphone port located on the top of the camcorder behind the flash. There is no shoe, but an external microphone might be the saving grace for this camcorder’s salability, as the noise of the camcorder’s optical zoom engine could be diverted from its path toward your audio track. We found extreme motor noise in the similarly-designed Fisher FC1.

VCR Mode

The playback mode of the Xacti HD is pretty handsome. The mode is accessed by a switch on the back of the camcorder, which switches between record and playback. When switched to playback mode, captured footage of both still images and movie fill the LCD screen. And while they are not laid out in a thumbnail grid for your visual pleasure, there is a nifty playback visualization option which is used to play, pause, fast forward, or rewind each segment.

Ports

The Sanyo HD1 has ports for S-Video and composite out, and can handle both NTSC and PAL. There is also a stereo audio out. The Sanyo doesn't have a USB port on its body, but there is a USB 2.0 / composite A/V / S-Video port on the docking station.

Ports and docking station

Other Features

Other Features

Digital Filter: The HD1 also offers a few digital filter effects, such as standard, cosmetic, monochrome, and sepia.

Comparisons / Conclusion

Conclusion

If I had to say yes or no without having any official testing results, I’m thinking... no. Much of this conclusion is based on my estimate of the horrible video performance, and then noticing other glaring flaws on the periphery. All I can say is, thank you for the external microphone port, because I’m expecting some bad motor noise from the optical zoom. That means you’ll have to buy an external microphone with this critter, which cuts down on the portability that this camcorder flaunts. Add to the list of extra purchases an SD card--better make that a 2GB SD card-- wait, better yet, make that as many SD cards as your budget can afford, because you’re going to need them for the amount of video this thing can record. But then again, if you can shell out eight hundred dollars for such a gimmicky camcorder maybe you can afford so many cards and an extra microphone anyway. Advice for the less financially fortunate among us: save up and buy the HDR-HC1. In six months it will be cheaper than it is now, and that's a safer bet than the Xacti HD1.