Hitachi DZ-BX35A
Manufacturer: Hitachi America Ltd. Part number: DZBX35A
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- For a moderate price, you get the convenience of recording your video directly to DVD media, but the entry-level Hitachi DZ-BX35A offers only basic features and can't deliver the image quality of Hitachi's step-up DVD camcorders.
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Where to buy
| store | customer rating | inventory | tax & shipping | price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon.com Marketplace |  | In stock | Enter zip code to get total price: Price +Tax +Shipping =Total price | as of 12/08/2009 |
CNET editors' review
Hitachi DZ-BX35A price range: $359.99
- Reviewed by: Will Greenwald
- Edited by: David Carnoy
- Reviewed on: 07/25/2006
The good: Relatively compact, this moderately priced DVD camcorder is easy to use, offers the convenience of burning to mini DVD, and has a strong, 25X optical zoom lens.
The bad: Writing to disc takes time, the autofocus is sluggish, and the image stabilization does little to compensate for camera shake.
The bottom line: For a moderate price, you get the convenience of recording your video directly to DVD media, but the entry-level Hitachi DZ-BX35A offers only basic features and can't deliver the image quality of Hitachi's step-up DVD camcorders.
Like most low-end camcorders, the Hitachi DZ-BX35A, which includes a 25X optical zoom lens and sub-megapixel CCD, isn't loaded with fancy features. That said, this is a pretty compact camcorder; weighing in at 1.1 pounds and measuring less than two inches thick, it's slim and light enough to take almost anywhere. We also like that it's fairly intuitive to use, and if you stick to auto mode, it's ergonomically sound. With the camcorder in hand, the power switch/mode dial and the record button rest just under your right thumb while the zoom rocker and still-image shutter release sit under your right index finger. For basic shooting, you'll have no problem operating the camera with one hand, and we like that the buttons are large and tactile.
However, if you like to fiddle with the settings while you shoot, you may run into some snags. Like Hitachi's other DVD camcorders, the DZ-BX35A carries over the design of last year's DZ-GX20A. The downside to that is the handful of touch-sensitive buttons hidden behind the 2.7-inch, wide-screen LCD. Since they're mounted flush on the camera's body, the buttons are hard to tell apart by touch alone and difficult to use while shooting. Most other controls are well placed, and the menus are intuitive and easy to navigate.
This camcorder uses a tiny 680,000-pixel CCD to capture images, and while it's pretty typical for budget DVD models, ideally you would want a larger CCD. The result is less-than-stellar video quality (compared to MiniDV) and still photos that aren't much better than what you'd get from a camera phone. The images are suitable for e-mailing but not necessarily for printing out.
The BX35A can record to 3-inch DVD-R, DVD+/-RW, and DVD-RAM media. You can set the camera to record in 16:9 wide-screen, but once you start recording on a disc, you can't change the aspect ratio. Its 25X optical zoom lens lets you capture shots from far away, but if you want shake-free images, you'll need to invest in a tripod. Alas, while the camcorder uses electronic image stabilization, it does little to counter the effects of shaky hands at higher zoom levels.
As a budget DVD camcorder, the DZ-BX35A is light on extra features and connectivity. The camcorder's only means of communicating with the outside world is a set of S-Video and composite A/V outputs. If you want any other jacks on your camera, you'll want to look at Hitachi's GZ series of DVD camcorders; they have S-Video and Composite inputs and outputs, microphone jacks, USB 2.0 support, and even accessory shoes. The only advantage that the DZ-BX35A has over its brothers is a 25X optical zoom lens, compared to the GZ camcorders' 10X and 15X zooms.
As with other DVD camcorders, the Hitachi DZ-BX35A's performance was hindered by its DVD media. Initializing and writing to disc often took several seconds, and finalizing a DVD after shooting takes several minutes. (The finalization process is required so that the resulting DVD can play back in a standard DVD player.) Again, this is common for this type of camcorder, so we won't whine too much. But the bigger gripe we had concerned the camcorder's autofocus: it's just not all that snappy, and we had some difficulty locking onto subjects at various distances. You can opt for manual focus, but to dial it in, you have to use the clumsy touch-sensitive buttons behind the LCD display, which makes it awkward to adjust precisely.
For its price, the DZ-BX35A's video quality is quite acceptable, and while it measures up to budget-priced miniDV camcorders ($300), it falls a little behind comparably priced DVD camcorders. Colors were muted but accurate, and images were reasonably sharp, though not as sharp as those of Hitachi's step-up models. However, the camcorder's small CCD had trouble reproducing finer details, and we noticed some oversaturation in sunlight.
The Hitachi DZ-BX35A is a decent budget camcorder, but a little more money will go a long way. The next step up in Hitachi's camcorders, the DZ-GX3100A, uses a 1.3-megapixel sensor and includes lots of extra connectivity. Since the price difference between it and DZ-BX35A is less than $100, you might want to consider getting the DZ-GX3100A instead.
User reviews
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Piece of junk! Dont buy! dont buy!
by breckbordr on May 5, 2007
Pros: None. Maybe the chaptering.
Cons: Errors on everything.
Summary: Do not buy unless you want to waste time recording and then losing everything you record.
I have lost my daughters birthday party, a trip to a fair and some ...Summary: Do not buy unless you want to waste time recording and then losing everything you record.
I have lost my daughters birthday party, a trip to a fair and some other priceless moments, because of disc errors. Halfway through recording I get messages saying the disc is corrupt and needs to format. Meaning 'erase everything that I have filmed up to that point". This has happened multiple times. In fact i have yet to make it through the finalizing process on a single CD. The last straw was a trip to thailand. I carried the camera with me every where and filmed everything. I finally got through the 1 entire CD of filming without getting an error, only to get home and lose everything. i tried to finalize the CD. It got to a minute left of finalizing and came up with another error message but of course it wanted to format to solve the problem. The whole solution to any problem on this camera is to format. Again, this erases everything. I have wasted 30-40 hours of taping without a single bit of footage. I am back to mini dv. dont buy!1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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You get what you pay for.
by artxslp on December 19, 2008
Pros: The price and the size
Cons: You get what you pay for... letīs leave it like that.
Summary: Very basic camcorder with low quality images. Doesnīt come with any software and had to work with third party like Nero. Battery life is shorter than what it is ...
Summary: Very basic camcorder with low quality images. Doesnīt come with any software and had to work with third party like Nero. Battery life is shorter than what it is supposed to be. In short, I got what I piad for...
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DON'T buy, doesn't save to DVDs reliably!!!
by AceExplorer on September 4, 2008
Pros: Small and light. Basic, good enough for most needs.
Cons: Battery life is less than advertised. Extra batteries (or larger batteries) are very hard to find in stores. Hitachi does not seem well-supported by electronics stores.
Summary: Can't believe this camera has a "5-star" rating on Amazon.com! This camera wasted lots of my time recording important events and then was unable to reliably "finalize" my ...
Summary: Can't believe this camera has a "5-star" rating on Amazon.com! This camera wasted lots of my time recording important events and then was unable to reliably "finalize" my discs for display on my DVD players. I recorded 5 brand-new discs at an event last night, everything seemed fine, and then later that night two of the five discs failed to finalize and gave messages about the discs being corrupted or unreadable. The only options were to fix the problems by re-formatting the discs and permanently losing contents of two of the discs. (That's a 40% rate of loss!) I used the recommended Maxell DVD-RW discs to avoid exactly this sort of problem and still got very poor results.
In advance of a big vacation in two weeks I'm going out to shop for another camera tonight. DON'T BUY THIS CAMERA. -
a good buy
by johnmag on June 27, 2007
Pros: full out door light recording was good
Cons: low light was disapointing
Summary: I bought this video camera 6 months prior to our huge family cruise so as to learn how it works since I am new to DVD recording. I paid about ...
Summary: I bought this video camera 6 months prior to our huge family cruise so as to learn how it works since I am new to DVD recording. I paid about 300.00 for it and have learned a lot through out this time period in my opinion this camera is good for out door recording no problems at all with full sun light we have some wonderful video of our vacation which is priceless however indoor recording is a bit rough and maybe even a little worse then the old VHS that I had which sort of pooped out last year. I think over all that this camera for the price is acceptable however after knowing that just a couple extra hundred dollars would have given me much better results I don?t think I would have been as cheap with my purchase and would have gone for a higher priced unit I was all new to DVD recording and didn?t have a clue as to how to shop I did buy a Sony prior to the Hitachi which had the mini tape and wasn?t happy with that so I returned it and got the Hitachi DVD thinking that I would get better quality which I did in full sun light so all in all I am satisfied with the Hitachi I would just like to mention to anyone looking to buy ?don?t buy on trial and error do your home work first ?I know we are not making first class movies however with the experience of HD TV, disappointment in the performance of a budget camcorder will definitely drive you crazy so before forking out your money take your time? I wish I would have!
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a great camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by neillie18 on June 27, 2007
Pros: the size , great pics , the hole thing
Cons: it takes a little time to finalicze the disk
Summary: this is a great camera. and it didnt even cost that much. the only thing bad is it takes a little bit of time to finalize the disk. but other ...
Summary: this is a great camera. and it didnt even cost that much. the only thing bad is it takes a little bit of time to finalize the disk. but other than that it is a must have. absalutly great if u are thinking of buying one doit it is a great camera and the price is really good
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Save yourself the headache!!!
by bradstreet12 on May 18, 2007
Pros: There aren't any
Cons: Are you kidding? I don't have time to list them all but I'll include a few: IT DOES'T WORK half the time, you can only use Maxell discs, it constantly gives me random error messages, the focus sucks
Summary: Honestly, I don't even know where to start. I'm so disappointed in this company. We have used this dvd recorder twice and both times we have had a ...
Summary: Honestly, I don't even know where to start. I'm so disappointed in this company. We have used this dvd recorder twice and both times we have had a ton of error messages. It won't finalized the discs, it barely records for 5 mintues and then gives an error. It's constantly sticking when we go to eject and it doesn't focus worth crap. I can't believe we are out the money with this stupid thing. We waited to long to use it (we bought it for the birth of our child and THANK GOD we had a digital camera that worked well) and now we can't get a refund or exchange. Save yourself the trouble and go with a SONY, this was a gift or we would have!!!!!!!!!! Now, I guess we are off to buy a Handycam
Updated
We sent the stupid thing in for repair @ the Sears tech plant. They called today and said the repair would be 85 bucks. Funny, I don't remember breaking it!! Why should I have to pay for it? When we went to the store where we got it I just explained that I wanted the disc formatted that we recorded our newborn on. He pulled a new one off the shelf and guess what?? It didn't work either!!!! Needless to say Sears is terrific and we are getting store credit to pick out a different one. Don't bother with this lop of &^%$#@! -
its not bad, but its falsely advertizing
by danapugh on March 10, 2007
Pros: writes to dvd
Cons: less than 1 megapixel, you cant record to sd
Summary: YOU CAN'T RECORD VIDEO TO SD
WHAT?! I think they should mention that on the box, it doesnt say anywhere that the sd cant always be used. I'm ...Summary: YOU CAN'T RECORD VIDEO TO SD
WHAT?! I think they should mention that on the box, it doesnt say anywhere that the sd cant always be used. I'm pissed. that was the whole point of me buying this model, so I could choose between dvdr and sd card. -
pretty easy to work, battery life is way too short.
by kimysioux on March 2, 2007
Pros: easy to work, lightweight, nice zoom to a point then shaky
Cons: the zoom says 25 optical, but pretty shaky way before that . lose alot of color on playback to tv.
Summary: for the price not a bad camcorder, have only had it a week so still experimenting with it. im hoping i can get better color on playback with some experimenting ...
Summary: for the price not a bad camcorder, have only had it a week so still experimenting with it. im hoping i can get better color on playback with some experimenting with it, but all in all i like it so far.
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You can't beat the Quality and Price
by rccrazybill on February 18, 2007
Pros: Great Quality and Ease of use
Cons: Battery time and button shape
Summary: In my opionion , This camcorder is just as good as my Sony. The Battery doesn't last as long as I would like but there are high capacity replacement batteries ...
Summary: In my opionion , This camcorder is just as good as my Sony. The Battery doesn't last as long as I would like but there are high capacity replacement batteries that you can purchase. For the price I paid this is a great camera! Hitachi should have made the buttons better so you can feel them to change settings instead of having to look at them to do so. The buttons all feel the same.
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I bought this for my wife and she loves it!
by mdc76082 on December 23, 2006
Pros: Very simple to use; almost point & shoot.
Cons: Not very good in low light/dark areas.
Summary: This is as simple as it gets folks. Very affordable and very easy to use. Takes great videos and stills. The CNET review is somewhat lop-sided because techno geeks are ...
Summary: This is as simple as it gets folks. Very affordable and very easy to use. Takes great videos and stills. The CNET review is somewhat lop-sided because techno geeks are doing the reviewing. It is a good CAM for your buck. Sending videos and stills via internet are great. Printing stills (as long as not too large (pixelated)) are great on glossy photo paper. We have some framed and people dont know the difference. Video in low light areas can be disappointing and the LCD screen lighting doesn't do justice, but it does work better than no light at all. Who videos in total darkness without light...right? So, you have to be stupid not to get this camera working. Ok, so it takes a "Few" minutes to format and finalize a disk. My god what do you have that is so important in 2 minutes that you can't wait. That's technos talking. They want everything very fast and now. So, if you can spare a few minutes of your life to do the disk, then you can't go wrong. The software with XP Pro does a fantastic job with your videos and photos. No need to purchase +$200 software to tidy up your photos Photosharp Premire and Essential do fine. Like I said, nobody realized we did the photos our selves and framed them! Have a great time with it. We still do!
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Hitachi America Ltd.
- Part number: DZBX35A
- Description: Only proprietary 6th Generation Hitachi technology delivers unmatched performance and convenience to the home movie experience. The four formats of DVD recording and playback offers greater format flexibility than ever before. A 25x optical and 1200x digital zoom provide exceptional clarity while the Photo Frame Grab technology gives you the power to select individual video frames from your movie to capture and export as still images. The cinematic 16: 9 recording matches the widescreen format of HDTV's to deliver the most detailed cinematic performance and realistic picture. The ultimate home theater experience is achieved through the most refined and advanced DVD technology ever created.
General
- Product Type Camcorder
- Digital Zoom 1200 x
- Optical Sensor Size 1/1.6"
- Optical Sensor Type CCD
- Min Illumination 0.3 lux
- Image Stabilizer Electronic
- Shooting Modes Digital photo mode
- Widescreen Video Capture Yes
Main Features
- Color Support Color
- TV Tuner None
Memory / Storage
- Image Storage Fine JPEG 640 x 480, Normal JPEG 640 x 480, Economy JPEG 640 x 480
- Media Type DVD-R (8cm), DVD+RW (8cm), DVD-RW (8 cm), DVD-RAM (8 cm)
Lens System
- Type Zoom lens - F/1.8-3.3
- Lens Aperture F/1.8-3.3
- Optical Zoom 25 x
- Lens system type Zoom lens
- Auto Focus TTL contrast detection
- Filter Size 34 mm
- Focus Adjustment Manual, Automatic
- Zoom Adjustment Motorized drive
Additional Features
- Self Timer Yes
- Low Lux / Night Mode Yes
- Digital Still Camera Function Yes
- Included Accessories Lens cap, Camcorder shoulder strap
Viewfinder
- Viewfinder Type LCD
- Viewfinder Diagonal Size 0.2 in
- Viewfinder Resolution 200,000 pixels
Display
- Type LCD display - 2.7 in - Color
Digital Player (Recorder)
- Type None
Microphone
- Type Microphone - Built-in
Connections
- Connector Type 1 x Composite video/audio output, 1 x S-Video output, 1 x Microphone
Audio Input
- Audio input type Microphone
- Microphone type Built-in
Miscellaneous
- Cables Included S-Video cable, Composite cable
Power
- Power Device Power adapter - External
Manufacturer Warranty
- Service & Support 1 year warranty
- Service & Support Details Limited warranty - Parts - 1 year, Limited warranty - Labor - 90 days
Viewfinder / Display
- Display Form Factor Rotating
- Viewfinder Color Support Color
Physical Characteristics
- Width 2 in
- Depth 4.8 in
- Height 3.7 in
- Weight 1.1 lbs
Manufacturer info
- Hitachi America Ltd.
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Hitachi America Ltd. products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.hitachi.com
- Address:
2001 Ruppman Plaza, Peoria, IL 61614 - Phone: 1-800-Hitachi
