Panasonic VDR-D230

• Average user rating: 1.5 stars out of 8 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 5 stars

  Video is poor quality, colors are very washed out.

  by Arthur61 on June 17, 2007

  Pros: You can just insert and play the DVD disc on your DVD player!

  Cons: Poor quality video, colors are not vivid.

  Summary: I was very pleased with the cameras ability to create a disc which you can play back immediately on your DVD. Also must give panasonic credit for a fantastic zoom, ...

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  Summary: I was very pleased with the cameras ability to create a disc which you can play back immediately on your DVD. Also must give panasonic credit for a fantastic zoom, and the image stabilization works really well even at full 32X zoom. Unfortunately the image quality is poor, and the colors appear very washed out. The camera permits you to save the video in two formats Video: which permits immediate playback on your DVD player but doesn't let you edit the video, or VR: which does not permit immediate play back on your DVD but will permit you to edit your video. When you process the video through your PC the software will convert it into MPEG-2 format, permit editing, then burn it to a DVD. I did not notice any degredation in quality after conversion at the highest possible setting (thank goodness) although logic would dictate that there is some. In my opinion this camera gives you a lot of technology for the money, but you pay a price in video quality. I returned mine and bought the Panasonic PV-GS320. Although it is the older technology the video quality is considerably better, and the color reproduction is dramatically better!

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  3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 1 stars

  Piece of junk

  by flavere on May 20, 2008

  Pros: Combo video and still

  Cons: everything else

  Summary: I bought this in January as a gift for my son's birthday in March. The first batch of still pictures came back from Walgreens looking like they came from ...

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  Summary: I bought this in January as a gift for my son's birthday in March. The first batch of still pictures came back from Walgreens looking like they came from a single use camera. I took it back to Circuit City and they hid behind their 30 day return policy. Panasonic told me to take it to their repair facility who kept it for over 3 weeks. Just got it back and the pictures are still terrible.
  
  I also tried to download some videos to DVD. The software freezes the computer and I have to reboot. When I used my ULead program the videos froze for 3 or 4 seconds between chapters.
  
  When I was at Circuit City the manager there tried to tell me the still picture feature was just an extra and not very good (this is after the purchase, not mentioned before). I said to the guy then you think the camera is a piece of Cr*p? And he said yes. Stay away.

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 4 stars

  Not for editing with imovie or Final Cut

  by kayko4578 on June 4, 2007

  Pros: Light weight, nice size, easy functions

  Cons: Editing abiltiy is not the best. Still camera images are not great,

  Summary: I did a lot of research, but somehow I missed this one tidbit. In the specs it clearly states "can export video and images to computer." That is what really ...

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  Summary: I did a lot of research, but somehow I missed this one tidbit. In the specs it clearly states "can export video and images to computer." That is what really sold me. I was going back and forth with paying more money for a mini DVD vs a miniDV. If you only plan on burning DVD's directly and NOT using a imovie or final cut express (pro) then go for it. Otherwise, go for a higher priced minidv with a firewire. I really didn't get to play with this to much, but the MagicPix feature is really interesting and helps low light a lot. There aren't a lot of functions, but if you just want good old auto, then this is a great camera for a regular family. Be sure to read the manual to understand the difference between recording in Video format and VR format.

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 5 stars

  En lo particular no me gusta la calidad de la imagen.

  by MrGustavAdolph on July 29, 2011

  Pros: Es bastante practica y versatil

  Cons: El lente de la camara

• 8 stars

  wonderfull product for the money

  by tazadsldevil on August 28, 2010

  Pros: handeling, it is easy to handle thanks to the grip
  video qualtiy in low light looks good to me at least on the lcd screen it looks good ,so watching it on a dvd player would only be better
  handy way , film on dvd and still images on a sd/sdhc card

  Cons: when i have to drag is that i would like it to record video on sdhc too and decide later what film to record on the small dvd discs

  Summary: first Panasonic is a good brand , known for its good products in film and photography it is easy to operate this camera and it is no fuss at all , on ...

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  Summary: first Panasonic is a good brand , known for its good products in film and photography it is easy to operate this camera and it is no fuss at all , on the bright big display the colours look fine and bright and contrasty enough . this dvd camcorder is yet another good product from panasonic , it is small but big enough to know you got quality in the hands , the setup is easy , having 3 OPTIONS of language is not a problem to me , my english is good enough to understand the camera, it looks good, feels good , has a powerfull zoom and good lens to capture movies and even photos allthough their resolution is not high it is easy to have a camera at hand .

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• 1 stars

  Problem with Drivers

  by sjcommish on December 27, 2008

  Pros: Have not used it enough to see any pros

  Cons: The product shipped with XP drivers, when you go to the website to load the Vista drivers it crashes, no answer from 'support' email.

  Summary: The drivers for the D230 don't work with Vista.

  Summary: The drivers for the D230 don't work with Vista.

• 2 stars

  Poor picture quality, poorly packaged software, avoid!

  by chai714 on May 13, 2008

  Pros: fits in your hand nicely, is light,

  Cons: AWFUL picture quality (even looks black & white at times while playing on TV), slow DVD writer (takes 5 minutes to write 10 minutes of video), the software is poor

  Summary: I got this as a gift (thank God). I would never wish such a poorly made camcorder on anyone. First off, let me start off with the positives: the design ...

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  Summary: I got this as a gift (thank God). I would never wish such a poorly made camcorder on anyone. First off, let me start off with the positives: the design is sleek, light, and the light on the tip significantly improves darker shooting conditions.
  
  Conversely, the great light doesn't make a difference for it's AWFUL video that even looks black & white! The DVD writer must write at .05x and takes forever to write even the smallest of videos.
  
  The software that Panasonic chose to package with it is as bad as its video output results - I have several computers at home and am a techie and couldn't successfully install the software. I did visit the Panasonic website to check for issues but could find no solutions.
  
  The built-in menu that Panasonic uses to author DVD menus is also poorly designed. The colors are generic looking and they seem to not have any real logic.
  
  Avoid this camcorder at all costs.

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• 3 stars

  Lost 20-min of video on my 2nd disc in the unit

  by vdr-d230 on October 20, 2007

  Pros: compact, great zoom

  Cons: it allows you to record on a bad disc and lose all!

  Summary: I liked the unit until recording my way through the 2nd disc ever in the machine. Had the mini DVD-R disc about half filled up with short video clips of ...

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  Summary: I liked the unit until recording my way through the 2nd disc ever in the machine. Had the mini DVD-R disc about half filled up with short video clips of my newborn from about 2-3 months of age. Went to record more one day, and got a "THIS UNIT CANNOT READ THE DISC. THE DISC IS FORMATTED INCORRECTLY" error. Which is pretty funny since the disc was formatted in that unit and the disc had never been out of the unit since then... Bottom line, according to Panasonic tech support: There is some error on the disc making it unreadable in the unit. Since the disc was not "finalized", it is also unreadable in any other unit or player. The video clips are unrecoverable, lost forever.
  
  If Panasonic does not take the unit back, it is going in the trash can. How could you use a unit like that where at any moment there may be some error that renders the everything already on the disc a total loss?

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