Rating: 
Summary: not a bad camera
Review: The PV-DV51 has pretty good picture quality, but the built in mic is pretty (bad), no mic jack either. Menu button is almost impossible to access during use if you have normal-sized fingers. Good cheap digital cam but I'm returning mine to get a Canon
Rating:
Summary: not a bad camera
Review: The PV-DV51 has pretty good picture quality, but the built in mic is pretty (bad), no mic jack either. Menu button is almost impossible to access during use if you have normal-sized fingers. Good cheap digital cam but I'm returning mine to get a Canon
Rating: 
Summary: Great value in a DV cam
Review: There are a lot of pluses and a few minuses for the DV51. The biggest plus is you're getting all the video quality of a much more expensive camera like the DV601. The 680,000 pixel CCD is a big part of that. Most low-end digital cams (including those from Sony) don't have anywhere near this kind of resolution. If you currently have a VHS or 8mm camcorder, you're in for a big step up in image quality.The DV51 is reasonably easy to record with. If you want to do much more than defeat the EIS, enable manual focus, or enable the backlight compensation however, you'll have to go into the menus. The "jog dial" makes menu selection reasonably easy but for some reason, you sometimes turn the dial to choose which selection you want and sometimes you're forced to press it multiple times depending on the menu. The same jog dial is also the manual focus adjustment and it's a bit awkward for that purpose. The EIS works well. It takes it a second or so to kill any undesired camera shake after you stop panning or zooming but that's typical of most digital EIS systems. You can also use it after the fact on playback which is a bonus as EIS usually shortens battery life (and can cause side effects you might not want in your final video). If you want to export your videos via the digital 1394 link to your computer, however, you best use it when recording. The battery life with the included battery is less than an hour with the LCD monitor in use and close to 1.5 hours if you use the viewfinder instead. Most will likely want to get a spare (and possibly larger) battery but this is typical of most camcorders. The zoom is quiet (you can barely hear it on the recorded video) and has multiple speeds but it takes a light touch to keep it at the slow speed. The digital zoom works well up to about 30x or 40x but beyond that, you lose a lot of quality (just like with any other digital zoom). There are "program" settings for sport, portrait, low light and bright (i.e. snow) scenes. There's also a "gain up" setting that, when used, allows the DV51 to shoot decent video in relatively low light. Like most camcorders, however, the video noise is much more noticable under such conditions. My biggest complaint is this camera lacks a microphone input. If you've done much camcorder work, you probably know that capturing quality audio is often difficult. The lack of a microphone jack makes it impossible to use anything but the built in stereo microphone. While this isn't a big deal for taping your baby crawling around the house, it would be a big deal if you want to pull off a professional sounding interview or record your son's band performance. The built in microphone of any camera can't help but pick up some camera noises, any noise made by whoever's doing the recording and the noise of the camera being handled. Plus, if your subject is more than 5 feet away, you'll get a lot of echo indoors. The microphone in the DV51 is decent as far as built-in mics go, but your videos will still scream "amateur" from the poor audio. The camera is a little light on accessories as might be expected for this price. You don't get an 1394 digital cable. You also don't get a blank miniDV tape. I didn't buy the DV51 to use as a digital still camera. It's not well suited to this as you have to record the images to tape and transfering them to your PC is an involved process. If you want this feature, spend a little more money and at least get the PV-DV101 which has a serial connection or the PV-DV201 which steps up to faster USB. That way you can directly download the images to your PC. In summary, Panasonic chose to throw out features instead of video quality for their least expensive DV camera. For my needs, it's mostly a good compromise. I just wish they could have spent the extra dollar or so and included a microphone jack. Relatively speaking, DV cameras are likely to continue to rapidly improve. I would expect that two years from now a $500 camera will have a megapixel rating, 32mb or more of still picture memory plus added bells and whistles. In the meantime, the DV51 is a good choice if you're on a tight budget or just want something to get you buy until DV cams are more mature.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent VIDEO Camera witn everything you NEED
Review: This camera stands out because the video quality is great, while unneeded features are left off. I don't need a color viewfinder--or a color LCD for that matter, even though this camera comes with one. I want to be able to aim it, that's all. I have a nice Olympus digital camera I bought on Amazon last year that takes PERFECT pictures and I don't need an inferior "still mode" which is commonly included with lots of these digital VIDEO cameras. Mercifully, Panasonic made the effort to make a camera for the real, practical world which does not force me to pay for a high-end digital camera and media capability that I do not need at all. The 2.5 inch color LCD is even too much in my opinion! I LOVE that this camera takes such good video and has an excellent zoom capability the most. That's all I really need!
Rating:
Summary: Transfer to PC
Review: To tranfer video to a PC you need a Firewire port on the PC(I use the one on my sound card) and a firewire cable. I got the cable at Circuit City when I bought the camera. If you have Windows XP, Movie Maker will open by default when you connect the camera. If you want to purchase DV editing software, Pinnacle's Studio DV comes with a firewire card.
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