Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic VDR-D310 DVD Camcorder (3CCD, 10 x optical,USB 2.0)

i purchased this camera for my daughter several weeks ago, having originally purchased a JVC GZ-MG175EK hard disk camera from comet at £249, which was taken back as the video quality was very grainy with low resolution.I am quite impressed with this camera, as the quality of video footage is very good & stills seem comparable to a dedicated sony 2.3mp camera we own. The sound recording quality is also excellent. Given the asking price on amazon(includes free tripod & bag which are good quality) i would say this is a very good buy for those who want a quality camera at a budget price. this camera seems to retail at over £400(argos £439).
for more reviews i would look on amazon.com as this camera seems to have been in the US for a while. This is a dvd camera & you may have read about problems with transferring dvd files to pc for editing. This has been no problem for me with this camera. here's how: all you do is plug the camera into your usb port.The camera now appears as a seperate drive. now just open the files within this drive till you see the vro file( this contains the mpeg2 movie).Now copy & paste the vro file to a folder of your choice on your pc. Next open windows media player & open the vro file. media player will state the file type is not recognised but select to play anyway. once the box is checked you will not be asked again.once the video plays, stop it & save the video with a name of your choice and the file ext name .mpeg. This can subsequently be recognized in most video editing software inc windows movie maker. as for down sides, the camera is a little heavier & more bulky than hard disc cams, but i find the weight better to keep the camera steady. there is no dedicated night vision facility but the camera video quality is good at even low light levels.

I was looking for a new camcorder to replace my Panasonic 3CCD NVGS75 and I was interested in a DVD camera. Comparing the performance and the cost of many camcorders (including Sony, JVC, Panasonic), I decided to go for this model. Main technical qualities: 3CCD, fantastic colours; good resolution (3.1MB), great image, including stills at 3.1MB; very good optical stabilisation (optical, much better than electronic/digital stabilisation); easy to transfer videos on PC for processing; very handy on using the mini-DVDs directly in the video player.
I used it in holiday and I was very happy with the results - both video and photos.
Cons: a bit bulky and lack of night video capability...

Overall - an excellent top-of-the-range camcorder for the money paid;

This is an excellent camera that can produce very good video quality, especially in good light. In low light the colour is less vibrant, but still good enough for most purposes. It works very well and seems sturdy and well designed. It is also very easy to use.

The camcorder has a few weak points:

- Quite a bit of wind noise when recording outdoors.
- Limited wide angle lens, only about 45mm (35 mm equivalent).
- Rather big and heavy, compared to other camcorders.
- Not a real widescreen camera, highest resolution is in 3 * 4 mode.
- Still pictures are hopeless, not even close to the 3.1 mpixel claimed.

My main main dispointment was the mini DVD medium, though. It doesn't work as well as I hoped. It is not possible, for example, to delete
scenes from a disk if you also want to be able to play that disk in an ordinary DVD player.

A big problem was that the camera didn't work with the TDK-R disk I bought for it. It recorded on these disks, but failed to finalize the disk in most cases. This is an absolute pain. I called Panasonic and they recommended to use their disks. I did, and they seem to work fine with this camera.

So, an excellent camera, using a flawed medium. And avoid those TDK disks.

Maarten