Hitachi DZ-GX20E review

Performance
Hitachi has boosted the DZ-GX20E's performance over its predecessors'. The long start-up delay is gone; the camcorder is ready to shoot just a couple of seconds after flipping the power switch.

The camcorder's other features perform equally well. The zoom is smooth and easy to control whether you're zooming quickly or at a more leisurely pace. Autofocus responds rapidly, as does the camcorder's ability to adjust to changing light. Image stabilisation proved effective throughout the first 75 per cent or so of the zoom range. At its 10x maximum, the stabiliser dampens but doesn't eliminate hand shake. Sound quality is very good, and though it's sensitive, the microphone doesn't pick up any drive-motor noises.

We had trouble with the Hitachi DZ-GX20E's manual focus. Though the 64mm (2.5-inch) LCD is sharp and visible under a variety of light intensities, the LCD is too small to discern enough detail to get a precise manual focus. The colour viewfinder offers even less detail, so it's not much help here.

Battery life is rated at up to 125 minutes when using the best recording quality -- depend on less than half that with typical start/stop recording and occasional replay of the scenes you've shot.

Image quality
The Hitachi DZ-GX20E's video quality looked as good as that of a midpriced MiniDV camcorder -- which is to say that it's a mite better than what we typically see from DVD camcorders. At the lowest compression level, video was reasonably sharp, with moderate motion artefacts, some edge crawl and blooming. At medium and high compression levels, banding becomes more evident in areas with high brightness gradations. If you're comparing Hitachi camcorders, take note that our test video was noticeably sharper than that produced by either of its brothers, the Hitachi DZ-MV780E and the DZ-MV750ME. Colour hues are accurate, though slightly oversaturated at times.

As is typical for consumer level camcorders, footage shot in low light looks somewhat grainy. However, the DZ-GX20E's low-light footage is brighter and more colourful than that of many comparable camcorders. In extremely low-light conditions, you can use the Low Light program autoexposure mode to brighten the scene somewhat, but this lowers the frame rate, making for blurry, jerky motion from pans and moving objects. The gimmicky option to turn the LCD screen into a light does little to help here.

Still-image quality is pretty good for a camcorder -- when the focus works. Low-light shots look good thanks to the built-in flash, which works best when objects are within 2m or less. Unfortunately, about a quarter of our shots in average room-light conditions came out blurry -- an unacceptably high percentage.

Edited by Lori Grunin
Additional editing by Nick Hide