Fri, 29 Feb 2008 Hitachi DZ-HS300E Review

Hitachi takes a multi-format approach to data storage with the DZ-HS300E. Nestled in the durable metal and plastic casing is an 8GB hard drive that’s good for six hours of shooting in standard quality mode. And for yet more capacity, the device accepts single-sided, recordable mini DVDs.

You can record direct to optical media, or quickly transfer footage from the hard drive to a disc via a Dubbing button. Naturally, disc content can be auditioned either via the 16:9, widescreen flip-out LCD, or by finalising the recordable DVD, flicking Eject and placing the disc in the Mac’s drive tray. Also, for stills work, there’s a slot for an SD memory card.

The HS300E’s design follows familiar lines, with storage-media selection controls, the Record button and zoom rocker located within easy reach of right-hand fingers and thumb. Transport controls are to the left of the diopter-adjustable electronic viewfinder and are fiddly to use. A tiny Pause/Play button sits inside a D-pad type ring for forwarding and rewinding footage and it’s a faff to navigate what’s been shot.

There are a host of camera-management controls accessible by flipping out the LCD. Such items as Finalize and Auto-focus on/off can be set with a prod on the appropriate button. Their action is not that positive, but it beats having to dig through on-screen menus in order to access regularly used functions.

Question of the day!

Mark Hattersley
Editor in Chief

Do you use Adobe Photoshop with a Wacom tablet?

Question of the day!

Do you use Adobe Photoshop with a Wacom tablet?

% of Macworld readers agree with you

Yes

TBC

No

TBC

How does a Wacom tablet improve the Photoshop experience?

Tweet your answer here...

124 characters remaining

Follow the conversation at @TabletChat

paintings & illustrations, mostly, which i upload to flickr.RT @fragmentedm

I draw manga/anime characters. I also do graphic design and photography.RT @spialelo

Yes. I usually put them up on my #deviantart account for feedback on how to improve.RT @spialelo

While recording to hard disk is speedy, performance is hobbled when using recordable DVDs. They take time to spin up, have to be formatted before use and are only good for 30 minutes of shooting at highest capture quality. And then there’s the tedious process of finalising, for which you have to use the mains adaptor.

In mitigation, Hitachi has incorporated a sleep mode. It’s effectively a standby setting and you can wake up the device in about a second should you need to shoot in a hurry.

Sadly, there’s no socket for an external mic. Also, Hitachi reports compatibility problems with the latest version of iMovie. DVD authoring suite ImageMixer 3 (www.imagemixer.com) is bundled, so all is not lost, and you can use OS X’s DVD Player to review footage.