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 - Its Versatility Will Change How You Use a Video CameraThis is a camcorder for the digital age. Tiny, multi-functional, and flexible. No ancient-technology magnetic tape. As with any product on the leading edge, there are many shortcomings. Let's dispense with the obvious. This device is all about compact go-anywhere flexibility and ease. For best image quality, a dedicated mini-DV camcorder and dedicated digital still camera is the only way to go. In fact, buying a separate camcorder and still camera may likely be less expensive than the Sanyo C6 while resulting in superior quality. Overall image quality is best described as "OK". The poor lens zoom and aperture is more befitting a $100 digital camera than a $400 device. The flash is weak and will not light many scenes that any other still camera would light. In addition, since the flash is not offset in any way from the lens, red-eye is virtually guaranteed at any range. This is not a problem with digital touch-up being common practice, but plan on touching up more often. Low light conditions drag down image quality dramatically in video mode. Virtually any digital camcorder at any price will outperform this Sanyo in video mode in any situation, but a little day light goes a long way towards improving video quality with the Xacti C6. Also, to be clear, the video quality is still superior to anything seen in the best of analog camcorders. For all these negatives, the convenience can be truly revolutionary. One can wear the tiny VPC-C6 around the neck all day. This causes an amazing change in attitude towards video. Since the Sanyo is so compact, no one would think twice about bringing it along on any minor travel. Being freed from the chore of "packing up" a camcorder means a corresponding willingness to bring the Sanyo on so many more occasions, such as a visit to the park instead of just weddings and birthday parties. And whereas a mini-DV camcorder requires one hour to transfer one hour's worth of video to your computer, the Sanyo transfers video as fast as the SD card and USB 2.0 interface will allow. That means five minutes or less to transfer one hour's worth of video to a computer. This ease increases willingess to create video and share video. No more procrastination over dragging out the camcorder wiring and the manual task of initiating video transfer to a computer. With the Sanyo, just place the camera in the docking station and pictures and video files are available just like files on a USB flash drive. It is difficult to overestate the significance of this convenience. Video becomes an everyday pleasure, if one so wishes, rather than a special occasion chore. If one values this convenience over absolute image quality, this is the product to own. This is a leading edge product. To get the most of this product, I highly recommend doing the following: 1) Sanyo has provided an updated firmware on their website. This fixes a fatal flaw in the audio processing that some people have noted as excessive distortion - this update makes audio quality competitive with other camcorders. In addition, this firmware update adds compatability with 4gb SD cards (the limit is 2gb without the update). Kudos to Sanyo for the continuing support. (Note that the instructions are a littled distorted in the translation - what they meant to write is that you need to push the SET button to the LEFT to enter the firmware update screen.) 2) The video is in MP4 format and is playable only with Quicktime. For Windows users, this limits video editing to the included programs or Quicktime-specific programs. There is an easy solution. First, download the Divx codec (a freeware commercial product) or Xvid codec (a free open source product - my preference) or ffdshow (a free open source product) - use your search engine of choice to find these. Second, download a utility called "MP4CAM2AVI" (a free open source software found easily with your search engine of choice). With these two programs, the video becomes compatable with any Windows program, including just about any media player (such as Windows Media Player) and any video editing tool (such as Windows Movie Maker). I look forward to seeing how this market segment evolves. The freedom from bulk and digital tedium is addicting and I am sure the image quality will continue to improve. For now, I am happy capturing the memories that would have otherwise been lost had I continued to own a conventional bulky tape-based camcorder. Rating:  - Terrible sound qualityThis camcorder has an excellent form factor and conveniently transfers clips to PC via USB. However, the camera picks up the sound of its own zoom and auto-focus, which makes the video unacceptable in my opinion. The clicking and whirring is louder than the level of normal conversation. We returned the first unit that we got thinking that it may have been a production defect, but the second unit had the same problem. Apparently, according to the manual, this is "not a malfunction". Rating: - Could have been perfectIn theory, this camera is perfect. Fits into your pocket. Video quality is definately good considering it records in the compressed format of MPEG-4. Pictures are good if you know how to finesse it. Perfect all around anytime camrea, right? Here's the thing. I got the camera mainly for video. I just had a daughter and wanted something for those candid moments that I could always have on me. Also, I did not want miniDV because uploading to the computer is real time. I wanted the SD card as film, even if it would sacrfice some video quality. But the thing that ruins this camera for me is the mic picks up the lens motor/ auotfocus nosie. On the playback I cearly hear the zooming in and zooming out and every time the lens focuses. It sounds like someone smoking a hooka. And get this, it even says so in the instruction manual, page 35, "CAUTION During video clip playback, the sound of a motor is audible....During recording, the sound of the optical zoom movement or autofocus movement was recorded. This is not a malfunction." Awful. By the way, the take a picture while recording video function is worthless. It leaves a pause on your video image while the sound keeps recording, and the still image captured is usually blury. Whats the point anyway, I think the camera has a built in function to extract a still from the video. Or you can do it with whatever editing software you use. Oh, and one last thing. I have to keep the still camera in sports mode to get a clean pic. My hand shakes too much. There is a digital stabalization for the video, but no optical stabilization for the stills. Its a big shame, too. The camera is very cool. If not for the audible motor noise, I would have given this at least an 8/10. But the lens motor noise is unacceptable! ps. all cameras today should have a built in lens cover. This is one has a cheap plastic one, that you'll probably lose! Rating:  - great for travel, not for domestic usethis summer i was to travel to Palestine and attend a wedding . the last thing i wanted was to hall around an ostentatious camera that would break my back as well as be a problem at check points and border crossings. i picked the Sanyo Xacti C6. it was great. the size is amazing, its as big as my cell phone, and i laughed at first becasue i didn't find it when i opend the box. the video quality is great, **FOR IT'S SIZE** i was expecting the picture to be realy blurry and pixulated but it wasn't that bad, and more suprizing is the indoor videos at night. However, the still picture capabilities is inferior to the movie capabilities. and don't even think of taking a picture at night. On my trip the camera fulfilled its duties with flying colors. But then my family used it to film a highschool graduation...boy was that a disaster. movies of the wedding weren't very celebrated, but the behind the scenes were great. again don't use it for family moments! now you might say why should i buy a flawed camera for that price, its because you will use it maybe 1000x more often than a regular bulky video camera. many a times did i capture great vacation moments with this camera in situations where a bulky camera wouldn't have been carried, just because this one can be placed in the pocket of your pants. Rating:  - Bad pixels on CCD and LCD.I really wanted to love this camera. The camera is compact and could fit into the pocket of my jeans! I did plenty of research before choosing to buy this camera so I expected all the quarks of the unit mentioned in other reviews. The 30 frames per second uninterlaced video is good - of course it's not as good as full resolution 60 fields per second video... but the unit fits into my pocket! Another huge plus is that each "shot" is an individual file that can be dragged off the unit and onto a PC using a USB cable. No further processing - the file just copies and plays in Quicktime, etc. Another great feature is the ability to zoom while recording a movie, which most point and shoot cameras that record video will not allow you to do. Now the sad part; Amazon has shipped me two units - both with bad pixels on the LCD and CCD. The bad pixels on the LCD, according to the manual, are expected and "Not a malfunction"; I disagree with that. For the cost of the unit there should be no bad pixels on the LCD monitor. The HUGE problem is the bad pixels on the CCD! This results with white pixels being recorded on the files; this is compounded by the "image stabilization". The image stabilization shifts the image the CCD receives around in attempt to stabilize a shot of video - and it works great! However, as the video is shifted and stabilized the white pixels are shifted around the screen as well. It's almost like there are flies moving through every single shot you record. The bad CCD is the reason why I can't love the C6... I gave up hope and sent both back to Amazon. I'm not sure what I will buy now.
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