Mini DV Camcorder Review:
Panasonic AG-DVC80

Targeted at advanced shooters who want a light, compact, DV acquisition tool, Panasonic's 3-chip AG-DVC80 has an impressive feature list. This black beauty offers the same manual controls, XLR audio inputs and menu options found on professional video cameras.

The Panasonic DVC80 borrows from full-sized professional camcorders in the placement of oft-used switches and buttons. The DVC80 has three-position switches for White Balance, Gain and Neutral Density filters (OFF, 1/8th and 1/64th) clustered with exposure and focus controls in an extremely user-friendly layout that makes finding your camera settings easy, even by touch. Two User Setup buttons allow quick switching between pre-selected modes like Backlight, Color Bars or Fade to Black. The design of the DVC80, while akin to professional cameras, is innovative and revolutionary in the mid-sized consumer Mini DV category. Many of the newer cameras strain so hard at setting themselves apart with a new approach that they sometimes render themselves awkward. The DVC80 is not gimmicky, but efficient.

The fixed lens is from Leica, the heavyweight of the still cam world. It is optically stabilized and carries a 10x optical zoom - and no digital zoom (thank you very much). Most importantly, the image is as nice as we've seen in a 1/3-inch 3CCD camera. The field of view is an extremely wide 53-degrees, with practically no distortion on the edges. The camera has a lens shade that is distinct in that it has openings facing the camera. Is it a functional design quirk or style decision? The jury's out, but you'll be able to recognize this camera if you ever see it mixed in with a crowd of PD150s and XL1s.

One of our favorite features on the DVC80 is the zoom control. In addition to the standard variable speed motorized zoom on the palm side of the camera, the DVC80 also has a zoom control on the top handle, which can be set to three different speed modes. But the best feature is the full-manual zoom with graduated numbered marks for precise manual control.

Panasonic comes through with the goods on the DVC80 as far as audio is concerned. The two XLR mike inputs have individual level control dials (no menu switching necessary). The inputs feature phantom power and mike input sensitivity settings of -50dBu and -60dBu for proper gain structure to help match the most unmatched of mikes. The XLR jacks are low on the camera body, out of the way, and not up on the handle, where they could very easily fall in front of the lens.

The audio that we recorded to the DVC80 from our Beyerdynamic MCE 7 wired lav was excellent. There is no auto gain control (AGC) for audio as most camcorder owners have come to know it, but if the level gets up to the red line, a built-in limiter shuts down the input gain and keeps the signal from distorting to tape. What does not seem to be present is the Expander portion of the classic AGC which increases gain if sound levels drop below a certain level - searching for sound and increasing electronic noise in the bargain. The audio features on the DVC80 are very usable. The quality of the on-board stereo mikes was good overall, but they pick up a fair amount of noise from the servo zoom motor and from the hands of the operator when using the top handle. There's nothing at all unusual about that, however, and most users of this camcorder will employ an external microphone to record their essential audio.

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