A Powerful 30x Optical Zoom
With one of the most--if not the most--powerful zooms offered in any home-use camera, the VDR-D200 will make those distant images you've long been craving to record yours for the asking. While many camcorders can offer 30x of digital zoom or more, the image degradation of digital zoom renders most distant images virtually unrecognizable. Digital zooms basically enlarge the dots at the center of the image, producing grainy images. In fact, the larger the zoom, the grainier the image. An optical zoom, on the other hand, not only offers magnification without the image degradation, it also focuses quickly, so you're ready to shoot right away. (But if you really insist on zooming in on your distant subject, the VDR-D200 also has the ability to achieve up to 1000x in digital zoom mode.) And while cameras with high-powered zooms typically require a big and complicated lens, the VDR-D200 is light and compact enough for you to carry with you easily.

Reducing Hand-Shake with Panasonic's Optical Image Stabilizer
Anyone who has ever recorded home video knows how difficult it is to take perfectly stable shots. Hand-shake is one of the biggest problems with home video. Panasonic has created a unique solution to this problem--an optical image stabilizer system that corrects the problem before the CCD imaging stage, so that it has virtually no effect on image resolution or field of view. With this one-of-a-kind system, you'll get automatic hand-shake correction every time you shoot.

Panasonic's Advanced Color Engines and High-Quality Optics
At the heart of the system is a 1/6-inch CCD, Panasonic's innovative Pure Color Engine and MPEG2 Engine that together offer superb color reproduction and performance. In short, the Pure Color Engine converts the CCD output signal from a complementary color signal into an RGB signal at an early stage and extracts the low-frequency luminance component from the RGB signal. This innovative process will help you achieve superb color reproduction for all your shots, including your high-zoomed pictures. Panasonic's MPEG2 engine is a wide-range, high-precision search engine that produces smooth, beautiful motion pictures. By using the same variable bit rate technology that Panasonic developed for its high-end Diga DVD recorder, the MPEG2 engine will enhance your LP recordings with nearly twice the resolution captured with standard video cameras.

But none of this technology would be worth a hoot if Panasonic didn't outfit the VDR-D200 with some of the finest optics you'll find in any camcorder. Leica AG of Germany is the manufacturer of fine cameras and lenses revered by generations of photographers. The Leica Dicomar lens featured in the VDR-D200 was developed specifically for digital video cameras. Drawing on Leica's renowned optical technology, this advanced multi-coated lens captures clear, crisp, finely nuanced images with outstanding detail and contrast.

Straight to DVD: No Computer Necessary
One of the VDR-D200's most exciting features is its ability to record directly to DVD-RAM, DVD-R, and DVD-RW discs. With a DVD-RAM disc, you can record up to tens of thousand times and view your results without any finalizing process. You can also record repeatedly on DVD-RW discs. While you can record only once on DVD-R discs, they can be played back on almost any kind of DVD player or recorder. The camcorder automatically finds a blank section on the disc for recording. You never need to search for blank disc space, and there's no worry about recording over a previous recording by mistake. With this versatility, you'll have the option of recording on whichever kind of disc works best in your DVD player or recorder.

With DVD's high-speed data transfer, you can dub your recordings--even large volumes--quickly and easily onto a DVD video recorder's hard disk drive for the editing process. You can also do some polished editing using just the camera itself. For example, you can delete scenes right on the spot or change the scene sequence to create your own scenarios. It's also easy to change the sequence of the scenes you've recorded, and then play them back. And the camcorder's USB 2.0 compatibility means that you can upload a motion picture data to a PC at high speed over a single USB cable. Even if your PC has no DVD drive, you can transfer the data to a PC seamlessly and quickly.

The Finer Details
The VDR-D200 has a shutter speed range of between 1/60 and 1/3000 second. With a 0 Lux Color Night View feature, you can shoot video in total darkness. This function shoots four frames per second using the LCD monitor as a light source. Pictures are clear and sharp, thanks to the hand-shake compensation provided by the O.I.S. Light from the LCD is gentle and easy on the eyes, so you can snap shots of sleeping children without waking them up. Automatic functions, such as several scene modes, make it easy to take the perfect video shots, and a 2.5-inch LCD monitor makes it easy to keep track of your subjects. A built-in stereo microphone lets you record in Dolby Digital stereo, giving your movie a true-theater touch. The VDR-D200 also lets you capture still images at a resolution of up to a remarkable 1640 x 480 pixels. An SD Card slot for additional storage of your stills is included.

What's in the Box
VDR-D200 camcorder, battery pack, AC adapter, strap, AV multi-cable, USB cable, lens cap, and software CD-ROM.