Almost Pro-ficient.(Panasonic BDS AG-DV1000P Mini DV VCR, digital video player and recorder)(Brief Article)(Evaluation)

Panasonic BDS AG-DV1000P Mini DV VCR

Panasonic's new Mini DVVCR has many of the features that pros want, packed into a small, attractive package. Judging by its price, they have presumably targeted the pro market for this deck, even though it is more "prosumer" in design.

The Little Device on Top

When you're setting up all your gear, you frequently end up with a tower of machines, all pretty much the same size. If you include the AG-DV1000P in your stack, you had better put it on top, due to its smaller-than-average footprint.

Hooking up the AG-DV1000P is straightforward. Simply connect your FireWire cable to the jack on front, analog inputs and outputs to connectors on the back panel and the optional AG-A11 remote controller to the 3.5mm jack on front. A FireWire port on back for a neater permanent installation would have been nice.

But if you use more than one type of input (DV, S-video, and/or composite), you can easily switch between them from the front panel, reducing the need for back-panel wire swapping. An additional convenience would have been analog inputs on the front to join the FireWire port, but that is probably a convenience that is approaching obsolescence.

Using the AG-DV1000P as a Source Deck