Customer Reviews
VERY DISAPPOINTED 
2005-01-31
I bought this as a gift to my husband before he was deployed to iraq so that we could take dvd's of the children for him to watch. The manual is useless. It is very vague and difficult to follow in most areas. Using the camcorder was easy but when we went to use it with the PC we had all kinds of trouble. The usb cable is really nonfunctional. Panasonic reccomends that you back up your discs to pc...we couldnt even get the hardware to work right on our pc (the tower is brand new) and after calling tech support for help..well..he gave up too and we lost all of the video in the process. (so my husband went to Iraq with just pictures and a major let down.)Then we couldnt uninstall the hardware that was installed improperly and tech support could not help. I am so disappointed with this product that I am returning it to the store where i bought it and trying a different brand.
In short..if your not mechanically/or computer inclined this product will be difficult to use and the directions even harder to follow. And dont dvd record anything you want to keep on this product. It has a problem with erasing or locking you out so you cant get to the images and those precious moments are lost.....
Works great for me 
2004-09-25
I've had this camera for a few weeks now and have filmed over 10 hours without any problem. I film a lot of kid's sports (football, sailing, etc.) and the picture quality is excellent. I went with the Panasonic over the Sony because of the 18x optical zoom and I just don't think that the Sony name is not what it used to be. The last two Sony products I've bought had problems (computer is a piece of junk and the camcorder's viewfinder stopped working after a year).
If you are going to buy a DVD camcorder, I would recommend using a DVD drive to transfer video to your computer. It's simple and fast. I bought a LG burner and it works great. Editing software programs are a different story but this is a problem with and digital camcorder you buy.
Panasonic's technical support is definately not the greatest but neither is Sony. In conclusion, I'm very happy with this camera and love the DVD concept. I gave the camera 4 stars because of the lack of support from Panasonic and the included software is useless and the instructions are unclear. The software that came with the DVD burner is better but not perfect. At least I could edit and produce a video with music.
As far as DVD players, even if you buy a Sony, not all players support DVD rw, so you have to do your homework no matter what you buy.
Better off with tape 2004-06-08
Great idea but in practice this camera doesn't live up to expectations. The DVA-RAM re-recordable media is fairly esoteric, expensive and not compatible with most DVD readers. The other recoding media; DVD-R, has a hitch - after you record your 30 minutes of video, the disc needs to be "finalized" before it can be replayed in a DVD player. This takes at least 7minutes. You can't use the camera during this time and it must be plugged into its AC adapter. If "finalization" fails, you've lost all of your video on that DVD and it can't be recovered. Just happened to me so I thought I'd share the experience with others. At present, miniDV tape seems like a safer and more reliable option. This particular camera would only be useful to people who already own a device that can read 8cm DVD-RAM discs and copy them to other media.
Lost memories and no help from Panasonic 2008-07-14
I have had this camera for about two years. I have gone through about 20 CDs and today the second one errored out and lost the data. No more video of my son's birthday. Just like that. The discs are working fine and then they come up with an error and that's it. Throw away your disc and your memories. I have used two kinds of media and both have had the same problem. Go to Panasonic's support web and site and there is NOTHING. Their FAQ on camcorders is a short marketing piece, so you're basically on your own. There must be a thousand better products than this one. Don't buy it unless you don't mind losing your video.
Average camera in its day but now obsolete 
2008-04-20
The VDR-M50 was an average camera around 2005, but is now obsolete. If you are buying this second hand then be warned that Panasonic supply no drivers or tools for Vista, so you need third party tools such as Roxio Creator to extract your movies from the DVD-RAM disks - probably not worth the trouble. Picture quality is just OK even on the highest quality setting. The VDR-M50 has some nice features including in-camera editing facilities but these are not enough to redeem it.
Not what I hoped for 2007-05-11
I bought this camcorder back in September of 2004 for the birth of my daughter and this is one technology that just didn't pay to be an early adopter. Here's a quick summary of my experience
Pros:
1. Navigating thru recordings is significantly easier (and timelier) than MiniDv or tape.
2. Camera size is nice
3. Outdoor recordings have good quality (not great)
Cons:
1. Have to use Panasonic DVDs for recording. We tried buying other brands which were significantly cheaper and the camera started rattling. Customer service thru Panasonic was horrible and after sending in the unit for repair, they sent it back saying nothing was wrong and we just have to use Panasonic DVDs (why didn't they just say that on the phone????)
2. Inside recordings are poor quality due to low light limitations. We purchased an external light which helps, but adds to the cost and also makes it more of a hassle to use
3. DVD-ROM software is proprietary and not readable on most DVD drives. We actually had to purchase an external DVD-Rom burner
4. Actual time to create a DVD can be as long as 4 or 5 hours for a 1-hour DVD. It only takes about 10 minutes if you record with a DVD-r disk but that also comes with problems (many of my files didn't transfer properly and you have to deal with the format and finalize process).
Overall not a total disaster but definitely not a good technology experience. Hopefully Hard Drive based units will be better but I'll wait it out a little while to let them work out the kinks.
Unable to intergrate with Vista (NEW PC) 2007-04-09
The camera functioned well, but is in no way compatiable with Vista or and newer systems. Drivers are not available, so thusly this camera is an peice of junk. Would never recommend it or Panasonic to any one.
Not bad at all if you know what you're doing 2006-12-14
PROs: Very easy to operate, even my wife handled it well :). Using DVD-RAM disks saved my budget since I've used a single DVD-RAM disk (app 20CAD$) for the last three years. Software that came bundled ('DVD Movie Album SE' and 'My DVD') is easy to install and easy to learn. Battery life could be better, but it works fine for me (about 1-1.5 hours, screen was on all the time). All cables (TV connection, PC connection, charger) are nicely marked, no confusion here. They even included an S-video cable for TV, so you have a choice of composite or S-video connection. Neat. I like that I can put the small DVD-RAM disk in my laptop, and do all the editing, I don't need to daisy-chain the camera itself to my laptop.
CONs: As you know, DVD-Ram disks need cartridges. For many people this is a hassle, but I'm used to it. I love the additional protection that cartridge offers. Original recordings are in 'raw' DVD format: .vro and they need to be reformated to .mpg. Not a big deal with DVD Movie Album SE, BUT: the size of finished movie in MB is huge. A 2-minute movie takes well above 100MB if you keep the default settings in the software. The price of recordable DVDs keeps dropping, but anyway, the movies could be smaller in size.
Overall, this is an excellent camera if you are an average computer user and know how to get around with movie encoding/decoding.
