One can nary attend an under-12s soccer match on a brisk Sunday morning without seeing at least a few vigilant parents patiently documenting every detail of their progeny's athletic achievements for posterity on a DVD-camcorder. However, when it comes to playing back said sporting achievements, the skill is not just in the shooting, it's in the editing. And it's in this aspect that Hitachi's DVD camcorders excel.

One of the main benefits of using 8 cm recordable DVDs instead of the more popular MiniDV tape is that you can edit footage on the fly in camera. Then, when all the trips, stumbles, missed tackles and that disputable yellow card are left on the virtual cutting room floor, you can simply pop the disc out and stick it straight in your DVD player to impress your friends and family with your future World Cup star striker.

The DZ-BX37E represents the sixth generation of its DVD technology and includes some new features to make shooting even easier. One traditional drawback of DVD camcorders has been the slow wind-up time, causing some parents to wail uncontrollably as they miss their offspring's first goal. The DZ-BX37E solves this with a new 'quick to shoot' feature, which places the camcorder in a sleep mode until needed, and then wakes it up within one second to start shooting again.