 The Best Camcorder I've Owned |
| Review Date: December 1, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Noname, |
OUT OF THE BOX
What a treat it was to get this camcorder! It comes with a charging stand, which I prefer to just plugging directly into a wall. It took about 1 ½ hours to charge and I have about 90 minutes of recording time on my battery. That is so nice.
I have a choice of memory cards, either SDHC or MMCplus -- or I could go with the internal memory, which gives me 75 minutes in superfine mode. That is a huge plus. There have been many a time when I've brought my camera or camcorder with me only to find I've forgotten to put a memory card in or the memory card is full. No need to worry here. I have a built-in backup.
The filmed images at night under incandescent light is somewhat grainy, but I haven't found a camcorder which wasn't grainy at night. The graininess is less than my other camcorders, so it's better than I expected.
The sound is clean and crisp, no static or distortion. I have no complaints.
When I zoom, the image is shaky. Whatever stabilization feature the camera has, it's not enough. I would need a tripod to help with that. Even at wide angle, it takes effort to keep the image stable. My son keeps asking why I'm shaking the camcorder so much. I'm not trying to shake the camcorder.
Daytime video quality is good. It does take a little time to focus sometimes, but it was fast enough to not bother me. Except for the shakiness, I do like the quality when viewed on my television.
The menu is intuitive. I have no problem navigating the touchscreen and I realize this isn't always the case with camcorders. It's well thought out and I appreciate the ease of use.
CAMERA FUNCTION
I can take photos as I film. What a marvelous feature. There have been countless times when I wanted to do both and had to choose. Or maybe I was filming and realized that was a Kodak moment that I missed. I can now do both, and boy have I utilized that feature. This has to be the absolute strongest selling point of this camcorder.
The flash pops up out of the camcorder and gives plenty of light, but it doesn't happen if I am taking photos in filming mode. For that, I need to be in camera mode. The red eyes appear less noticeable than in other cameras and there is a strobe feature to reduce red eye.
The photo resolution is better than any other camcorder I own. I have yet to get my photos back from developing and will update my review when I get them.
HANDLING
The size and shape would make the grip a bit awkward, but the swivel grip helps with that. I just wish the record button wasn't so far down low to the right. It's just difficult for me to reach that position with my right thumb. It would have been better to locate that button somewhere near the top of the camcorder,
SOFTWARE
The software included is Cyberlink DVD Suite. I don't know what's wrong, whether it's my computer or a softward glitch, but I just can't get it to work. Actually, it's most likely my ancient computer. I have a Compact Presario SR1930NX with 960 MB of RAM. I work a long time to get the video I want and then it won't burn the CD and it's very frustrating. I tried MediaShow and that worked, but it has fewer bells and whistles.
THE FINER POINTS -- details which would make life nice
The camcorder is missing a neck/shoulder strap. I'm not sure if that is a plus or minus. I found myself wanting one yesterday, when I was lugging it around to film a birthday party. Then again, the strap on my other camcorder was an annoyance. Putting it in and out of the bag, it just kept finding a way to get stuck on Velcro. It was nice not to have a strap to get in the way. I find myself going either way on this feature.
The lens opens and shuts automatically as needed.. I like that because I never have to remember to close it.
A small annoyance is the shell is just too shiny on the side with the screen. It just gets covered in my fingerprints. Wish they have made it more like the rest of the body.
Something I never expected to have but is a nice plus is the slideshow feature. I am used to scrolling through my photos. This is the first time I could play a slideshow to music with fading effects on the camera at the touch of a button That's so cool. The music only plays when the photos are on the internal memory. Still a nice feature.
Pros:
+Nice video quality
+Good sound
+Lens opens and closes automatically
+Take photos while filming
+Internal memory with about 75 minutes of recording time in superfine mode
+Long battery life
+Slideshow feature
+Pop-up flash
+Choice of optional memory cards SDHC or MMCplus
+Good photo quality
+Intuitive menu
Cons:
-Image can be grainy at night
-Image stabilization could use improvement
-Record button located in an awkward position
-Shell is a fingerprint magnet
-Software didn't work for me
Overall, this is a fantastic camcorder. I highly recommend it.
UPDATE: I got the photos back from Snapfish. They are good and I wouldn't know they came from a camcorder. Even the ones I took while in filming mode were good. The ones I took in camera mode were better, but only ever so slightly so when taken in daylight. Very nice photo quality, especially for a camcorder. |
A fun consumer HD camera.
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| Review Date: January 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: stinhoutx, Mission, TX USA |
Things that I liked:
* HD widescreen capture
* high-speed >> slow mo capture
* remote
* touchscreen
* 8GB built-in and expansion
I found this to be a good consumer level camera. Still pictures are decent, and video will be good for most. The slow mo, high-speed capture is fun, but does so at a much reduced resolution. We used it for a few Xmas parties and a piano recital. A promising sign of technologies to come. Be sure you have a computer beefy enough to work with the video. The included software bundle from Cyberlink is enough to get you started with the basics. The dock has an HDMI connector for direct connection to your HDTV (HDMI cable not supplied). There were cables included for composite/s-video and component connections. |
Very Good Product
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| Review Date: January 21, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Daniel Lazaro, Sao Paulo, Brazil |
I've ran a small selection process amongst top vendors, and despite the fact I really enjoy Samsung as a brand, the camera is very good, extremelly easy to use and very powerful in terms of features.
I'm very happy with it. |
OSX friendly, easy to use
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| Review Date: July 2, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Sean, Nashville, TN United States |
Pros
-the .mp4 files are OSX friendly and viewable instantly in QuickTime !
- we had no problem getting these files into Final Cut Xpress 4 or iMovie '08
- I was editing these files within minutes of popping the card out of the cam
- Photos can be plucked out of the video streams at 8mp (4mp interpolated?)
- the menu interface is clean ,intuitive, and performs well
- the photos look great, even the ones you capture while viewing video playback
- the TouchPoint focus can create cool effects
- colors and automatic levels seem pretty accurate
- quickly change recording to INTERNAL or SDHC or MMC
- manual controls are simple sliders (WB, Exposure, Shutter)
- 90 minute battery life from a small form battery
- shoots in 4 resolutions : 1080p/30p , 1080i/60i, 480p/60p an 300fps SlowMotion
- you can be in and out of these resolutions in seconds via QuickMenus
- shooting this puppy is a breeze, we haven't even looked at the manual yet
- nice Slideshow with music functions
- TouchFocus allows you to focus on different objects in the foreground or background
- it's a very small package and feels quite solid for it's size
- QuickInfo button displays battery life / memory / resolution even powered off
-clips can be split, deleted and combined IN CAMERA
-the phot slideshow can be accompanied by music
Cons
- you MUST have the cradle (included) for charging / HDMI out
- manual controls are very simple ...... will be too limiting for hardcore tweakers
........ that being said, the automatic levels are about as good as you'll want
- no hot shoe
- no built in light ... only pop-up flash
- photos cannot be cropped or rotated in camera - no red-eye removal tool either
- the focus drifted on me a few times
- btw, the focus is a little SLOW
- the TouchFocus was hit or miss in practice
-the battery and SD/MMC slot are behind a trap door, probably not going to be an extended run battery
there's alot to like about this camera
the easy to use touchscreen does almost everything I need it to do under normal circumstances
playback in QUICKTIME is smooth and free of some processing artifacts I noticed when using VLC (nightly) to view .mts files from Panasonics and Canon's ... and that comes in handy if you shot alot of clips and want to get to previewing them quickly and not waiting an hour for it to load into your editor
I think I've narrowed it down to this camera and the Canon hf100. I went to the store and shot some clips with my memory card. I found the .mts file buried in a STREAM subfolder several layers deep.
The Samsung has a folder called 100video, click on that and there's your files
The Canon's menu is more advanced and offers more options, but it's also more complex
but if you can live without advanced manual controls and a mini-hotshoe and want to work with a more friendly file, this Samsung SC_HMX20C is the camcorder to have
this camcorder works well with a 2.2ghz Macbook with 4gb RAM running OSX Leopard |
Interesting MPEG-4 Camcorder
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| Review Date: June 14, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Darrell W. Moore, Winter Park, FL |
I have been watching Mpeg-4 cameras to see if they could become usuable. So far, the stock AVCHD cameras have provided images that were so compressed all they were good for were shoot and display; editing the video was an utter pain. The artifacting made the contrast too hard, and the standard AVCHD file was decidedly unstandard with the streams unmuxed and the framerates inconsistent. Lotsa luck trying to get QuickTime compliant apps like Final Cut to deal with the video.
The Samsung SC-HMX20 delivers something new: an H264 mpeg-4 file that is not so highly compressed (the 1080p files have a 14.85 mbit/sec bandwidth) and the mpeg wrapper file is fully QuickTime compliant so editing is not a problem. The images aren't perfect (there's still artifacting and banding where colors and contrasts converge), but its head and shoulders above any other AVCHD camera. The 1080p image is quite handsome, but sometimes doesn't handle fast motion so well. The camera claims to shoot in 1080i, but it doesn't work on the Mac so I haven't been able to check that. It would be terrific if the camera could shoot both 1080p (for resolution) AND 720p (for fast motion). I guess that's asking for too much at this price. |
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