Samsung SC-DX103 DVD Camcorder - Camcorder Review

I got the Samsung DigitalCam SC-DX103 from retail for $277 (without tax) to record my brother play the piano @ the Manchester Music School. There was a $680 Sony HandyCam with the Dolby 5.1 surround sound and really high quality video recording, but I didn’t want to pay $400 extra & I doubted if the sound quality (my DigitalCam has Dolby Stereo sound) would be significantly better on the Sony Handycam because most of the costs would go to the video quality & not audio. So, for my purpose of recording a concert, I thought that this should suffice.

It did – there was a bit of booming in the sound quality when I recorded myself playing piano but it wouldn’t matter. At first, I thought that the camcorder might actually be terrible buy – because after I made several test tries I played the videos from the camcorder & the sound was awful. Actually, the camcorder’s speakers are mediocre & they sound terrible when they play the piano recording, but the actual recording’s audio is not bad –> if you play the recording from a computer or a tv it should be fine.

The video quality was okay. In fact, the camcorder’s software would make the recording really crisp & clear, but the only thing that made the whole thing “ok” was the smaller resolution of the recording–> doesn’t look necessarily crisp on a tv. the video was fine in all circumstances except in really dark environments. then everything would turn unpleasantly gray. there’s a c. nite function – which i haven’t used but i looked up & i think it’s a special mode for dark situations.

the lcd has backlight function which, according to wikipedia, increases readability in low light conditions.

it also has wind cut function if you want to cancel out of noises caused by heavy winds.

its zoom is – 34x optical & up to 1200 x digital. i tried the optical zoom @ 34 x, but i realized that my hand shaked too much (i.e. heartbeat) –> made me wonder if the 34x was just a hype & it was actually completely useless. then in the menu i found the anti-shake function that did reduce the shaking significantly (but there still was some shaking) at maximum zoom. the shake is almost unnoticeable in normal zoom.

something that amused me was the digital effect function. it has different modes including black & white, negative, art, emboss, mosaic, etc. the emboss & mosaic modes were really artistic & interesting – the camera shows a modified version of my recording (as i am recording) & it looks like some sort of art painting done by picasso.

if you compare this to a similarly priced camcorder – lets say “Sony Handycam DCR-HC30″ @ 279.99 (see CNET review),

the samsung camcorder has larger resolution 720 x 480 @ widescreen (vs. 640 x 480), the same low light mode & image stabilization, better video format (mpeg-2 for dvd rather than mpeg-1 for vcd)

the sony contestant has a touchscreen lcd display that samsung camcorder doesn’t but CNET says the response on the sony’s touchscreen is terrible & I really like the feel & the response of the small joystick on samsung’s display, so I’d think that the touchscreen on the sony handycam is a waste of money & samsung made a smart decision in putting a regular display with joystick control while putting that extra money into video quality

both have easy mode (enlarge menus, etc.), the sony lacks the 34x optical zoom (it has 10x)

both weigh .9 Ibs.

so in fact, after writing this review & doing all the research, i actually feel even better with my purchase. i give 4/5 stars (sony would get 3/5 stars)

ah, forgot to mention that if you use smart card for this camcorder, you can take pictures –> you can use it as a camera too.

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Maybe I’m asking too much for a $250 product, but I feel a little misled. In addition to the MiniDVD record capability it has a flash memory where you can take video and pictures too. The product came out this year, so I thought I could use a couple larger flash memory cards and mainly record video that route. Once I get this, I learn it only takes 2GB cards (no SDHC). So I buy 4 2GB cards and a 3pack of MiniDVDs, figuring I’d just use flash memory and that would be easy enough for most of my recording. The first time I put in an SD card and see that the screen switches from 16:9 to 4:3 on me. I discover that it only records 4:3 on SD. And I learn that it records in MPEG4 for SD memory (versus MPEG2 on the DVDs). I understand their MPEG4 has proprietary codecs, etc. I tried importing video into Sony Vegas, but found it would not read the format off of the MiniDVD. I tried re-ripping the DVD using DVD Decrypter, but that still did not work as once I dragged the video file into Vegas, I got only video (no audio). Also, in general I found the use of the MiniDVD’s on this Samsung to be not very attractive. Like many users, I pause when recording. When viewing the recorded DVD, each pause at the end of a segment would show as a frozen image for 2-3 seconds before moving to the next scene, which is very annoying compared to using tapes to record to. Thanks to Amazon’s generous return policy, I’m not at a loss. Am seriously considering going the High Def route, as it seems many of those products have less problems (based on reviews here) for someone like me who wants to be able to do some editing of the video I shoot.

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