Camcorder Reviews

First of all I was highly unimpressed with the appearance and "feel" of the unit. Second, I went to load the supplied CD and it was either a blank, or a defective copy. I checked my CD Drive to be sure and it loaded other software with no problem. So, I guess I can't really comment on the performance of the unit, as I never got to the point of shooting anything with it. I have waited some time for the release of this Camcorder and was quite dissapointed with its "cheap construction". There was no written manual supplied with the unit, so I assumed that the instructions to be on the supplied CD, which as I said, would not load onto my computer. I drew a blank, I will now go back to the Mini DV technology, or wait for the Samsung unit to be released. I have returned the unit to Amazon.

This is not a review, I just want to make sure that the 'Pretec'
is the famous 'Pretec' I knew for a long time? For they made very high quality CF cards.

What about Samsung? Nothing to expect!

The video quality indoors is absolutely horrible, even with the night shot features, and every possible combination of settings, etc. I tried really hard to find reasons to keep this camera. But in the end, the video quality was too horrible to justify it as a $... digital still camera.

Outdoors, the video was OK producing ever so slightly washed out colors, but here is the real problem. Moving between light and moderately dark areas of a small room produced horrible video. During playback you either got something that looked like pure night or the sun all in one room. The video recorder does not gracefully adjust between light and moderately light areas of a room. Occasionally when using the zoom, a pure white line would be recorded vertically as part of the video!!!!!

Now for the camera. One thing that annoyed me after a few minutes was the constant manual flipping of half of the device between still and video. I did a comparison between the Samsung still digital camera and my Sony 3.34 MP camera that I already owned. Disappointment again. Horrible color from Samsung (washed out colors). I was not impressed with the quality after comparing about 10 different pictures of varying light, indoors, outdoors, etc. Hands down the Sony 3.34 MB won.

I returned the Samsung camera and bought instead the Sony TRV70 for about the same price (I would like to have tried the TRV80 but $... more was just not in the cards for an 1" more LCD). What a difference. When it comes to color and light (indoors especially), Sony seems to have those two figured out. Awesome video recording indoors with the Sony. All around the video was so much better with the Sony. The still are not as good as my Sony 3.34 but if you can live with reduced picture size, the quality is pretty good (plus no manual flipping of half the device). I'll still probably take both the video and the camera on the next trip (pending cooperation from the wife). Really, if you ignore such frills as Bluetooth and Internet connectivity from within your camcorder (!!!), you can probably buy something much cheaper than the TRV70.

One day, we'll all carry one device that produces high quality video and stills. But for now, that day is not here yet.

Other than a lack of a few manual overrides for things like shutter speed and logical film speed, the only other negative things I have to say are:

1) It forces too rigid controls on you for some of the more common things. Such as, take a photo and decide you don't want to keep it - to delete it you must first switch out of record mode and into play mode, access the menu, navigate to the memory option, locate the photo you just took and delete it. Then, to take another picture, you must switch back over to record mode (switching modes takes about .1 seconds to flip a switch, but for some reason the camera wants an addition 5 seconds to run a self-test or something before you can use that mode).

2) The LCD screen is not the greatest I've seen. Not bad, but just barely "good" quality. Playback of video or stills can sometimes result in noise, looking like mosaic squares or the occassional line. However, this is only on the LCD screen of the camera - videos and stills sent to a PC monitor, TV screen or printer (as appropriate) are all excellent quality.

I tried to replicate the problems quoted here in a previous review. I could not. I surmise the problems must have been due to either viewing on the LCD screen (already noted as being just barely "good") or due to bad recording media.

Specifically, I ran a panoramic recording of 2 rooms. Both were intentially lit in one corner but not the others. Both had large areas of white and dark patches, shadows under shelves and cabinets, objects up close and far away. I ran several pans of each room at different panning speeds. The ultimate speed was 1 revolution in 3 seconds - things moved by FAST!

The camera performed excellently with respect to exposure, rapidly changing with lighting conditions. Both rooms included the lighting source in part of the pans (i.e., I filmed the light bulb as it was burning). No problems. I could even read titles on books in the shadows of my bookshelves. I noted a slightly better result by using the "sports" setting rather than the automatic exposure, but the AE was still very good.

Of course, focus was a problem on the last, fast pan. 360 degrees in 3 seconds is too fast for any camera to keep up with. At more reasonable panning speeds, the camera focused absolutely A-OK.

As to a verical streak being recorded on zoom, the zoom is purely optical. The digital zoom value (up to 800x) must be set before recording starts and cannot be changed during recording. Any zooming during recording is optical, therefore, any vertical streak is probably the result of either (a) bad recording media or (b) the playback was on the LCD, not a PC monitor or TV screen. In short, the streak was either "real" and on bad media, or a "ghost" existing on the LCD but not truly recorded on tape.

For photos, color content is wonderful, if and only if the proper lighting is chosen. If you're indoors, choose indoors. Otherwise you will likely get a bit of blue or orange cast. Any PC software can adjust this, but using the correct setting is preferable. 4.3mp using superfine detail yields exceptional quality. Compared to a Canon G3's best photo, the DuoCam is noticably better.

The camera is complex. Not complicated, but complex. People who don't read manuals should not buy this camera.

For one camera to own and use, or if you need a travel camera on vacation or something, this is the one. Sure beats carrying a camcorder AND a still camera, and all in the size of a small to medium camcorder. It's not professional quality (then again, it's not $12,000 either), but it's getting close. Record video on tape or mediastick. "Snap" low-res stills to tape while in camcorder mode. Copy stills or individual frames from tape to memorystick. Continuous stills at 3/second. Lots more. Great quality, tons of features.

While this product works, it is cheaply made. Construction is all plastic and it seems to be crudely molded at that. It is very heavy for use on a handheld video camera. Don't let the 20 watt rating fool you. It is very bright, so my subjects often complained about the glare. Sturdiness is a word that can't be used with this product. I dropped it on the floor while trying to attach it to my camera and the case popped open and the light bulb broke rendering it useless. Part of the fault is the clumsy method for securing this thing to the light shoe. There has to be a better way than the screw-type fastener they use.

I'm going to give the 3-watt SL-9 a try and forget about this thing.

This little light worked well for what I needed - an easy to use camcorder light that would improve my videos. It was easy to attach, had easy to understand instructions, and really improved the colors on my videos. Not as rugged looking as the professional lights - but for the price it was a great buy!

This bag is 1" longer and 3/4"wider than the CBV12 & 15. It also costs ... more. I bought the CBV15 which is a bit smaller and I really like it. The CBV12 is the same size but incudes a detachable camera bag as part of the size. You have to decide what is best for you. Here is my review of the similar CBV15:

The great advantage of this bag is that the entire top unzips (it's actually a double run zipper which gives you a wide storage space while everything stays in place). It was great for my movie camera so I got another one for my digital still camera. I can keep 20 mini CDs plus marking pens, extra battery and charger, and my bulky but essential viewing hood. When the bag opens you can see everything, place everything, and when it closes everything stays in place. After a year I've decided the design is probably the most convienent I've used in 30 yrs.

i purchased this bag for a Sony DV camcorder. it's well padded sides and top gave great protection to the camera, and the dual zipper top is excellent for easily taking out and putting the camera back in. the only draw back is the space. the camera fits snuggly into the main compartment, but other than that, the only other things i could fit in the bag were one set of wires, and 2 extra tapes. so for short term trips, it's great, but for trips where you'll need to bring along a charger, extra batteries, etc., it won't do you much good.

The camera is nice and small and has quite a few nice features. It zooms far and the lcd display is nice. The downfall is the black and white view finder and the quality of the recording. But you get what you pay for and for the price i paid it was a great deal.

Overall, the hardware and software both perform adequately, but I ran into some minor problems that affect the usefulness of this device. First, it drains batteries in a few days, whether you're using it or not, and when the batteries go dead, you lose any pictures or sounds left in memory. That means you have to download the pictures and sounds right away, unless you want to risk losing them. That's inconvenient. Switching resolution modes or using the device as a webcam forces you to clear the memory. That's also inconvenient. The camera requires a lot of light. It won't even try to take a picture if there isn't enough light. It just gives you a low beep. This affects its usefulness as a webcam, unless you have a lot of bright lights around your computer. Finally, the built-in speaker isn't very loud, so you have to hold it up to your ear to review what you've recorded.

Like they say, you get what you pay for, but this device still does a lot for the money. You can easily take pictures, record sounds, and even make short video clips reminiscent of old silent movies. You'll just have to learn to live with the quirks to do it.

I got the camcorder, took it home, charged the battery, and started to experiment with it. Seemed fine at first. I was happy with it. The next day, (or the day after, maybe) I noticed a noise that happened while I was recording that sounded annoying. I took the camcorder to a concert to record a band and the tape seemed to drag. I popped the tape into one of the Playpak adapters (whatever you call them) to watch the video on the living room TV and noticed that the sound quality wasn't so great, and neither was the video quality. I don't know if this is just a bad-quality camcorder in all, or if I just happened to buy a bad one. My advice is to research everything you can before getting one of these. Try out others, whatever you want/need to do, but I, personally, do not recommend this camcorder to anyone. The tape seemed to drag, the video quality wasn't that great, the sound quality was pretty poor. The built in microphone, to me, seemed a little too sensitive. Now one thing I realized is that I had the video mode in SLP (super long play) so that the tape would last longer, which sacrifices some of the quality of the video and sound, but that shouldn't cause the tape to drag. And the microphone just seemed a little too sensitive, to me. I don't really recommend this camcorder. Maybe I just happened to pick up a bad one but if they're all like the one I bought, I definately do NOT recommend this one.

I have DV camcorders. One is Sony pc110 and another is this.

Pro. 1. Cheap ( 1/3 price of SONY) 2. Easy to use. 3. strong ( I dropped once. but it's OK)

Con 1. No additional memory for avi file and picture. 2. Apperance is not fancy.

So I gave an average score

This camera is not on sale anymore. Get it at Radio Shack for the same price plus personable customer service. An OK camera, however.