Digital Commons at Penn State

Over the past few months we have been looking for an inexpensive easy to use video recorder that offers us up the best image quality and works within the digital commons software environment. During the course of that time I have had the chance to use three new video recorders that all price within the same range of $180 – $250. All of these camera’s shoot to a solid-state memory medium and can be transferred directly into the computer faster than real time. The following are my impressions of those three cameras as well as what I would grade them in the following categories, image quality, features, & ease of use. My grades for these categories are based off of what I would expect to find on a camera at this price range.

Samsung SC-MX20 Camcorder
Price: $224.00
Image Quality: 2 out of 5
Features: 4 out of 5
Ease of use: 4 out of 5
The Samsung SC-MX20 is a nifty little camera that records H.264 MOV files to SD card(not included). I really liked this camera when I first got my hands on it, there are only a few buttons on it making it easy to use and it has a nice optical zoom. The handle also swivels down into a pistol grip making using this camera a real treat. Unfortunately where this camera lacks is in image quality, when I first started import footage into iMovie 08 all I could see were terrible interlaced lines and edges throughout the whole video, while I didn’t mind the standard definition I couldn’t live with those jagged edges. Like the rest of the camera’s importing into iMovie was a breeze and the files could easily be pulled off the camera and used with little or no editing.

DXG-595V HD Camcorder
Price: $189.95
Image Quality: 3 out of 5
Features: 5 out of 5
Ease of use: 3 out of 5
I had high hopes for this camera considering all of the features it has built in, including being able to shoot in 1080, 720, and standard definition. It also has an optical zoom and records to SD card memory. I can manually adjust the exposure of my image and take still photos with this camera. However, this camera is not without it’s problems, the image quality is lacking strictly because the autofocus built into the camera does not work very well, most of the video I shot with this camera was out of focus and you could see the camera searching for the correct focal distance. Additionally the optical zoom is very noisy and sounds crunchy as if the camera were breaking in my hands. Also the mode selection feature was not as clear as it could be and it took me a few moments to figure how to use the camera.

Flip MinoHD video recorder
Price: $209.00
Image Quality: 5 out of 5
Features: 3 out of 5
Ease of use: 5 out of 5
I did not have high expectations for this camera when I first read about it, it has no optical zoom and only records 720 HD video. As a video guy I deplore any kind of digital zooming and refuse to accept it as a feature, however, I was wrong. This camera has the best image quality I’ve seen from a solid state camera in this price range, the image even holds up well while zoomed in the maximum 2x digital zoom. The focus is fixed so it eliminates the autofocus problems of the DXG, this does however limit how close to your subject you can get. It comes with built in memory that allows you to record for up to 60 minutes and is really easy to use. If you were looking for an easy to use point and shoot camera with little fuss this is your device. It records H.264 files in an MP4 container and works as well as the others with iMovie 08.