Samsung SCD27 MiniDV Camcorder with 3.5" LCD

I bought this camera by all the reviews I read and it seemded like a great buy. I am very happy with it but the extra expense of firewire and capture hardware was $65. Thought I'd be able to upload via USB. Only still pictures upload with the USB> Movies go vai Firewire. It was easy to install and very easy to upload and then you are watching it on your computer and not a TV. Other than the additional purchase of the capture card which I guess all digital camcorders require it is a wonderful unit and fits well in your hand!!

I received this camcorder as a gift, and although the footage I've shot has been good quality, I cannot download it on to my PC. I have a brand new PC and it appears the driver that came with the camcorder is not compatible with XP Media Center. I've attempted to contact Samsung to confirm these allegations but they will not return my calls or emails. So I've got hours of raw Mini DV footage that I can't edit on my computer. What's the point??? Needless to say, I'll be buying a new Mini DV camcorder soon, and it will not be Samsung. So far Panasonic has my vote.

This camera is excellent on those who are on budget and film mostly outside. Why do I say mostly outside? Because the video quality under low indoor light conditions is very bad. There is lots of noise on shadowy indoor areas. And since most amateurs and home videos are shot without really having a single though on how the light will be, the results will not be good. You'll need tons of light indoor to eliminate the grainyness. Whats even worse is that even in medium indoor lighting conditions look grainy. This grainyness, or color noise, probably has to do with the camera having 1 CCD (Which most consumer cameras have) and the insensitivity of the CCD. So it usually uses electronic gain when shotting with low light, and getting a camera to use electronic gain depends on its CCD signal to noise ratio. This camera has a bit of problems with tapes. I once used Panasonic DVC tapes, and 40 minutes into recording it said tape end! This was unbelieveable. Then once I used Fuji film, and believe it or not it said tape end within 2 minutes of recording and I was surprised. I played it back and stopped where the footage stopped and it recorded normally again. This is probably not the tape's fault but the cameras. The only tape I did not have any problems with is TDK, so USE TDK for this camera. The sound quality is good, and high fidelity sound. Uses standard PCM/48khz/16 bit. The picture quality outside is great, although sometimes it exposes too much and manual exposure needs to be used but generally it does a good job at auto. The features the camcorder has are great especially A/V/S-video IN to capture from other source. Night vision is cool, although short distance. I wouldn't rely on still pix they are low resolution. The LCD is nice although the DPI is low. Another great thing is that it works with my Power MAC and there is stereo microphone input which makes audio sound even better. Nonetheless this camcorder is really good considering the features it has. Simply a little thought in indoor lighting will go a long way. You can buy a cheap 625 watt sun gun on ebay, although inversatile still a good start.

I got this camcorder for a Christmas present. I have to say its a very good camcorder. It has sharp video, built in light, and night vision. The audio is very crisp, and is good for storing memories. You can take snapshots and record them to video, with sound. You can put in a memory stick and take stills, then transfer them to your computer via firewire, or USB. The battery charges in about 2 hours which is very fast. The only downtime is that it would be cool to have a 20 X optical zoom, but 10 X is powerful enough. I would recomend this camcorder to anyone. You can't beat this amazon price! I hope to keep this for years to come!

Bill.

I purchased this camera for ~$400 and primarily because I thought that it has USB port, memory stick and MPEG4 movie recording capability, but these capabilities are severely limited. You can only record 10-20 sec on the memory stick because it can take max 32 MB. If you use higher mem then it gives format error. The USB, MPEG4 interfaces are limited to recordings that you store on the Memory stick, so not much of a use of these features. The IEEE 1394 port is also 4 pin and would not work with 6 pin, so you got to be careful there.
Other than that, for recording it has a pretty ok capabilities. I would say it's an ok camera. Maybe I am disappointed that I can't use it with my PC as I hoped to.