Comments on: Samsung SC-HMX20C Ultra-High-Def Camcorder Review

By: Tom Caraon

Tom Caraon — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:36:56 +0000

I love my SC HMX20c once I figured out how to retain the most HD when mixing down to DVD (Not Blue Ray)
Filmed a wedding in 1080i, big mistake. Hard to retain quality when converting to DVD. Now only use it in 1080/30p onto a new 16gig SD.
Two complaints: Needs a earphone jack and a light shoe. Did I say it needs an earphone jack? Samsung?
Thanks!

By: Jiven

Jiven — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:37:17 +0000

Oh yes, I also prefer MP4. I found the 720p excellent, and its night focus speed and quality is not too bad, all things considdered. Daylight stuff is phenominal, can only imagine what 1080 is like, but whats the point when most PC monitors cant play that resolution I ask????

By: Jiven

Jiven — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:33:27 +0000

How can you complain about the battery on any camera? I gave up buyuing originals long ago. I have the HMX10A (4GB version), and get 5 hours recording out of it - without a battery. How? I built a battery pack for it. Takes 6x AA 1.2V batteries. Thats the 8.4V you need right there. Hooks into the DC port via cable, and plug i made up myself.

Better yet, I have a 160GB photobank, so when the 16GB SDHC card I use is full, its jus a matter of plug in and copy.

So, if you look for solutions to things that are not problems, you may just discover that many things are better then they seem. BTW, I also power mt FZ50 off the same pack.

By: Jaxim

Jaxim — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:45:35 +0000

>Not using AVCHD recoding format.

The camcorder records in H.264 encoded MP4 files, which is more widely supported than the AVCHD format. For example, I can natively watch the MP4 files within Windows Media Player. I can’t do this with the AVCHD format. I’m not sure why a couple of you prefer the AVCHD format. From what I’ve read, the AVCHD format is only supported by a few video editing programs, some of which (FinalCutPro) need to convert the format to another format before being able to use it. And that conversion requires a very hefty computer. If there are advantages to the format, please let me know.

>The enclosed battery means you can’t replace it with a better one.

Not true. The battery can be taken out. Download the camcorders manual from Samsung’s site and you’ll see that it uses a Battery pack (IA-BP85ST) (AD43-00180E).

By: Jaxim

Jaxim — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:17:02 +0000

I think the Samsung site has a typo on their full specs and the camcorder is indeed full HD.

As far as I know (and correct me if I’m wrong), but recording at 1080 at 30p is equivalent to 1080p or 1080p30.

I think they meant to leave out the “i” after 1080 and write the specs like:
“HD: 1920 x 1080 (60i / 30p)”
instead of:
“HD: 1920 x 1080i (60i / 30p)”

By: Roger Binns

Roger Binns — Fri, 23 May 2008 06:48:57 +0000

Samsung have the manual at their site. At 1080, it can record 30 frames a second or 60 fields a second (the latter is interlaced). The video output circuitry does 1080i which easily accommodates the 30 frames or 60 fields.

Slow motion is recorded at 448×336 - ie 7% of the size of a 1080 frame which is how they can do it given the constrained write speeds of current SDHC media.

As you point out the 8 megapixel maximum still image size is bogus as the sensor is only 6 megapixel.

Image stabilization is electronic/digital not optical which means that some video quality will be lost.

It comes with the Cyberlink DVD Suite. The manual shows it to be version 5.0 while the current version is 6.0. You can get a trial version at the Cyberlink web site. (IMHO that software truly sucks and the trial version keeps trying to prevent you from doing anything. I couldn’t tell in the end if the software is useless or just the trial restrictions. For example I couldn’t add any DV file that I already had so I couldn’t actually tell what it is like to edit video.)

By: cmdricker

cmdricker — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:34:27 +0000

I’m currently spending my time comparing products. I’ve found that the canon HF100 is the best camcorder actually on the market in this price range.

I’ve also considered the new sony HDR-TG3 (or HDR-TG1 it’s the same one). It’s small, quality seem’s quite good BUT there is somes drawbacks like : memory sticks (cost much more than SD and is sony only), batterie enclosed and many problems using third party batteries, problem with converting to hq canopus codec (the video have some diagonal bands, colored or like gamma boost, I’ve never had problems with others brand but sony), stills are very bad quality, no ois, sensor is pretty small etc

I know that the ideal product doesn’t exist but I wonder why oh why all theses companies make such bad choices in theirs products.

Btw, you said you’re using vegas. I think you should try Edius :
http://www.canopus.com/products/EDIUSPro/index.php

It’s really much faster than vegas 8.0 pro and more useable in video production.

By: Asoka

Asoka — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:25:33 +0000

I couldn’t say about the in-deep review questions, since I don’t have the product on the first hand, and I just summarized what I found everywhere; but for the video and stills quality, I believe they’re great since those are the points they’re boasting all over the world.

Regards to your complain, I have the same feeling about it (even I’m using Vegas..)

The video format just limited to h264 is annoying for some people, indeed, but looks like this camcorder is dedicated for those quality-freak.. maybe.

Since it’s relatively new, there aren’t many infos out there, unfortunately, not even in local superstore.

By: cmdricker

cmdricker — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:50:22 +0000

Thanks you for clarifiying some facts about sensor size, so many web site are plain wrong. A 1/8 inch hd sensor can’t be real anyway…

You said it’s a review, but I don’t see anythink new about this camcorder. What about video quality ? Where are samples footage ? Are stills quality ok ? What about autofocus speed and accuracy, stab efficiency ?

So many questions remains unanswered.

I’ve some complaints about this product, and it’s seems a dead end for me:

1 - Not using AVCHD recoding format. This make conversion to an intermediate codec like canopus hq VERY slow and not supported by edius. Using vegas directly is out of question since it’s way too slow to be useable.

2 - Battery. The enclosed battery mean you can’t replace it with a better one.

3 - Movies quality and autofocus speed/accuracy remain to be proved at this time

4 - 8gb built in is useless, like all built in camcorder memory. Better cut the price down. This is not a big complain though.