Samsung SCHMX-10C
720p High Definition Digital Camcorder
Full Review
The Samsung
HMX-10C (and the newer, 1080p HD HMX-20) are an excellent choice for
the aspiring digital videographer. The camera is lightweight and always
ready to capture the action.
The internal memory is convenient if you don't have a bunch of SD
memory cards, but I prefered to use the SD cards to organize my video
by day or topic. A 2 GB card will hold almost 20 minutes of full HD
720p video.
I found the 10x optical zoom to be more
than sufficient for anything that I was recording, but the auto focus
would often miss my target when zooming in on something nearby or far
in the distance. The single LED is handy, as it is bright enough for
some recording in the dark, but it will not help at distance. The
touchscreen interface takes a little getting used to, and may be
inconvenient for people like myself who end up with lots of oil or
other grime on their hands. The photo mode is easy to use, and enables
digital zoom. The photos are clear and bright, and there is a multishot
mode that takes tons of pictures over two seconds with a single press
of the button.
The camera itself has an all plastic case with a gold metal rim around
the lens housing.
This plastic is more resilient than I expected, I have dropped the
camera twice since I purchased it while recording my automotive how-to
series, the only damage being to the chrome on the top near the zoom
lever.
The video format proved to be rather difficult, since I could not find
any free software to work with Samsung's semi-proprietary
implementation of the MP4 H.264 video format, however; there are free
video conversion utilities (such as MediaCoder, which can be found on
our
Free
Helpful Essentials page) that can convert to Mpeg1 or Mpeg2
for your choice of video editing software. I found the high definition
video to be clear, without any major compression artifacts, blockiness
or blurs even when there was lots of motion in the video clip.
The camera comes with the CyberLink DVD
Suite (Director, Producer, DVD) which works great for editing on a well
equipped system (dual core processor recommended).
Power Director is the software that does
the video editing, Power Producer and PowerDVD are for burning and
playback of DVDs.
The most recent full version of Power
Director can be purchased from the CyberLink store online:
Pros:
Clear High
Definition video, ample internal storage, memory can be expanded with
inexpensive SD or SDHC memory cards, great battery life and optical
zoom.
Multi-shot photo mode takes lots of clear pictures.
Cons:
Only
one video file format (AVCHD MP4) that is not compatible with most
existing video editing software. Requires conversion to Mpeg for smooth
playback on most budget computers.
The auto focus sometimes misses the
target.
The grip on the side could use a little work, the camera is almost too
small to get a good hold on the side (but it is resilient, I have
dropped it twice onto concrete).
Final Verdict:
In my
opinion there is nothing to match this camera in this price range.
If you have a newer computer, this is the perfect entry into HD home
video and editing.
I have a budget notebook used for testing that doesn't quite cut the
mustard for the included Cyberlink video authoring suite.
If you want to burn your HD videos to
Blue-Ray instead of DVD, the latest CyberLink Media Suite might be for
you.
