Samsung has long since been a backer of HDTV, being one of the first few companies to truly embrace the standard. With the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray battle out of the way, it appears that Samsung made the right call with their backing of the Blu-ray standard. Now that the playback issues are mainly sorted out, it’s time to think about how to record our lives in HD quality.
Samsung started off the flash based HD camcorder race with the original SC-HDX15, originally announced at CES 2006. This flash based camcorder featured HD recording at 720p and 4 GB’s of built in flash storage. Based on the form factor made famous by Samsung’s Extreme Flash Camcorders like the SC-XL210 and the first generation, SC-X105L, the SC-HDX15 was hindered by a ridiculous $1799 price tag.
The SC-HMX10A (not to be confused with their lower end, non-HD, but similar looking, MX10) is Samsung’s latest incarnation of their HD flash based camcorder product. This HD Camcorder features the same 720p recording, 4 GB’s of onboard flash, and HDMI, but adds a touchscreen LCD, and a spiffy remote control among other little things. It’s also about a grand cheaper than its predecessor at only $799 MSRP. Let’s check it out!
Main Features
The Samsung SC-HMX10A pushes out the following features which include:
- 10X Optical Zoom (20X Digital)
- 2.7 inch Widescreen Touch Screen LCD with 270 degree swivel
- Electronic Image Stabilization
- HDMI with ANYNET+ support
- 4GB of built in flash with expansion via SD or SDHC cards
- Supports recording from 480p to 720p
- 1.61 Megapixel CMOS Sensor with photo support
- Swivel hand grip with 150 degrees of adjustment
Samsung also has a “C” and a “non-lettered” model available. The “C” has 8 GB’s of storage onboard while the “non-lettered” model has no built in memory, requiring a seperate memory card. Other than that, they share all the same features above. For more specifications, check out the Samsung website.
What’s In The Box?
The Samsung SC-HMX10A comes furnished with the following extra goodies (besides the unit itself and the remote) which include a battery pack, AC Power Adaptor, Component Video Cable, Multi-AV Cable, USB Cable, User Manual, Button Type Battery (for the remote), Cradle, Software CD, and a Protective soft carry bag. Missing from the package is an HDMI cable and your choice of memory card for recording all those videos.
The cradle unit itself provides a neat and tidy place to plug in the power adapter, USB cable, and your choice of video/audio output cable. Strangely enough, the cradle does not support HDMI and needs to be accessed directly on the camcorder itself. Thankfully, you don’t need to drag the cradle along as the individual cables can plug directly into the unit for travel.
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First Impressions
The shiny paint job of the SC-HMX10A makes the soft bag that it comes with a wonderful companion for wiping off those fingerprints. The rounded shape and relatively small size make it comfortable to hold while the swivel grip provides for different positions so you can exercise that inner “Spielberg”.
The back of the unit gives you access to all the main controls which include main power, recording, mode switching (from video to photo to playback) and the dummy mode called “EasyQ” which locks out advanced settings. Also in the back is the plugin for power and a microphone jack.
Heading topside, we see the main zoom toggle and the shutter button for when the camcorder is in photo mode. The black panel to the right of the gray strip slides open to reveal the battery compartment and SD expansion card slot.
The screen itself is also flanked by a number of buttons which include another record button, another wide to zoom button, and a “Q. Menu” button that allows quick access to the manual functions of the camcorder like white balance, manual focus, and exposure.
Underneath the screen, and hidden behind a protective plastic cover are the HDMI, component video, and USB connection. There is also a screen brightness and screen information toggle button. Nestled between the HDMI and component button is the master reset switch, which will get your SC-HMX10A back to factory defaults in case you screw something up.
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Impressions Continued
I was pleased to see that Samsung didn’t cheap out and used a real metal tripod insert. However, what displeased me on the bottom side was the fact that the docking port is left fully exposed. One drop in a buddle, and you can say good bye to being able to use the cradle again.
The remote control is a useful size. What I mean by useful is the fact that it isn’t so tiny that you can’t get your fingers on the right buttons, and not so big that you can’t put it in your pocket comfortably.
Samsung outfits the SC-HMX10A with a lens that gives you a 10x optical zoom (20X digital) with an f/stop range of 1.8 – 3.3, which should give it good performance in lower light conditions. There is also a built in lens cover that is accessible on the barrel of the lens. If you forget to open it up, the LCD will warn you that you need to open it.
Setting It Up
As far as setup goes, the only assembly that you need to do is to plug the cables into the cradle (if you choose to use it), pop the batteries in the SC-HMX10A and the remote control, and give the it a charge overnight. On the software side, since the SC-HMX10A recordes in AVCHD, I recommend that you install the included Cyberlink software. I’m not a fan of a lot of the bundled software that comes with most devices and tend to use my own stuff. However, after trying everything else, and not having much luck, I installed the bundled Cyberlink PowerProducer and PowerDirector software and was very surprised at how well it actually works. Let’s get going and find out how the SC-HMX10A performs in the real world.
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Life as an HD Camcorder
The SC-HMX10A seems to work best if you let it do its thing. What I mean by that is that although Samsung has tried to please the intermediate camcorder user, the manual functions like the focus (imagine peck, peck, pecking at a touchscreen to get the focus right…tedious) and white balance are far to cumbersome to put into practical use. I had the most luck just setting it to auto and letting the camcorder decide what to do and it did well, producing some very nice high definition video. The Q. Menu button does try to put these types of functions more at your fingertips, but it’s clear that this machine wasn’t meant to be driven in manual. In fact, the EasyQ button on the back of the camcorder dumbs down the machine even further, giving full control to the camcorder. All you do is point and shoot.
In the highest quality HD mode, you’re looking at a measly 44 minutes of footage on the internal 4GB’s of storage. However, switching it to SD mode, you’ll get a full 133 minutes of footage. You can decrease the quality of the HD video to get a few more minutes of footage while maintaining the same resolution. I found little difference between the different HD modes so I would opt to use the lowest quality setting to get more minutes of recording time.
Because sometimes you want to record something for YouTube in SD, it’s nice to be able to tell the difference between the two formats when you play them back. In the playback menu, the videos are labelled either “SD” or “HD”. The playback menu also gives you access to your photos by simply tapping the tab on the screen.
Since the SC-HMX10A only has 4GB of storage onboard, it’s nice to be able to keep that free for new videos and pictures. If you have access to an additional SD or SDHC card, you can move the files on the camcorder from the internal memory to the external card when the internal memory gets full.
For the most part, life as a camcorder is good on the SC-HMX10A. The main zoom toggle at the top of the camcorder gives a good level of fine finger tip control, allowing you to slowly or quickly zoom into your subject, while the ergonomics and security strap keep your hand planted to the device. I found the rotating handle handy for those extremely high or extremely low shots, giving you another level of creativity that you can experiment with.
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Playing It Back
For the most part, I found that my favourite modes were either the SD mode or the lowest quality HD mode. The former is easiest to upload to YouTube (after editing and converting with the included software) and the latter for its high quality without the calories. Plugging it into an HDTV with an HDMI cable (not included), I was treated to near reality in the HD mode.
For owners of Samsung TV’s with the ANYNET+ feature, you can actually control the camcorder playback using your TV’s remote control. Speaking of remote control, I found the included remote not only handy for playback, but it was also useful for recording videos, especially ones of yourself, allowing you to zoom the camera around from a distance.
Although the picture was great, what wasn’t great was the audio quality. I noticed that no matter if the wind filter was on or off, the microphone would pick up a lot of background noise, making the subject extremely hard to hear. It’s no wonder Samsung added a microphone input, because the one inside the unit sucks. I would have loved to have seen a headphone jack as well so that you can monitor what you’re recording and playback in privacy.
I Heard It Takes Pictures Too
Uh…yeah, about that… It’s true the SC-HMX10A does take pictures. The resolution of these pictures is an interpolated 2048 x 1536, which puts it below the megapixel count of most cameraphones these days. However, as we know, MegaPixels isn’t the whole story. The picture quality isn’t bad, but without a flash, it’s severely limited in the conditions that you can use it in. But that’s not what kills me about the photo function.
The SC-HMX10A requires you to toggle to the photo mode before you can actually take a picture. This actually takes a while. Long enough that whatever you wanted to take pictures of has already left the building. The unit does have a seperate “Photo” button right underneath the main zoom toggle, so I ask, why not just take a picture when I push the button? It’s so logical! At this point though, I’d pretty much call the camera a useless feature. Besides, using the Cyberlink software, you can get some pretty good screen captures from the HD video, albeit at a lower resolution.
Battery Life
The specifications state that the included 7.4 volt, 850 mAh Lithium Ion battery gives you about 90 minutes of run time. Based on my mixed use, I found that this was a very accurate estimate. I’d normally recommend turning off the LCD, but if you did that, you wouldn’t be able to view what you were filming since there is no viewfinder, so I suggest leaving it on. There’s no point saving battery life if you can’t see what you’re doing.
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Final Thoughts
There are a lot of things to like about the Samsung SC-HMX10A. For starters, the quality of the HD videos is very good, even at the lowest HD quality setting. I especially liked the fact that Samsung took strides to make recording HD video easy by introducing things like Easy.Q and the Q.Menu for quick access to some of the more advanced settings if you’re inclined to use them. It’s always good to make things seem less daunting so that people are more inclined to use them. The included cradle and the remote control were also really nice touches.
Now having said all that, there are a few things that just annoy me. For starters, I found the camera function to be pretty much useless. It took so long to get it switched to the right mode that I would be better off pulling the point and shoot from my pocket and taking better looking pictures than the 1.61 MegaPixel sensor on this camera could.
On the camcorder side, what made it easy to use and shoot with, pretty much disabled the usefulness of the manual functionality in the camcorder. Using the camcorder with manual functions was so cumbersome that I would have liked it better if they weren’t there at all. In fact, it did a pretty good job with most of the functions automatic anyway. I just wish the mic was as good. Background noise is a real drag with the built in mic.
Overall, the Samsung SC-HMX10A fulfills the need for an easy to use HD camcorder. Although it doesn’t have as much storage as some of the hard drive based models out there, the shock proof flash makes it just a bit more durable. Aside from the annoyances highlighted in this review, this unit makes sense for anyone that wants HD without it being hard to use. With a bit more work though, this innovative device could be great.
Pros
- Extremely easy to use
- Good software bundle for easy editing of videos
- Great HD video quality (SD too)
- Expansion via SD and high capacity SDHC cards
Cons
- Where’s my HDMI cable?
- Manual features fall flat
- The camera function is somewhat useless
- Poor noisy environment performance. Needs a mic.
Overall Rating: 8.0 / 10.0
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