Hard to tell anything from those samples, though the Samsung looks pretty good (the WA lens had obvious edge softness at the least).

It's sort of silly having a shootout with a M1 Abrams, and a couple of Volkswagons IMO - they don't even add up to half the price of the V1, so I'm scratching my head a bit.

I've got the FX7, the V1's little bro, it's a fine camera, and blew the HV20 (when I had one briefly) out of the water, but it's comparing apples and oranges. I still have to A/B the SR11 and the FX7, but I think that's going to be a LOT closer.

The Samsung MIGHT be a great cam for the $, but someone who knows how to run CONTROLLED tests will have to test and see. For $299, I'd probably try it <wink>, but at "full price" it's more than I paid for my SR11, and I'm not THAT interested, more just curious!!

Those video samples don't show anything conclusive. The poster who made them must have been able to see more on their computer, but I question their 'eye' - that Wide-Angle lens was such a trashy image - the Chromatic Aberrations were horrible on hard edges. I hope no one would use an SD lens like that on an HD camera for actual use.

I'll wait till I see full 1920x1080 images or full 1080p video.

just orderes mine
 

from B&H. cant wait to get it.

Sc-hmx20c
 

Got it! Love it.

Lets' hear more about it! I am really interested in teaming this little camera up with a letus.

Could please tell us how the slow motion looks and how does the HD look on this camera.

If possible, please post examples both stills and video from the camera.


Thanks,

Bob Diaz

No Good For MACs :-(
 

I decided to go down to the local Circuit City to try the camera and took a memory card with me. I have a iMAC so I wanted to see if the files generated would work or not.

Sadly, even with the latest update version of the OS, the answer is NO!!! The files start to play in Quicktime, but lock up the QT player. I've put a copy of the file on my public WEB page for those who want to Play with the files.

http://idisk.mac.com/bobdiaz-Public?view=web

You will find the files under the HMX20C folder. From that folder, you will find the exact menu layout that you will find on a memory card.

If you have a MAC, remember Option+Command+ESC brings up the "Force Quit" Window.

Until Apple fixes this problem, there is no way to play the files properly on a MAC. CRUD!!!

I was thinking of importing the files into FCE (Final Cut Express), but given the QT lockup, I didn't want FCE to become screwed up too.


Bob Diaz

Although the camera work is a bit dodgey :-) These file play fine in Quicktime on my Intel Macbook 2ghz Core Duo with 2gb Ram. Thanks for making them available.

I agree- I was able to see all the clips you've posted on my MacPro, no problems at all.....FCE will have no problem ingesting these clips. The clips can be decoded with the AVC1decoder.

Has anyone found a good review of this camera yet?

VERY ODD!!!

I'm running 10.5.3 OS and can play the clips about 3/4 of the way before I get a lock up and can't do anything in Quicktime before I have to use force quit. I'll have to try the clips on other MACs to see what happens.

Now the great mystery, why does it screw up for me??? Even FCE (Final Cut Express) locks up on me with these files.

OK, I know my camera works sucks, but I only had a limited time in the store to try stuff.

As far as working with the camera, even with my limited time, I loved the camera, it had 1080/60i, 1080/30p, 480/60p, as well as a less than SD 300 FPS slow motion. Selecting things from the menu was so easy and operation was a breeze.

It was smart enough to jump from menu to record mode just by pushing the record button.

As far as size and weight, the camera is small and light weight. There's a good and a bad side to this... being small and light makes it easy to carry around, so it's more tempting to take it along, BUT being small and light makes it harder to hold steady.

IF I didn't have problems, I was ready to go back and buy it, but because I can't work with the files, I'm not going to get it until I know what went wrong and how to fix it. CRUD!!! So close and yet so far.


Bob Diaz

UPDATE:

I decided to test this on my son's MAC Mini and found the same lockup on playing the video 3/4 of the way. His is also OS X 10.5.3

Interesting... So, what OS X version are you running that does NOT cause the lock-up past 3/4 of the way through the video???

Thanks,

Bob Diaz

Hi Bob, I am using OS 10.4.11 with QT 7.5. There is something a bit odd about the files that may be causing the problem. They seem "slightly" corrupt. One of them has what I could only call dropout in it. I don't know what could have caused this, the other sample files that I have managed to try from this camera have been very clean from start to end. When I try to convert your files to another codec using QuickTime it does bomb out.

Mac OS X 10.5.3
2X 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
3GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Mac Pro

Clips played perfectly~

Hi Richard,

"the other sample files that I have managed to try from this camera have been very clean from start to end. "

If you were able to download these files from the internet, please post the link where you found them.

I wonder if the files you saw were 50i or 25P; where as the files I have are 60i, 30p, and 60p.


I find it odd that I can play part of the file OK, but the crash happens about 3/4 the way into the file. It's almost as if there's some glitch lying in wait. If this had happened on one file, I would write it off as a bad copy, but all the longer files have it. Now I wonder if somehow the card I used couldn't keep up and dropped a frame.


Bob Diaz

Bob, thats what I was thinking. I have had quicktime video files that have opened fine before but contain a glitch which freezes playback. The card you used was very low capacity? I think this camera likes SDHC cards. Shame the camera doesn't warn you. The fact is that these files are readable on a Mac. My recommendation would be to convert them to something more useable for editing like the apple intermediate codec.

http://www.vimeo.com/download/video:...57e45559fcb9b3