Samsung SC-DC164 Camcorder Review

Compression (5.0)
The SC-DC164 (Review, Specs, $249.95) compresses video into MPEG2 files, the standard for all DVD camcorders and many hard disk drive and card-based camcorders. MPEG2 is a slowly dying compression format, as smarter compression formats like MPEG4 and H.264 take over. DVD camcorders capture at a maximum data rate of 8.5Mbps, often rounded up to 9Mbps. MiniDV compression has a much higher data rate of 25Mbps. Bit rates do not solely determine video quality, but they do factor.

Media (5.0)
Users new to DVD camcorders must take care to buy the right media. There are a lot of formats out there, and no model can use them all. The SC-DC164 is compatible with DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD+R (Dual Layer), all 8cm / 3.5-inches. This a pretty good selection of media, and should suit most everyone’s need.

Editing (5.0)
The DVD format can prove slippery for some video editing software, particularly ones that are a couple years old. The problem is correctly importing the files, which can be split into various types of sub-files depending on the manufacturer. MiniDV camcorders, on the other hand, find almost universal acceptance. Of course, DVD gives you the time advantage – MiniDV must be captured in realtime.

The SC-DC164 ships with two discs full of software, DV Media Pro 1.0 and Ulead Video Suite SE DVD v9.0. The second disc contains two pieces of software, a rudimentary and a slightly less rudimentary video editing program. This is not pro-level by any extent, but the program is better than a lot of bundled software.