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Samsung SC-DC173 Camcorder Review by Michael Perlman Published on Aug 23, 2007 4:40 PM
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Intro Still Features Comparisons / Conclusion

Performance Handling and Use Photo Gallery

Format Audio / Playback / Connectivity Specs and Ratings

Auto / Manual Controls Other Features

Compression (4.0)
The Samsung SC-DC173 records video in the MPEG2 format, shared amongst nearly all standard definition DVD and hard disk drive (HDD) camcorders. MPEG2 compression creates more artifacting than the tape-based DV compression, resulting in a generally poorer quality most of the time. However, people often prefer it because DVD is a more convenient media.

There are three quality settings on the SC-DC173: the highest quality, XP, then SP, and finally LP. Because the performance of this camcorder is not great, we recommend that you not cripple it any further by shooting in a lower quality.

Media (5.0)
The Samsung SC-DC173 records video to 8cm DVD discs, sometimes called miniDVDs, in the DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD+R DL (dual layer) formats. DVDs are very convenient for simply playback. Once the discs undergo the finalization process in the camcorder, they can be popped into most home DVD players. But don’t count on DVDs to hang around on the shelves forever. DVDs that have been burned in your home aren’t made of the same materials as a movie you purchase and may have a shorter shelf life. The best practice is to back your footage up on a hard drive, as well. Of course, there could be problems there. Read on in the next section.

Editing (5.0)

The video files produced by the Samsung SC-DC173 records to DVD in a file structure that can be tricky to import into an editing program. The problem is that individual clips are not saved as unified, single files on the DVD. They conform to a directory structure, and you need some software or codec to interpret that structure in order to play it back. The SC-DC173 ships with a codec for playing it back, but unlike most camcorders, there is no editing software in the box. So you not only need to purchase your own editing program, but you have to hope that it can work with Samsung’s files. Most modern editing software shouldn’t have a problem. There are often special importing tools to grab footage from a DVD. But overall, we can’t describe this as a painless process.

 

 

 

 

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