50 MA XIMUMPC JANUARY 2006
THAT’S A WRAP!
Assessing the current state of the
DV-cam marketWe encountered more than a few
surprises in our look at mid-price
digital camcorders. We thought
we’d welcome the move away
from tape, but DVD and hard-
disk camcorders didn’t live up to
our expectations. We expected
that an ultra-tiny camcorder
would record ultra-crappy video,
but the quality of Samsung’s
diminutive SC-X105L was pretty
good! And we thought the cam-
era with the largest CCD would
deliver the best picture quality,
but it didn’t—maybe there’s
something special about Sony’s
Advanced Hole Accumulation
Diode CCD after all.
Some things didn’t surprise us. You can’tdiscount the speed of FireWire. Camcorder
manufacturers who rely entirely on USB 2.0
shortchange consumers, especially because
lots of DV editing software won’t import from
USB 2.0 cams. And it’s much more con-
venient to have all your I/O options on the
camera itself than to have to lug around a
separate docking station.
We also didn’t fi nd a camcorder in this
group that rose above an 8 verdict, much less
a camera that deserved a Kick Ass award.
Sure, the Canon Optura 50 is loaded with
features, Sony’s DCR-HC42 wowed us with its
great image quality, and the tiny Samsung is
a marvel of miniaturization. But none of them
produced videos that justifi ed their price.
As for still-frame photography using a DV
cam, just say no. Two measly megapixels?
Puh-leeze. That might be okay for shooting
4x6 snapshots or posting to the web, but if
we really wanted to shoot pictures of that
quality, we’d use our cellphones. In fact, it
would be perfectly OK with us if the industry
stopped trying to cram this feature into DVcams and redirected those R&D bucks toward
producing better CCDs.
But lest we come off as a bunch of cur-
mudgeonly sauerkrauts, we must admit to
being impressed by the state
of the art in camcorder tech-
nology. These DV cams are
small, they’re lightweight, and
they deliver picture quality
that beats the stuffi ng out of
analog camcorders.
We predict that the alterna-
tives to tape will improve in the
coming years. The fi rst, sec-
ond, and sometimes third gen-
erations of any new technology
experience growing pains, but if
they manage to survive beyond
that, they’re likely to stick
around. We also predict that it
won’t be long before consumer
DV cams break into the terri-
tory occupied by the pro-level camcorder we
examine on the next page: Canon’s XL2.Sony DCR-HC42
MiniDV Handycam
Picture quality trumps other shortcomings
T
o be perfectly honest, we thought
Canon’s Optura 50 would beat out
Sony’s DCR-HC42 Handycam by virtue
of the former’s long list of lusty features.
But Sony managed a tie the moment we
played back its video.
This turn of events points out the dan-
gers of shopping by spec chart. That’s not
to say the HC42 is devoid of advanced fea-tures—indeed, it’s endowed with a couple
that we didn’t fi nd on any other cameras
we tested—it’s just that the Optura 50 had
the most goodies on tap. The Handycam,
on the other, uh, hand, delivered more
faithful color reproduction than everything
except the nearly 10-times more expensive
Canon XL2.
Aside from the high-end XL2, each of
the cameras we tested had diffi culty cap-
turing intense reds and vibrant oranges
outdoors. The HC42 exhibited much less
blooming with these colors and was less
prone to blow out light colors in very
bright light. Shooting indoors proved
more problematic, likely because of this
camera’s smaller (1/5.5-inch) CCD. Its
picture exhibited much more noise than
the competition.
Like many other new camcorders, the
Sony is capable of shooting in either 4:3
or 16:9 aspect ratio, but this camera has a
unique fl ip-out LCD that’s also widescreen.
So where the competition must letterbox
16:9 video on their LCDs, this Handycam
can utilize all of its screen real estate.
We were taken aback when we dis-
covered that the Handycam’s LCD is also
a touch screen. This explains the rela-
tive paucity of buttons on the camera’s
body, but our infatuation with the touch
screen faded the more we played with it.
It was useful in some situations—such as
controlling the tape-transport mechanism
during replay—but quickly became annoy-
ing as we were forced to drill deeper anddeeper into onscreen menus.
Among the features we found lacking
on the HC42: no headphone output, no
external mic input, and no USB port or
analog A/V output (these are located on
a separate docking station). But image
quality was the most important factor in
our evaluation, and this Handycam would
have scored even higher had it performed
better indoors.Sony’s DCR-HC42 Handycam offers
several unique features, including
a true widescreen flip-out LCD and
a lens cap that’s built into the cam-
era. It also delivered the best image
quality in this roundup.SONY DCR-HC42
8
$600, http://www.sony.comSPECS
RECORDING MiniDV tape, Memory Stick Duo
MEDIA memory card
LENS F1.8 – 2.5; 12x optical zoom; semi-
manual focus; electronic image
stabilization
IMAGE SENSOR 1/5.5-inch CCD with
690,000 pixels in movie
mode; 1.0 megapixels in still-
image mode
ASPECT RATIO 4:3 or 16:9
I/O PORTS On camera: FireWire, LANC; on
docking station: A/V out for TV,
FireWire, USB 2.0
BATTERY LIFE 1:43 (hours:minutes)THE
REVOLUTION
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