DC DXG-301V Digital Video Recorder with MPEG4 & Digital Still Capability

by DXG

Product Details

Data Sheet [74kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 4 inches ; 1.7 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002F8T42
• Item model number: DXG-301V
• Batteries: 4 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,285 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 16, 2005

Product Description

The DXG-301V Digital Camera lets you really picture your lifestyle. Capture those special, one-of-a-kind moments and get the shots that last a lifetime. Custom settings for White Balance, EV, Scene Modes & Languages 10-second Self-Timer Flash modes - Auto, Off, Slow Sync, Forced, Red Eye USB 1.1 compatible NTSC/PAL TV Out modes Power Supply - 4 AA batteries or 5V DC-in (AC Adapter optional) Dimensions - 4.7 x 2.7 x 1.7 (120 x 71 x 45 mm) Weight - 0.44 lbs. (200g) without batteries

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for what it is., June 6, 2005

By 

S. Peterson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: DC DXG-301V Digital Video Recorder with MPEG4 & Digital Still Capability (Electronics)

The most important thing to remember is this: What are you really expecting? You won't be getting a high quality do-all camcorder for $150. This is an interesting little gizmo that can store about 90 minutes of video on a 512MB card at 320X240. It's running about 25-30 frames a second, and the quality is somewhere between that of a camera phone and a low end tape camcorder.

If you that's all you're asking of the 301V, you'll be happy with it.

The controls take a minute or two to get used to them, as essentially you have one menu for setup controlled by one button, and another button for the camera function menu. Take the time to preset the focus range and white balance, it makes a difference.

It fits in your hand fairly comfortably, and it is recognized on a PC or Mac as a mass storage device to copy files over. They do record in an .asf format, which works with no problem in Windows but takes a few hoops for a Mac. (See the reviews below.)

A few things kept me from rating it higher: (And remember I rated based on what I expected, a cheap and semi-expendable video gadget)

There's no lens cap.

It has some knurled rings that look like focus/zoom controls and beg twisting or turning yet don't do anything. Somebody will break it trying to turn those.

It is built out of REALLY thin plastic.

Still, the LCD display isn't half bad and I can live with the video quality. I think the Musteks are more popular, but this one fits in your hand better (Comes with a grip strap and a carrying case) and it kind of grows on you after awhile.

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent little camera at a fantastic price., May 14, 2005

By 

Mr. M. J. Brewster "M3tabolic" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: DC DXG-301V Digital Video Recorder with MPEG4 & Digital Still Capability (Electronics)

A few people have said that this camera is awful when it isn't so before I begin this review i will say one thing: If you are looking for a high quality DV camera go and spend £600 on a brand new Sony camera. Do you honestly expect broadcast quality at this price?

When I decided to buy this camera I was actually looking for a simple point-and-click stills camera to take to music festivals with me. I chose this because the features are amazing for the price (£72 including postage from Ebay). (the cheapest brand-name camera i could find was closer to £150 and out of my budget range!)

In my experience the photos have been of a very high quality, the flash is bright, The LCD screen is also very clear (and it rotates 270 degrees and folds flat so you can watch the screen with it flat against the camera. This feature is normally only on really expensive cameras). 3.2 Megapixels is a very respectable maximum resolution and at full zoom (4x digital) there is only a very minimal loss in quality on still photos. As a point and click camera I have had excellent results both indoors and outdoors in varying conditions. The red-eye reduction and 10sec self-timer modes are also good features.

The video function is a great little bonus and the overall quality is very good, (and it's very easy to record through your video player onto VHS or DVD if you want to.) The best mode to use is 320x240 resolution at 30 frames per second. Please don't expect this to be as good as the really expensive cameras... that's not what it's designed for. I will say that is is as good as most fullscreen videos available on the internet. It is very watchable and it doesn't cry out as bad quality. I was actually very surprised at how good the quality was. (The video quality is much better than even the most expensive brand-named still camera's video clip output)

The camera is incredibly easy to connect to the PC. I have windows XP and it was simply a case of plugging it in. It opens as a USB Mass Storage device. I much prefer this to using clumsy software as with some other software. I am still yet to find a software program that actually makes it easier to organise your photos. i don't think they exist! :-)

There are a few extra purchases that i'd recommend to get that extra bit of enjoyment out of the camera:

1. Get some really good rechargeable batteries. I have heard that it eats alkalines for breakfast. I have never used alkalines with mine as i invested in some 2600mAh Ni-MH batteries and a charger. With these the camera lasts for a good 12 hours or so continuous filming, which I think is exceptional.

2. Buy a high-capacity SD card. I would especially recommend a 66x Ultra SD card. It'll cost you a tiny bit extra but makes the pictures load up much quicker. I picked up a 512MB one for around £30, and they are getting cheaper all the time. On my 512MB SD card i average around an hour and a half of video.

The problem with this camera is that it looks like a more expensive camera, so people expect far too much of it. Definitely buy this camera if you want an easy to use point-and-clicker. It is cheaper than every other stills camera without compromising on quality. If you treat the video function as an added bonus, you will be very pleasantly surprised.

I would definitely give this camera 10/10, as it gave me exactly what I expected from it and more.

122 of 134 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Could be maybe almost 3 stars, February 5, 2005

By 

Peter Saflund (Covington, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: DC DXG-301V Digital Video Recorder with MPEG4 & Digital Still Capability (Electronics)

I researched a lot of inexpensive tapeless cameras and bought this one from Axes for around $150. For that price, it's an OK camera. I'm a Mac user so right away there were problems with the movie files - the camera identifies as a mass storeage device so you can get the movies out of it, but they're not quite really MP4 compliant files. The're actually ASF (MS) - an MP4 variant that plays in Windows Media Player for Windows, but not for Mac. The bundled software is Win Only (which I knew) but is quirky in XP. For Mac, Mplayer (from Sourceforge) will play the movie files with decent rendering, and ffmpeg (also from Sourceforge) can convert them (needs 2 passes) to real MP4 files that will import to Quick Time or iMovie if you have a G4 or better Mac. The movie quality is only fair - visible blocking even on stills and pixelation when panning - but about what you'd expect for a camera in this price range. 30 fps is only available in 320 X 200 mode. VGA size captures at 15 fps so fast motion is jerkey. The still photos are good for 3.2 MPixel, but saturation sets in early. Almost any 3 MP still campera will do better on stills, if that's what you're after. Invest in a set of four 2000 ma/hr rechargable batteries - it chugs alkalines like a thirsty welder swigs beer, speaking of which, for the price of a couple of bottles of Lager the folks who market this camera could have ported the Windows movie file extraction and conversion software over to Cocoa so it would run in OSX. For a cheap, very small unobtrusive tapeless video camera, this one has a nice feel and fair quality. If you're a Windows user and don't mind software that mysteriously quits or freezes once in a while, the bunlded aps are OK and there's always Media Player if you just want to watch and not edit. Mac users can get it to work if you know what you're doing with ffmpg and Mplayer (free open source apps) but it ain't easy. If you have a NTSC to DV converter, you can play the files right off the camera using the video output, but you can't get rid of the data display, so you're stuck with the battery indicator and duration timer on screen. Also the audio rendering from the NTSC output is very distorted - a result of the camera's crummy audio CODEC. Too bad, since the audio quality of the video files is actually pretty good. I travel with this camera and use it casually in my consulting work -- I wanted something I wouldn't get too upset over if it got stolen. Nonetheless, I'm saving up to buy a Fisher FVD-C1.