Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

When I purchased this item, I was expecting a video recorder that can also take still photographs. Instead it is a still camera with video recording capabilities. The product name is misleading.

That does not mean that is a bad camera. In fact it is a great camera, if the user intends to use it primarily for still photographs. For video recording I would recommend something else. The resolution is only 640x480 and the results are heavily pixelated videos. The device also produces horrible monophonic sound recording.

This is a great little camera and extremely easy to use. I took it out of the box and within an hour I was very comfortable with all the features. The video is good but you may need to edit the brightness from the viewer options to make it perfect. The stills, what can you say, it's 3 mega-pixels...very good. the 4x digital zoom was very clear. The Audio is a bit distorted on the camera but when you play it back from your pc it is crystal clear. Overall I am very pleased with this camera especially for the money invested.

I've had two of these. The first I kept for about ~4 months, but felt the video quality was too poor. It was pixellated and dark indoors, so that with even bright lights you'd only see dim objects. In addition, the flash was horribly mistimed, it either would show everything blue, or all black.

However, while many of the other flash camcorders out there may offer better quality video in the image department, the frame rate is usually variable. Shoot straight down a street and it looks fine, but turn and look at something dark or complex like trees and boom, 10FPs.

The 301V has a constant frame rate, and at 320X240, the best setting for it, the video zooms along pretty well. I also liked it's mini-camcorder format, the little gizmos you hold like a raygun and press a button with your thumb have simply never felt right to me.

So after some back-and-forthing, I got another. 301V-2 is like a whole different camera. The flash is still feeble, but it times correctly and pictures come out pretty well. Nothing to compare to my digital SLR, but decent snapshot quality.

The video is still grainy, but now indoors it's possible to see things under bright to normal lighting. Not a change worth shouting from the rooftops, but enough to make me carry this little thing around more. I don't know if I simply had a lemon last time, or DXG has put an improved firmware in the later cameras. Either way, I like it better.

Here's a quick rundown:

Battery life: Poor on alkalines, just buy a few sets of Nimh rechargeables.

Memory: 16MB internal that's not much good except for emergencies. Supposedly a 512MB SD card limit, but I've used 1GB just fine.

Recording time: About 90 minutes or ~340 pictures per 512MB.

Format: ASF, a format that I think is basically MPEG4. Windows media player and movie player can work with it, but Macs have trouble.

Quality: Snapshot pictures and better-than-nothing videos. If you're wanting to make real movies or family memories, spend more money.

Cheapness: It isn't the most sturdy thing in the world, but I was able to take 301V-1 canoeing and it lived to talk about it.

Novelty: It's just neat, and different from the other gadgets.

This camera is outstanding for the price. Features are mimimal but if you just want to take email quality and archival videos, you'll be fine. Batteries run down quickly but check this out:
YOU CAN GO ON EBAY AND GET NOKIA CELL PHONE BATTERIES FOR 5.00 WHICH ARE THE SAME AS THE ADVERTISED BATTERIES WHICH COST 30-50$ I recharge it using my DELL PDA charger and it holds a charge for several hours of taping. Hope this helps.

As a video camera, the DC DXG-301v leaves a lot to be desired. Mine records sound terribly, and the video comes out "pixelly" if I'm moving around. I find the stills, however, to be of great detail (I can see the wrinkles around my eyes...wait a minute...is this a good thing?). That being the one good feature isn't enough to make up for the other problem: the software. This camera comes with some cheesy brand of software that caused my computer to malfunction, then the problems ceased when I uninstalled the software. A friend who had the same software installed for a different camera said their computer was malfunctioning before I advised them to uninstall that particular software. Personally, I think you can do better for the money.

I bought this on sale at Radio Shack in November of 2004. No doubt they are cheaper now. Definitely get the larger cards, I have 2 of the 256 cards and they hold plenty. This camera went with us through the Canal, as well as a trip to California. Yes it does eat batteries, but this has been par for the course with most of my digital photography toys. I took 2 sets of rechargeables and was never at a loss for power.

Minus side - I have never been able to figure out the white balance, as a result movies in sunlight are very good, but indoors are greenish. The still feature is nice but I got better stills from my Fuji FinePix. It developed an intermittent, and turned out to be dirty contacts on one of the memory cards. Sound quality is not super hi-fi but more than adequate for home movies.

Plus side - Using the software, several clips can be stitched, edited, and made rather fancy. I only use the 640x480 mode, and a movie shot in sunlight, shown on a 27" TV, look quite acceptable. We have had a lot of fun with this camera, and I think it is a good choice as an entry-level tapeless movie camera. I just wish I could figure out the white balance, though!

Forget the digital zoom, it gets very pixelated. Get closer to your subject instead! People have always been amazed with this tiny movie camera, it's fun to show off and use. It comes with a very practical case with shoulder strap. I do not regret having purchased it.

I used this for my Random Samster videos and its pretty handy...If you want to edit videos in Windows Movie Maker you have to save it as another format like WMV or MOV for macs... when you film have good lighting or else your video will be too dark..its also good for taking pics of course