Customer Reviews

Mustek DV 9300 3MP MPEG-4 Digital Video Camcorder

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What I liked:

I think that the mustek dv93000 digitial Camcorder is very good for the price you pay for it. I really have not found any problems with it and have had it for about 4 months. It takes Good pictures for having only a 3.2 megapixal sensor in it.And for a amutuar video photoagraher like me the video is just fine.

All so I like it that it does not run on double A or triple A batteries. That it runs on its own rechargeable battery. Which I have found if you don't use the cameria all day will last for up to half a week. I might add the battery cover is better than Aptek's camcorder which i bought a while back.

So if you use this for recording family events you should be happy for the price.

(what i dislike)
I found that using the flash runs the battery down way to quickly. Which is a pain if you are in low light most of the time.

The case on the cameria is flimsy but for the money i guess it's ok.

I don't recomend using the digitial zoom on this cameria it makes images and video to pixalated.

Essentially this is a good camera, I suppose. It is easy to use, and comes with some fairly decent software suitable for editing home videos.

One major downfall of this unit, however, is the shoddy construction. One of the first things I found was that the battery compartment cover does not actually "click" into place, which allows the battery compartment to open and if you are not careful the cover will actually fall off.

Another problem in the construction is the front flap which is meant to cover the SD card slot. This flap does not actually close either. Luckily the card can't fall out as a result of this flap opening, but it is still quite a pain.

When using the camera, you will find that the camera does not save any settings you select other than the time and date. This is not a defect, but this is how it is supposed to operate. This is downright annoying. I like to use the stability control, but the default is "off", so every time I power the unit on, I have to go through the menu and turn it on.

I also notice that this unit is highly sensitive to lower than daytime light levels. While any other digital camera would still pick up the existing light and allow you to see some detail, this unit requires alot of light to see anything. And this unit does not have a light to use for video recording, nor does it have night vision.

On the upside, this camera does have a pretty good mic on it allowing the sound for your video or audio recording to be pretty decent; and the still photo quality is pretty good (it would be better if there was optical zoom).

Overall, I guess you get what you pay for, and I figure I will get my money's worth out of this camera eventually.

The DV 9300 has some really good qualities and a few not so good.
image quality is fantastic. movies resolution great for the amount its costs.Movies are fomatted in the ASF mode but the quality is great.. When using flash taking pics flash lags behind shutter' also, zoom is poor... but for the price Ive found it Great.. 3 and a half stars..

The Mustek DV 9300 performs pretty well for its price.
The microphone is very clean and clear, and the built in speaker is tin-can-ish but sufficient for replaying and does not cut out at high noise levels.
My experience with the video is that it adapts decently, but not great, to low light situations, and it automatically focuses pretty quickly.
The covers for the memory card and jacks do snap closed, but not well at all, i find them hanging open from time to time. Not that I care.
It has a built in 32MB memory which is pretty sufficient for shots under five minutes or so, and of course it can take SD memory cards to expand that.
The interfacing with my computer is nicely simple - no software is required, at least using Ubuntu or XP. Just plug it into the USB port and it will come up as a removable drive with a folder each for Pictures, Music, and Video. Of course it comes with software, but it is pretty silly, like pretty much all camera software, and serves only to clog up my machines.
The built in MP3 player makes it even more worth it's price, and it also plays WAV and WMA formats, not that anybody uses them. There's a standard headphone jack for this function that gives quality sound.
The screen is clear and swivels all the way around, so you can film yourself and watch it at the same time.
It takes pretty clean pictures but the colour is a bit washed and there is grain in darker areas. More than the average person needs for shooting quick 'smile!' shots on the go, but certainly not an art camera. No Macro either. And as always, the built in digital effects, like Sketch, Solarize, etc, are completely useless.
The battery lasts a long time, 50 minutes or so continuous shooting, and recharges to full in 15 minutes.
It has a built in stabliser but it annoyingly turns itself off every time you power down.
The interface is is terribly simple, and does not give much malleability to the situation, with very few options.
I have yet to experiment with the interval shutter option, but it seems pretty fun.

Bought this camera for my 14 year old granddaughter as a birthday gift. She likes it very much, so much in fact, that she uses none of the other cameras in her house. Time will tell if it stands up to usage.

My son received this as a Christmas present. He was enjoying it for a few weeks. It doesn't preform well in low light settings. About three weeks later, there were no words or icons on the screen. I visited the Mustek website and they didn't even list this camera as one of their products. So I called their customer help line (a toll call) and received no help at all. I was on hold more than I was speaking to the rep. He didn't understand what I was saying anyway. Needless to say the camera has been returned and we will be buying a different product.

Overall, a good deal for the price. Only shortcomings are files are saved in .asf format only and low level light performance is not that good.

I bought this for my daughter for her 14th birthday. She loves it, she takes it everywhere. She uses all the functions on it, camera, video, mp3. The only thing is we have not figured out how to download all her videos onto discs to keep for storage. We bought a 1 gb card to wo with it and she has used it endlessly for 6 months. Its a great purchase for a teenager.

I bought this not knowing what to expect. As usual I looked at the instruction book briefly to see where all of the parts were located and began trying it out. Well, I really like it. Once you get everything located ( all of the bells and whistles) it is pretty straight forward. I was able to shot a little two minute video, the reason I purchased it straight away. It's light and easy to carry around. I've converted the video in to a quicktime video and got it on the web in a little for no time. I still haven't glanced at form that the start up fold out. Great!

For this price you can't get much better.
I was suprised how well the pictures came out both when i took them as a digital camera and as a video camera. The videos are superb, in night and day.

A must have!