Customer Reviews

Samsung SC-DC173U DVD Camcorder with 34x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

If you are looking for a camera that records to DVDs and doesnt cost an arm and a leg, buy this one. It is a decent camera if you take into account the price. The quality isnt the best however its good enough for the average customer just wanting to shoot video of family events. If you are looking for top quality, pay more. It is true you get what you pay for. For me the camera is good enough for what I use it for... a once in a while camera moment.

I've read over a couple of other reviews stating they are having a hard time getting their camera to read discs. I use the Sony mini DV-R discs and have never had a problem. They are a little more expensive however they are top quality and work great with this piece of equipment.

Also I have transfered the mini-discs to larger ones using a panasonic dvd recorder using Sony (Large) DVD-R disc and havent had a problem either.

I've owned the Samsung SCDC173U mini-DVD camcorder for a week and I will be taking it back to the store today. As another reviewer has stated - the camcorder has frequent "read" problems, frequent errors, loss of data, and 5 of the 6 mini-DVDs I've used are now "coasters". And those mini-DVDs are not cheap! I even tried two different disc brands and disc formats. It has problems finalizing the disc for viewing, if you can get it to finalize. It was a real disappointment when I realized that the footage of my daughter's 1st birthday was never going to be viewable. I can feel and hear the DVD moving inside the camera while I'm recording and the little sounds it makes are actually audible on the finished DVD during playback. The video quality is quite sub par. The main feature I wanted was the ability to make 16:9 widescreen movies. This feature works, but most of the camera's other features cannot be used in widescreen mode. Overall, it is the reliability that I have the biggest problem with. It is not a stretch to say that 75% of everything I record will not be viewable in any way. So what is the point? The owners manual is also very poor. The software it comes with can best be described as "You get what you pay for". After reading several other reviews at various websites I think this is either a defective camera or just a bad attempt at a camcorder. Save your money, do some research, and buy something else. This one isn't worth the cost savings.

i purchased this camcorder at sears on sale for 199 minus 100 in gift cards, so i ended up paying 100 bucks for it. Even for 199, the camcorder is worth the money. so here are some positive and negatives i've witnessed so far (keep in mind this is the only dvd camcorder that i have ever used)

positives
1. it is very small and fits in my hand comfortably
2. discs are loaded easily
3. case use dvdrw cd's so that you can re record if you don't like what you have done.
4. it supports dolby digital surround sound
5. 16 x 9 for my dlp tv
6. 34x digital zoom (not available in 16x9)
7. sd card slot to save my pics or videos to
8. samsung reliability
9. picture isn't bad
10. camera does have light (no functional with 16x9)

negatives
1. pic quality isn't very good (cannot substitute for a camera)
2. cannot snap pics while recording (i used to love to do that with my old jvc mini dv camera), but i have not figured out how to do it on this camera. you have to switch the camera to "card" to make it work.
3. battery life is bad, but i expected that and purchased a bigger, more power battery on ebay for $16. hint: don't leave the battery in the camera, it will drain, quickly.
4. when turning the camera on, it take 5-10 seconds until you can record, so don't expect to record something that may occur immediately if the camera isn't already ready to record.
5. using 16x9 ratio REDUCES MANY features of the camcorder. you cannot use the light, the digital zoom, most effects, and the DIS function is unavailable. I have been switching back and forth depending on my what, where and when i am recording.
6. recording in low light is very bad, unless you have the camera on 4:3 ratio and the shutter speed adjusted. Unfortunately you cannot use the light unless the shutter speed is adjusted, which then makes diminishes picture quality. shooting in 16x9 in low light areas is pointless.
7. you only get about 25 minutes of record time on sp, and about 1hr with lp (not camera'a fault). so carry extra discs with you.
8. position of the joystick button sux. it should be behind the camera.
9. you have to kina of force the turning knob to off, it doesn't move freely to off and it almost feels like i'm breaking it.

all in all, for 200 bucks, you can't go wrong. just don't buy this camera for the 16x9 feature and you'll be happy. so far so good for me. the easy mode is good for beginnings and the quick menu can also me useful to quickly change important settings. I just hate that samsung has greatly reduced the camera's features when 16x9 is being used. oh well.

I purchased this 6/15/07 with little time to shop, a day prior to departing for a Caribbean vacation. Just like previous reviewer, it has 'read' problems with the DVD's, every one I tried. Frequent errors, loss of data; 1 DVD rendered useless; problems "finalizing" the disc for viewing, etc. You can feel the DVD shaking and shimmying inside the camera as it tries to read it; sometimes it runs continuously trying to read, even when shut to OFF it keeps trying, running the battery down. Controls are poorly placed and hard to use. I plan on returning it to the store tomorrow. Don't waste your time and money!!

Video quality is awesome. Thats about it. Every disc I have tried in it, I says error half way through and restarts. I loose everything. This has happened every time I have used it. Battery life, what battery life. I charged it for 12 hours, and I got 30 minutes of use.

I bought this camera a little less than a month ago and thought I was satisfied. That is, until I charged the battery for the first time and realized that you only get about 20-25 minutes of battery life. What is the point of that? Then I thought, okay, well I will just buy a replacement battery, and cannot find one anywhere (I don't think they make one for this model). In any case, I shouldn't already have to look for a replacement battery. If I had it to do over, I would not buy this camera and do not recommend it at all.

The camcorder is very nice. It is inexpensive compared to others. It is nice and small. It fits in a small purse. It takes nice still pic's and video. It takes the small disks and they are not rewrites so if you video something thats it. They are also expensive. around 15- 20.00 for 3. I bought a card that holds alot and used just that since it can be dowloaded and reused. Dont loose the power cord if you do it is impossible to get just a new one.

We got this Digital Cam to capture our growing baby and for what we need it's been great the only problem we have had was we could not save one DVD to our computer, so we'll just have to keep the mini disc until we can figure something else out.

I got this product last week and i am able to write it to DVD and SD CARD. But the video quality of the AVI file which writes to the SD card is not good its quality is very poor. I didn't checked the vidoe quality on DVD Player but when i played it through the CAM LCD SCREEN it appears fine but when connected to TV through AV Cables the video is not good and it doesn't look like a DVD quality movie.

I wrote a review on this camera approximately 2.5 years ago. At that time it was brand new and worked fine. I report today on performance over that time.

The camera was fine until I bought a computer with vista 64 bit approximately 9 months ago. Since I only use my camera about 2 or 3 times a year on vacations, I recorded a video and then hooked it up to my computer. My computer said I needed drivers. I went to Samsung downloads and downloaded a vista 32 bit which did not work in my computer. I called tech and there is no download for 64 bit. Samsung never upgraded their software to accommodate 64 bit which was probably out in circulation at the time I bought the camera. In addition, I could not finalize three dvd - rs. I was told the reason they did not finalize was because I did not leave some space on the dvd's to finalize them. This information was not found in their manual by me. Therefore, I have three dvd's that will not finalize and my computer will not accept their software. My camcorder is almost useless. I called customer service executive dept. and they were in no way sympathetic to my problem. My camcorder that I hardly used at all is obsolete.