Samsung SCD180 MiniDV Upright Digital Camcorder with 2.5" LCD Display, 10x Optical & 8MB Memory Stick

by Samsung

Product Details

Product Manual [2.43mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000069HFM
• Item model number: SC-D180
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,497 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1973

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The uniquely designed SCD180 sits snugly in your hand for great convenience and comfort while shooting. Among its many features are a large 2.5-inch LCD screen that rotates 210 degrees, a shoe for external accessories, a remote control, and a color onscreen display with easy-to-use dial navigation controls.

Lens
The optical zoom magnifies up to 12 times, while the digital zoom, which works by electronically enhancing the optical image, reaches up to 480 times. The zoom toggle is pressure sensitive, so you can control the speed of your zooms. The electronic image stabilization keeps the picture steady throughout the natural shakes and jitters during usage.

Digital Stills
Digital photos are stored on the included 8 MB Memory Stick in JPEG format. The SCD180 has a USB connection for easy PC import. You can use the included software, MGI PhotoSuite II, to edit your digital stills.

Inputs and Outputs
The standard DV IEEE1394 port (also called FireWire) is present for a no-loss connection to a PC or other DV machines, as well as a USB port. The common RCA A/V connections are used for direct viewing on a television or VHS dubbing. You can also plug in an external microphone via the mic jack for better sound.

MiniDV Format
MiniDV digital technology delivers clear, sharp video with up to 500 lines of horizontal resolution--far superior to the 240 lines of resolution offered by 8mm camcorders. You'll get minimal color noise interference for a more stable picture. You'll also get excellent sound quality in either 12-bit or 16-bit audio recording modes.

• 16-bit audio includes one set of stereo audio tracks to produce CD-quality sound.
• 12-bit audio uses two sets of audio tracks, so you can easily add background music or commentary to your videos while maintaining the existing soundtrack.

This is all delivered on a cassette that's 1/12 the size of a standard VHS tape. A MiniDV tape offers digital recording time of two full hours--20 times the capacity of a CD.

Product Description

Samsung SCD-180 MiniDV Upright Digital Camcorder with 2.5" LCD Display, 10x Optical & 8MB Memory Stick, 480x Zoom, 2.5" Flip Out Screen, Photo Mode, 8MB Card, Analog Input, Low Lux, Flat, Palm Sized, Ultra Compact Design, MiniDV camcorder, 12x optical, 480x digital, zoom with digital image stabilization, 2.5-inch color LCD and monochrome EVF, Digital photo mode records onto 8 MB Memory Stick, IEEE1394 (FireWire), A/V, external mic connections.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great little cam, January 12, 2003

By 

TM "hsn" (St Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Samsung SCD180 MiniDV Upright Digital Camcorder with 2.5" LCD Display, 10x Optical & 8MB Memory Stick (Electronics)

I was looking for a good and handy camcorder for a while. Have been eyeing Canon, Panasonic and Sony (PV-DC252, Elura 40MC, TRV-25). Frist I got a very good deal on ZR-45MC which had plenty of features, small size. But the video was too grainy and low light performance was less than acceptable. Color reproduction was not realistic and impressive. After a month-long debate I opted to return it.

Though I saw SC-D180 during that time with not many reviews on it, I went ahead and bought it from JandR.com. Now I am happy that I decided to return ZR45MC for this great little cam. SC-D180 is way better than Canon ZR45MC. Following are some of the features I liked...

Things I liked
=========
1. Size is quite small and handy and is almost the same as my Canon-G2. (My camcorder has a light golden brown matte finish which goes very well with my G2).
2. It has a very high density 2.5" TFT-LCD view finder (200k). The image is so detailed that it looks bigger than 2.5". LCD brightness and color can be adjusted.
3. Lens is threaded and accepts extra attachments.
4. Standard USB and IEE1394 (Firewire) connectivity.
5. Has a video light shoe at the top (not intelligent or powered).
6. Has two zoom controls which gives you flexibility in handling the unit.
7. Supports Memory Stick for snap shots and has acceptable quality snap shots in day light. (But you can get better quality still images with even the cheapest digital camera in the market).
8. Can transfer still-frames from the video to Multimedia card during play back (using remote).
9. Can automatically search and transfer all snap shots recorded on the tape to Memory card.
10. Comes with a nice remote for recording, zoom and playback.
11. Supports manual control of shutter and exposure settings. (They are the terms used in the cam. Exposure settings may be similar to Aperture settings).
12. Easy access for on/off kind of settings like EIS, date display, remote, manual Exposure, currently selected special effect etc. can be controlled by the jog dial control without going into the menu.
13. Supports manual focusing. And the response of the jog dial control for focusing is much better than some other camcorders with this facility.
14. Has Backlight compensation - accessible by a button control on the back
15. Many digital effects: Art, Mosaic, Sepia, Negative, Mirror, B&W, Emboss, Cinema. One which deserves special mention is the Make-up. It works in such a way that in a field you can decide to have all B&W images except for a selected color (Red, Green, Blue or Yellow). That means you can have special effects like a person videoed in B&W is holding a red rose (but the redness of the skin tone may also result in color) !
16. Fade effect is accessible with a separate button on the back.
17. Has three modes - Normal, Easy and Custom. Normal mode is where you can make all the changes for the current video. Easy mode is fully automatic. In custom mode, you can store all settings for later use. Pre-defined custom mode can be brought to use by utilizing a single button.
18. Can eject or load tape while the cam is already mounted on a tripod.
19. Connectivity for external mic and headphone.
20. Easy menu navigation (similar to Windows Explorer tree-structure).
21. Very effective diopter adjustments for viewfinder.

My impressions
============
1. The supplied battery runs for about and hour with the LCD on (I have not timed it).
2. 680k pixel produces good video. Low light performance is more than acceptable. Very less grains in low light compared to Canon ZR45MC (or ZR50MC for that matter). Compares very well with some of the Panasonic and Sony models.
3. Sound recording is not great (probably because the mic is located at the top), but acceptable for normal situations; I did not do an extensive comparison on that.

Things I didn't like
=============
1. Mic at the top. Sensitivity may be a little less and you may lose stereo effects.
2. Motor noise in the recording (though much less than ZR45MC). I guess that is a problem with all small camcorders.
4. Battery charging is inside the camcorder. I like to use the power adapter for charging the battery externally (like Panasonic models), freeing the camcorder during that time.
5. Accessory shoe is not intelligent or powered
6. No manual white balancing. Only three settings for white balancing (AUTO, INDOOR and OUTDOOR). There is a HOLD option too on the white balancing. Not sure if we can somehow use it for manual white balancing.
7. You can only "on or off" digital zoom. In some camcorders you can decide to have 2x or 3x of digital zoom in addition to the optical.
8. Since the camcorder is already equipped with fine optics with 12x zoom, it would have been really nice to have better quality still images.
9. Cannot lock the exposure settings by pressing the Photo button half-way thru, like many digital cameras.

If you have further questions, email me at hasukuma(at)iname.com

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best for the price, December 24, 2002

By 

Dan B. (new york, ny United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Samsung SCD180 MiniDV Upright Digital Camcorder with 2.5" LCD Display, 10x Optical & 8MB Memory Stick (Electronics)

I decided to upgrade from an older Samsung Hi-8 (i think) to Mini DV. This was the cheaper of the choices and had the same featues as the $1000 units. This unit is small and faily lightweight. the batter it came with isnt the one on the box...it's slightly larger and doesnt match the camera body's color.

the LCD is really crisp and shoots great.

The audio mic could be a bit more receptive..too bad it's on the top of the unit and not in the front. THERE IS A SEPERATE MIC-IN JACK ON THE SIDE OF THE UNIT FOR BOOM-MIC's...

The menu system is very easy. It has the basic cheesy effects...the only valuable one for me is the fade-in / fade-out.

The lens ring is threaded so you can put lens-attachments on (wide angle, fish-eye etc).

The viewfinder is B&W, but i dont think i'll use it much...especially with the nice LCD screen...which is very crisp.
The viewfinder pulls out to magnify the image.

The s-video port is in the front while the UBS & Firewire ports are on the side.

the dual-zoom buttons (zoom buttons in 2 places) is kinda nice..especially if you're using a tripod and prefer to control the cam from the back rather than jolt the front of the cam.

the audio-output is decent (built-in speaker)...it's good for proofing your footage but not loud enough for a group of people to gather around for a viewing.
The is a headphone jack on the side of the unit which can be used for personal viewing or perhaps to setup a set of cheapie amplified PC speakers if you're in a pinch.

Came with a USB cable (NO FIREWIRE CABLE) and video/audio composite cables. As i dont have firewire, I plan on using the analog output to my PC's capture card.

The menu dials are very tight and should hold up...not sure about the main command dial though..it seems a bit loose and shaky. Gotta be gentle on that.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions...i know there isnt too many reviews about this unit on the web...yet

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent camcorder, February 4, 2003

By 

Salsero "maldb2" (Staten Island, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Samsung SCD180 MiniDV Upright Digital Camcorder with 2.5" LCD Display, 10x Optical & 8MB Memory Stick (Electronics)

Selected to be received as a Xmas gift and absolutely love it. Small compact design, excellent video quality. Connectivity options galore: Firewire, USB connections to PC, S-video, audio outs can connect to analog-in of PC or directly to TV or a VCR.

I neded to do some video editing and connected camera via Firewire to PC and was able to control camera from within application without a problem. Created excellent looking AVIs and MPEGs for burning to DVD and CD.

For photos, you need to select highest quality setting, otherwise pics don't look too good. Memory Stick slot very convenient and easy to insert/remove.

Alot of nice options via the menu for special effects, format, sound, etc.

Great DV camera and excellent quality. Highly recommend.