There’s certainly no shortage of flash-based camcorders these days and the trend, happily, has been to improve the image quality of these inexpensive-yet-pocketable devices. I had the chance to try out a relatively affordable high definition camcorder recently; the $150 566V from DXG.
Technical Overview
From the product’s web page…
- 5.0 Megapixel, CMOS Sensor
- H.264 Video Compression, 1280 x 720 resolution
- 3″ High-Resolution TFT screen
The DXG-566V HD is a 5 Megapixel digital video camera that records video in high definition yet at a price that is well within your reach. With a resolution of up to 1280 x 720 at 30fps, rest assured that your videos are crystal-clear, crisp and detailed. What’s more, the DXG-566V HD also captures still pictures with a resolution of up to 8M.
Compact and portable, this camcorder features a 5MP CMOS sensor, 2X digital zoom, a 3.0″ flip-out LCD screen and supports high-capacity SD cards (SDHC) so you’re able to have more recording time – always ready and never worry of missing those moments.
Pros and Cons
The DXG-566V HD is actually an okay investment for $150 as long as you’re simply looking to capture video — mostly outdoors — for the hell of it. It’s cheap, very portable, has a big LCD screen, and is easy to use. It’s a good video camera for run-of-the-mill footage, provided you shoot that footage in well-lit areas or outside during the day. Low-light footage is pretty grainy and dismal, though, so keep that in mind.
Its main feature, high definition recording, is NOT a good reason to buy this camera, unless you intend to set it on a tripod outside on a perfect day with no zooming or motion involved. The footage comes out at 1280×720, yes, but there’s no image stabilization and any sort of zooming makes the footage blocky, since the zooming is all digital. So the HD thing is more of a gimmick than anything else. I’d put the overall video quality well above cell phone video but far below hard drive-based MPEG-2 footage from, say, a camera in the JVC Everio line.
Battery life is average to slightly below average, with the low battery icon making me nervous at about the 45-minute mark. I’d say you can squeeze about an hour’s worth of footage out of this camera before needing to recharge. Thankfully, it uses the included rechargeable lithium ion battery OR you can use four AAA batteries in a pinch. That, I thought, was a brilliant feature — see the photo below.
The 2x digital zoom is pretty weak, as it not only makes everything pixilated, but doesn’t zoom in or out smoothly — it’s more of a jerky motion. Plus, the mic picks up the zoom toggle loud and clear. I stopped using the zoom almost right away.
Audio, too, is slightly below average — kind of tinny and easily distorted at high levels.
Sample Video Footage
Here are a few videos I took with the camera. You can download them at their original resolution to get a feel for how everything looks and sounds. The first two were shot outdoors, one on a sunny day and one on an overcast day. The third was shot indoors under low light, so you can see what to expect from shooting under those conditions.
Video 1: Boston Marathon Footage
Video 2: Boston Apple Store Footage
Video 3: Low-light Footage
Conclusion
All of the aforementioned qualms aside, I’d still use this camera for simple web videos and maybe vacation videos and stuff like that. It’s not perfect, but it gets the job done at a reasonable price. The price, big LCD screen, and the rechargeable plus AAA battery features make up for the so-so video and audio quality. I wouldn’t recommend this camera for filming “important” stuff containing a lot of motion or for shooting indoors under low light conditions, though.
DXG-566V HD product page [dxgtechusa.com]
Hi,
I got this for my daughter on sale. You mention the camera feature on it, did you try it and if so, how would you rate the still pictures?
Thanks!
My Girlfriend Bought me this camera To film My Fishing shows. The Screen Seems loose But the picture quality seems good, although i haven’t watched it back on my computer yet. The Sound quality is very bad and Definitely needs a simple 40$$ Microphone. I broadcast them on youtube http://www.youtube.com/adeptanling. But I’m not positive this camera will last me the whole fishing season… jan109 – dec3109
Thanks for your reveiw of this product. It was really helpful to see the example videos that you shot with the unit.
The camera is good, sound quality is terrible, lighting is ok, but for some reason I can’t load the videos I take onto Windows Movie Maker. can sombody please tell me how?
yeah same here. I’m wondering same thing too?
You can’t load it onto Windows movie Maker. It comes with Presto videoworks though, which is alright.
Hey I was just wondering. I bought the same camera. But I don’t really like the video fix or workshop disk that came along with it. But I’m really good at using Windows Movie Maker. But when I try to put the videos in there, it says that it’s not supported. So I was wondering if you can give me any ideas on how i would be able to get the videos in Windows movie Maker! THANKS if you can or if you can’t it’s alright. Get back to me asap!
You have to use the presto video works software to convert the .MOV files the camcorder makes to MPEG files and then open the MPEG files through Windows movie maker.
A note of warning…..if the .MOV file is too large the software doesn’t seem to be able to handle converting that large of a video file and will stop responding. If the files are small enough they will convert fine.
I hope this helps.
FYI……the sound quality on your computer will be much better than the sound quality after you burn it on a DVD….at least that has been my experience.
No, Windows Movie Maker doesn’t support HD video (but for some strange reason, it gives you the option to publish your movies in HD).
Of course, you could always use some sort of converter to convert your video into a format that Movie Maker will let you import. But keep in mind that WMM doesn’t accept HD formats, so the quality will have to be reduced (to non-HD).
Try using a different video editor, such as Adobe Premiere Elements 7 (around $50 on Amazon; it accepts virtually all video formats known to mankind).
Sorry if that was any inconvenience (it was to me when I first experienced the same problem, and then found out it didn’t accept HD). But anyway, I hope that helped.
I enjoy using this lightweight pocket camcorder but there is a problem when used in Standard Definition (D1) mode. The captured video is correctly displayed on the 3″ TFT LCD screen as a 4:3 ratio but elongated when downloaded for viewing on a computer. The video should play at 640×480 pixels but plays at 720×480 pixels. DXG know about this problem but have no firmware solution to date.
To correct the aspect ratio fault in D1 mode, I convert the MOV file to AVI then use VirtualDub to resize to 640×480 (4:3) and save as an XVID.
A short example can be downloaded from here:
http://www.zen21914.zen.co.uk/DXG566/sample.avi
A good camcorder in good lighting.
i can only get on 38seconds on 1080p, 2 min on 720p, 8min on standard. it was aired on qvc that u can get an hr on 1080p on the 2G card that they provided. how? what am i doing wrong?
quality is better than a phone cam but my bberry video mode takes clean video and better micro quaity too. this is good for kids not adults who wants crisp pic, zoom, and everything else. u get what u pay for.
can you add a microphone to this camera? I really like it mostly except for the sound.