Reviews |
Quick Review Camcorders : Samsung SCD6040
by Matt CullerPublished on December 31, 2004
The Samsung SCD6040 is an oddball in the camcorder community. It melds the absolutely dreadful video and low-light performance of Samsung's camcorders with the mediocre versatility found on many hybrid camcorders. But, unlike hybrid camcorders like the Fisher FVD-C1 or the Panasonic SV-AV100, the Samsung SCD6040 is big and sometimes clunky. On a bright note, with its large body, the SCD6040 can accommodate many features that aren?t often available on compact hybrid camcorders, which usually record to card media only.
The Samsung SCD6040 includes a 1/6-inch CCD with only 680K pixels for video, but a decent 4.13 MP for stills. It includes a similarly mediocre 10x optical zoom for video and a 3x optical zoom for stills. As you've probably noticed , the SCD6040 has two modes: digital camera and camcorder. It also, as its main gimmick, has two separate lens barrels for each mode. While this makes the camcorder look cool, it also may hinder handling a bit.
The SCD6040 also comes with some manual control that most hybrid camcorders lack, though not with the deftness you?d imagine. The SCD6040?s big body grants it the space to include a tape mechanism and much of the manual control that you?d expect from a normal-sized camcorder, like focus, shutter speed, white balance, and exposure. These functions can be altered in the digital camera mode. For instance, exposure control in digital camera mode can only operate between EV +/-2. The navigation dial on the SCD6040 does help handling, especially when dealing with the manual control.
The SCD6040 includes a mic port, which is nice, and can record stills at 2272x1704. It also includes multi- and spot-metering, and a few still photo capture modes (like the continuous mode) that add to its appeal. There is a letterboxed 16:9 mode.
What pushes the SCD6040 to the bottom of the heap is its low-light performance. While the SCD6040 may have sacrificed the portability found on smaller hybrid camcorders in order to improve the crappy low-light performance and ailing manual control found on many hybrids, it has failed here, offering horrible low-light and video performance even worse than the Fisher FVD-C1 or the Panasonic SV-AV100.
| Samsung SCD6040 - THE BOTTOM LINE Rating: 75.03 |
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| Likes |
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- Still performance |
| Dislikes |
|
- Video and Low light performance |
Samsung SCD6040 Compared to the...
|
Fisher FVD-C1 |
Optura 500 |
|
|
|
| Better | Better |
- CCD size and effective pixels - Portability - Handling - MPEG recording options - Video and low light performance |
- CCD specifications - Analog to Digital Pass through - Available ports - Portability/Handling - Manual Control, Audio levels - Low light and video performance scores |
| Equal | Equal |
| None |
- 10x optical zoom |
| Worse | Worse |
|
- Optical zoom |
- Still options |
| Area | Weight | Raw | Adj. | Poss. |
| Video Performance | 2.00 | 3.00 | 6.00 | 20.00 |
| Front | 0.20 | 8.00 | 1.60 | 2.00 |
| Right | 0.30 | 6.00 | 1.80 | 3.00 |
| Back | 0.25 | 5.00 | 1.25 | 2.50 |
| Left | 0.20 | 6.00 | 1.20 | 2.00 |
| Top | 0.15 | 5.00 | 0.75 | 1.50 |
| Automatic Control | 0.50 | 6.00 | 3.00 | 5.00 |
| Overall Manual Control | 0.60 | 4.00 | 2.40 | 6.00 |
| Zoom | 0.75 | 6.00 | 4.50 | 7.50 |
| Focus | 0.70 | 4.00 | 2.80 | 7.00 |
| Exposure | 0.65 | 5.00 | 3.25 | 6.50 |
| Shutter Speed | 0.60 | 4.00 | 2.40 | 6.00 |
| White Balance | 0.55 | 1.00 | 0.55 | 5.50 |
| Gain | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
| Still Perfomance | 1.20 | 8.00 | 9.60 | 12.00 |
| VCR Mode | 0.30 | 8.00 | 2.40 | 3.00 |
| Low Light Performance | 2.00 | 2.00 | 4.00 | 20.00 |
| LCD / Viewfinder | 0.60 | 6.50 | 3.90 | 6.00 |
| Audio | 1.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 | 10.00 |
| Handling | 1.25 | 4.50 | 5.63 | 12.50 |
| Jacks / Ports / Plugs | 0.80 | 7.00 | 5.60 | 8.00 |
| Other Features | 0.70 | 7.00 | 4.90 | 7.00 |
| Value | 1.25 | 2.00 | 2.50 | 12.50 |
| Total (weighted) | 75.03 | 170.50 |