:: SAMSUNG VM-HMX20C

Next generation Media

Recently, the Blue-ray became the winner of a war of next generation media by declaring defeat of the HD-DVD. It means Full-HD period has already started. In the LCD TV market, Full-HD products already occupied the market, and various products including projectors are coming out with the title of Full-HD.

Full-HD Camcorder VM-HMX20

Samsung has been struggling in the AV market. The wind of Full-HD is getting stronger. ‘Bordo Full-HD’ big popular LCD TV in Europe, Full-HD projector SP-A800B by John Kane, and 3^rd generation Blue-ray player BP-P1400 are representative Full-HD products. Those are about the products playing Full-HD videos. Then, what does Samsung Electronic need now? I think it’s a camcorder making Full-HD video

Today, I’m going to review a Full-HD camcorder VM-HMX20(HMX20) by Samsung. It’s a following model of HMX10 which released last year and was introduced by Pop-Conet, and Full-HD model. Let’s take a look at what the Full-HD video which HMX20 provides is.

Improved features and great grip

HMX20 following HMX10 became a little shapeless, due to the bigger optical part much larger than HMX10. The reason of the bigger optical part is a better video quality, and will be handled later.

The black and silver color of the HMX10 has been succeeded. Black is mixed with glossy and glossless embossing, so it gives high-end and practicalness. Silver made of chromium plating looks very strong.

Shooting type design

It provides the most basic type of shooting type design. The feature of shooting type design gives a great grip and has a bigger optical part.

The HMX20 also has succeeded to the strong point. Most of all, the bigger optical part has a internal lens cap, so you don’t have to worry about the loss of it.

Flash is included at the upper side of lens for getting good pictures in darkness, and there’s a stereo microphone at the lower part.

The body is divided with the LCD, grip, and control part. When opening the LCD cap at the left, there’s a 2.7 inch LCD. This LCD with wide screen (16:9) and 0.23 Mega pixel provides vivid and clean video, when recording and playing.

There’s a zoom button at the side of the LCD and at the upper side there is a Q menu button calling the main menus (recording position, resolution, light, focus, exposure, and shutter) and a recording button controlling the start and end.

01. iCheck 02. Flash 03. EASY 04. Internal Speaker 05. AV port 06. USB port

There is a internal speaker and a iCheck button selecting the mode of LCD and showing the battery status and memory status when the HMX is off inside and the LCD cap. At the lower part there are a flash mode button and a EasyQ button making people use the HMX easily. At the lower center, there are a USB port and AV output port, and both are finished with the sliding type cover which opens up.

01. Zoom lever 02. Still image shutter 03. Video/Still image/Playing board 04. Recording button 05. Power button

At the left side of the body, there’s a rotational grip which is Samsung’s patent, and the grip belt is strong and easy to change the length.

When opening the cover below, there are a battery slot, a memory slot, and additional SD, SDHC/MMC memory slot. And when opening the next cover, there’s a power port.

01. Recording 02. Power 03. LED 04. Microphone 05. Tripod hole 06. Cradle connection port

On the right side, there’s a recording button, a power button for On/Off, a LED showing a battery status, and a port for an external microphone. All these ports are finished with a hard type cover, and make the design of HMX20 better.

At the bottom, there’s a port for a tripod fixing hole and cradle connection.

Optimized for Full-HD

The biggest change of the HMX20’s design is the bigger lens due to the big aperture. I don’t like the little shapeless design because of the bigger lens compared to the body. But, if it makes performance better, would it be understandable?

Then, why the bigger lens? It’s due to the bigger retina of the HMX20. The CMOS which is an image sensing device for the HMX20 is 1/1.8 inch, and it’s bigger than other camcorders. Most of the image sensing devices have 1/2.7~1/3.2 inch size and the HMX10 used 1/2.7, so you can understand how big size it is. To get 1.8 iris value for this big CMOS, the lens size has to be very large.

Not only the aperture, but the length of a lens barrel became longer. It’s inevitable to have 10x zoom, I think. Considering a digital camera having 1/1.8 inch CCD with 10x zoom has a very long barrel and large lens, you will think of the HMX20 small.

Due to this bigger mechanism, the HMX20 could have the right performance for Full-HD. Thanks to this CMOS, it could put away noise much. If you see the video recorded inside, you will see the noise part get better.

Optimized for shaking

It provides a better grip, because it has a shooting type design and rotational grip. The stabilized recording with a great grip makes users have resistance to shaking. Also, the inner electronic stabilizer gives more stable video for telephoto or closeup photography. But, due to the high resolution, we couldn’t expect much compensation, and it causes a little damage to the quality, so we have to use this only when it’s necessary.

The additional zoom in/out and recording button next to the LCD make it possible to use both hands for recording. When we use both hands, we could reduce shaking and tilting. And the touch screen with high sensitivity stops the shaking caused by controlling something during recording, so we can get more stable video.

Optimized control

When holding the HMX20 with hands, you can feel the arrangement is very good. A ring finger and little finger are placed on the fixing groove, a middle finger is on a zoom in/out lever, a index finger is on the photo button, and a thumb is on the recording button. Those are the perfect match.

The Q.menu button and EasyQ button take a good part for the great operation for the HMX20. You can control the Saving place, resolution, light, and so on with one calling. Through the combination with the touch screen, it’s possible to control them quickly while recording.

And the EasyQ function activates all functions once for recording, so even if the user is a beginner, it helps get the best video.

Upgraded Video

Supporting Full-HD, the size of video data has become larger. And, the capacity of the HMX20 became 8GB, and it supports the additional memory slot (SD, SDHC, MMC), so maximum 32GB is possible. With the best video quality, recording for about 70 minutes is possible, and refer to the following table

Recording time

Video Resolution		Capacity
Video Resolution		1 GB	2 GB	4 GB	8 GB	16 GB	32 GB
HD 1080/30p		App. 8min	App. 17min	App. 35min	App. 71min	App. 142min	App. 284min
HD 1080/60i	HD Highest	App. 8min	App. 17min	App. 35min	App. 71min	App. 142min	App. 284min
	HD High	App. 12min	App. 24min	App. 48min	App. 96min	App. 192min	App. 384min
	HD Standard	App. 15min	App. 30min	App. 61min	App. 122min	App. 244min	App. 488min
SD 480/60p	SD Highest	App. 14min	App. 28min	App. 56min	App. 112min	App. 224min	App. 448min
	SD High	App. 17min	App. 34min	App. 69min	App. 139min	App. 278min	App. 556min
	SD Standard	App. 29min	App. 59min	App. 119min	App. 239min	App. 478min	App. 956min
SD Slowmotion		App. 15min	App. 30min	App. 61min	App. 122min	App. 244min	App. 488min

The number of Photos

Resolution	Capacity
Resolution	1 GB	2 GB	4 GB	8 GB	16 GB	32 GB
3264X2448	App.373	App.747	App.1494	App.2988	App.5976	App.11952
2880X2160	App.478	App.957	App.1914	App.3829	App.7658	App.15316
2304X1728	App.494	App.988	App.1976	App.3953	App.7906	App.15812
2048X1536	App.928	App.1856	App.3713	App.7427	App.14854	App.29708
1440X1080	App.1802	App.3604	App.7208	App.14417	App.28834	App.57668
640X480	App.5106	App.10212	App.20424	App.40848	App.81696	App.163392

The resolution is also Full-HD. But the provided HMX20 is a PAL type, so I couldn’t connect it to my Full-HD LCD TV. I could only use this with my PC. However, in the PC, I could see the very detail video, and the good color.

Due to it’s a PAL(50i/25p) type, it’s not as smooth as NTSC(60i/30p) we use. I think it probably provides smoother video with NTSC type.

The PAL type is a television coding type mostly used in Europe and Australia, and it uses 50Hz as a basic frequency for transferring, so the frame is 50 Fields/Sec.

The NTSC type is a television coding type mostly used in America and Asia, and it uses 60Hz as a basic frequency, so the frame consist of 60 Fields/Sec.

The HMX20 supports various special effects provided by digital cameras for example Black and white, Sepia, Reversion, Whitish, and Movie effect, and because it has a fading function, users can make video getting brighter in the start and getting darker in the end.

One of the disadvantages of shooting type camcorders is hard to maintain its horizontal level. The HMX20 provides the guideline function with dividing the LCD with 4 or 9 considering the level and composition. And it also has a function eliminating the sound of wind, so it can record without the effect of sound in the mountain or sea.

And, the face recognizing function is added to the HMX20, so it helps get the best video of humans even in the worst condition such as the place against the light.

Besides automatic function, it gives sports, people, spotlight, and sea/snow’s 4 modes, and the modes adjust the shutter speed and iris to record well according to the circumstances.

Better quality photos

Thanks to the bigger CMOS and big aperture lens, the still image is upgraded. The noise reduced much, so we can get quite good inside pictures.

ISO comparison

But, it’s difficult to expect pictures like digital cameras. The noise part is definitely improved, but the resolution is not good enough. However, because it can provide the better quality than 3*6 or 4*6 size, I think it’s good to use for blogs, or temporary digital cameras.

Useful bundle software

3 bundle softwares are provided to get things with the HMX20. The feature of these softwares is an easy interface.

Power DVD

It’s the most frequently using program in the PC for playing DVD. Easy interface and the great playing function are the features, and it could be used for not only the video made with the HMX20, but DVD.

Power Director

This software is to make various videos easily with maintaining the quality of videos. This perfectly supports the MPEG4 H.264 by the HMX20, and using subtitles and other video functions we can make the video optimized for UCC websites such as You Tube. And it also has a burning CD and DVD function.

Power Producer

Direct capture and editing, burning DVD with a template function to make a home video are possible. Because it supports various DV, HDV, Blue-ray, HODVD, it can handle from HD to Full-HD.

But..

Poor stabilization function

The stabilization function is below my expectation. When comparing normal videos with stabilized videos, the difference is very little. It seems a bug, or not enough optimization, so by the time it’s released officially, it has to be correct.

[ Stabilization off ]

[ Stabilization on ]

Stamina

It has a very similar battery performance. In the manual, it tells 85 min continuous recording is possible, but actually it’s about 40~50 min, I think. It’s because I used record and pause continuously, so if using it efficiently, the time will be longer. However, it’s not common to use a camcorder continuously, so it’s necessary to have a more battery, I suppose.

Slow AF speed

I’m not satisfied with the AF speed below my expectation. The accuracy of AF is not bad, but if it’s a little dark, the speed get slow, so I think the slow speed of AF needs to be improved.

Full-HD, above the distribution model

The HMX20 is the first Full-HD camcorder Samsung made. To get the Full-HD video and pictures, it has used the big aperture lens and bigger CMOS.

Don’t you think it’s enough to get a good appraisal? Even though there are some dissatisfactory things, the easy interface and use as a distribution camcorder to get Full-HD videos easily is the best thing.