Digital Trends

Samsung SC-DC564 April 10th, 2007 | by Jason Tomczak

Setup and Use

Setting up the SC-DC564 camcorder is very easy. Open the box, remove the camcorder body and battery from their plastic wrap, and attach the battery to the back side of the camcorder. Remove the charging cable and plug it into the wall. On the camcorder, open the LCD screen and look for the little hidden flap that says "> OPEN." This is where you'll find the charging connector. Plug the charging connector in and let the camcorder charge until the green light shines solid without blinking. This could take anywhere from 1 – 2 hours, depending on whether the battery had any charge from the factory.

Once the SC-DC564 is charged, insert a miniDVD into the drive bay. You'll have to slide the "OPEN" button on the top of the camcorder to open the drive bay. Pop the disc into place and close the drive bay. The camcorder is now ready to record digital video onto the miniDVD.

To record video, make sure the camcorder is turned on and that the lens cap is off. Point at your subject and press the silver/red “Record: button. Press the same silver/red button to cease recording. Each time you record a clip, the SC-DC564 stores it on the miniDVD as a separate track that can either be linked together with other tracks or played separately, depending on the software and hardware you use.

When you have filled the miniDVD with video (or have recorded just what you want on a single miniDVD), use the simple on-screen menu to “finalize” the disc (a process that takes about 1 minute and makes the miniDVD readable by DVD players). It is highly recommended that you set the SC-DC564 on a sturdy table for this process. Any shaking, even the minute shaking of your hands, can render a faulty DVD.

To insert an SD card, simply open the LCD screen and the small flap that covers the SD card slot. Insert the SD card and close the flap. To record still images or video to the SD card instead of the miniDVD, just move the "DISC - CARD" button over to "CARD". The camcorder will now direct all recorded content to the flash drive. To return to miniDVD recording mode, simply move the "DISC - CARD" switch back to "DISC".

It's that simple. The SC-DC564 camcorder is very easily controlled and will provide users will very little operational frustration.

Recording Modes

The SC-DC564 has three recording modes: LP, SP, and XP. According to Samsung, the video quality between the three recording modes should remain constant. Each of the three modes provides a bit more recording time than the other. LP offers 60 minutes of recording on a 1.4GB miniDVD and about 106 minutes on a 2.6GB disc. SP mode (the default recording mode) offers 30 minutes of video on a 1.4GB disc and about 53 minutes on a 2.6GB disc. Finally, XP mode gives only 20 minutes of video for 1.4GB and upwards of 35 minutes on a 2.6GB miniDVD.

Optical Zoom

An important (and impressive) feature of the SC-DC564 is the 26X optical zoom. Some camcorders have low optical zooms and high digital zoom. Optical zoom is very important, because it provides the cleanest, most accurate telephoto results in your recordings. Digital zoom uses complex interpolation to "assume" what the zoomed image should look like. The result is often a very splotchy pixellated image. Optical zoom sidesteps this problem with analog accuracy directly from the lens glass.

Audio Quality

The SC-DC564 has a built-in stereo mic at the front of the camera. Despite its forward mount, the mic records audio behind and to the sides of the camera quite well. One major surprise was the external microphone jack found on the rear of the camcorder. Typically, more expensive camcorders offer external mic recording capabilities. Samsung gets points for this useful feature.

Included Software

The SC-DC564 comes with software and drivers for Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, but there’s no word on Vista compatibility. The included software (DV Media Pro 1.0 and Ulead VideoStudio 9) allows users to record directly from the camcorder to their PC. Users can also extract video and stills from the camera using the included software and a USB cable. In all honesty, I didn't find the software very impressive, but it certainly does what it says it does.

Mac Users

Mac users need not bother with this camcorder. Since most Macs have slot-loading DVD drives, the miniDVDs used by the SC-DC564 will simply not fit. If you manage to get one of the miniDVDs into your Mac, you may not get it out.

Additionally, Samsung does not provide any software for moving video from the SC-DC564 to a Mac. A couple calls to Samsung tech support (both in India and the USA) netted me nothing more than a heartfelt apology and a suggestion to either a.) use Windows XP, or b.) buy a Samsung camcorder that uses miniDV tapes and FireWire.

After having Samsung tell me to give up on the Mac, I got inventive with an external, tray-style DVD drive attached to a MacBook Pro. I was able to extract the VOB files from the miniDVD with little effort. I then converted the VOB files to various formats using VisualHub and Handbrake. All resultant files were of the same quality as those extracted with the Windows software provided by Samsung.

In short, Mac users could use such a workaround to extract video from this camcorder, but it's really not worth the effort.

The Samsung SC-DC564 w/ DVD Tray Open