10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
Disappointing performance from a DVD-R camera
Date of Review: Jan 31, 2007
The Bottom Line: I could never buy this brand of camera again...but are disk problems inherent in DVD camcorders -- bears further investigation.
I have generally been impressed with the reliability of Samsung products over the years, especially their computer monitors not to mention cellphones, however the Samsung line of DVD-R cameras has proven to be a disappointment.
I was particularly attracted to the DC164 camera because it had a dedicated microphone input, a generally full set of features, and a low price in the 350-400 dollar range.
My speech club in Warner Center wanted a DVD camcorder to capture speeches and be able to provide a finalized DVD on the spot for purchase.
I started with the DC164 from Target, which appears impressive. It has a fully bevy of controls and menus, and the view screen looks great.
Unfortunately on my first time out with the 164 on battery power, the camera would not finalize the disk. It simply said "disk error". I tried this with several disks, but was never able to finalize.
I tried calling Samsung technical support a couple of times. The said new software needed to be installed and that if I could just burn the software to a minidisk in my computer, I could put that disk into the camera and update my software.
Because my Mac is rack mounted, the small DVD disk actually got jammed in my Mac. I had to unmount the Mac, open it up, and shake the disk out of the drive. That was fun.
Then, even when I got the disk to stay in place, the Mac software then told me that recording to the smaller DVD media was not supported (Panther).
I called Samsung tech support back, and was later put on hold with a second level support technician for ten minutes. That was long enough.
Still, I was not ready to give up. I tried fully charging the camera. I tried another brand of disks, too. Through a combination of plugging the camera into the wall for formatting, plus using an alternate disk, finalization finally worked. I even went back and finalized the earlier brand of disk and saved that video from being lost.
However, in subsequent shoots, the DC164 still exhibited the finalization problem, and I was forced to return the camera to Target for a full refund.
Still, I was not ready to give up on this camera. I thought perhaps, I had maybe purchased a lemon. So I got another Samsung DC-164 from Best Buy.
We brought the camera home and were able to shoot one dvd disk on it...it finalized on the first time around.
However, the second disk on the camera would not finalize and would not eject. It got stuck in a loop. You would power the camera up and it would say "Loading", then it would say "Finalized disk", then it would say "no disk". I could not get the camera to open and eject the disk.
Needless to say, I am done with Samsung as a camera brand.
I hate to say this, but I am also having a problem with a Samsung DVD-VHS playback unit I purchased in the last year. It will get halfway through a DVD disk and then freeze in playback (probably at the point where it goes to the other side of the disk -- always about an hour into the programme.
So my search continues for the perfect DVD-R camcorder with the dedicated microphone input.
