Design
It’s slim and compact in design making it easy to carry around with a big LCD on the left of the camera. There’s a circular dial for changing modes just above the screen and a microphone at the front for picking up sound easily. |
Setup/Installation
Get a 8cm DVD disk, switch the CCD camera on, insert the disk and you're ready to start recording. |
Features
Like other CCD cameras on the market the DC100 has similar features. Rather than conventional tape it uses an 8cm DVD to record on which can be played directly from the camera or from a DVD player. On the right of the camera there's a 2.7 inch LCD screen that displays the image including in a letterbox view to show you exactly what you’re recording in widescreen. As you can record in widescreen there's a button that swaps you conveniently from the conventional 4:3 format to 16:9. There's automatic focus and a 25x zoom that is supported by a stabiliser to reduce camera shake when filming from afar. The camera comes with a handy a quick view function that allows you to see your saved footage instantly by using the buttons on the LCD screen. It also lets you select a playlist and order what you’ve shot, and using the fading function you can stitch different scenes up beautifully without having to use a PC. |
Performance
The DC100 uses 8cm DVD discs to record on which means you’ll never accidentally record over anything precious because once you've recoreded on a bit of space you can't record on it again. Each disk allows you to record around 30 minutes of video in standard mode and 60 minutes on long-play. While with other cameras you need to stop your filming before being able to view what you've just shot, with the Canon DC100 you can do it on the hoof - because everything is recorded directly onto DVD Canon have been able to include a fast review function which allows you to see what you’ve recorded at a glance and play back any particular section without using a forward or rewind button. It's a handy function which gets rid of having to stop your filming and searching out the bit you wanted to find. IF you don't want to do any editing using your computer the jukebox function and the fader are handy tools to have. With the jukebox function you can select a playlist of your favourite footage and arrange it in the order you want, and then using the fader you can merge two bits of film together, giving that professional finish. The 2.7 inch LCD screen gives clear pictures but also cleverly houses a wafer thin battery which is a great utilisation of space. The picture quality is outstanding with its high resolution recording. It also has a widescreen sensor which uses the entire width to record on so what you get is proper high-def widescreen recording, rather than something that is adapted to fit a widescreen screen - this again just adds to the end quality. And the button they’ve provided to swap from standard 4:3 to widescreen makes life very simple. The 25x optical zoom glides in and out giving you smooth images rather than some cameras which have a very jerky zoom and it comes with an image stabiliser so there’s no shake at all even when the zoom is fully extended. The digital fader is a nice touch too. |
What's In The Box?
Camcorder, compact power adapter, battery pack, stereo/video cable. |
Overall Opinion
Canon are renowned for good quality products. While they don't have the same kudos as Sony, the Canon DC100 DVD Camcorder comes in very close to any Sony product on the market. The camera is really simple to use, with around average functions, but most importantly great image quality. For the price it's well worth it. |
