Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
 Very good for the money. January 9, 2009
C. Trent (Roy, wa United States)
63 out of 64 found this review helpful
I am writing this review based on the price of around $200. Im sure a 600$ + hd video camera would be better in every way. Same as you cant complain your new Kia dosent have all the features or is not as nice as your friends new BWM.
Most other HD video cameras in the price range look like toys, with small 1 to 2" flip screens, mono sound that sounds bad, no optical zoom, the video quality is poor even at 720, colors washed out and just not worth messing with unless they are for your 10 year old to record his bicycle stunts.
I just got this camera and it seems very good for the price and is not built like a toy. Has a large 3" lcd, stereo sound, 5x optical zoom, latching SD card cover and uses common batteries. The colors look very accurate and bright, when played back on my 47" 1080 lcd tv, it looks very nice, everything is clear and sharp. The hand strap is adjustable and unlike my $500 JVC hard drive camera, this one adjusts big enough that my hand fits in it. Also unlike my more expensive JVC, you can close the screen and keep recording or keep the camera turned on. Even if its off you wont miss a shot, it power up and it ready to record in about 2 seconds. Besides white balance and night mode I dont think there are other manual control settings that would you find on a more expensive camera.
I have seen reviews on this camera with people saying the video playback is terrible, studders or is blocky. First, if you are going to play / edit this video on your computer, read the box & website. They recommended 3.0 ghz computer or faster. (To find out your speed, open your start menu and Right click on My Computer (or Computer) and select properties, it will say on that page 3.0ghz, 2.2 Ghz, etc)... If your computer is slower than that or has low end video hardware you will not be able to watch full 1080p movies on your computer. That is not a fault of the video camera and HD videos from any camera would be the same. You can however, use any speed computer for simply storing your videos or resizing them for youtube, email, etc. Just expect it will take your computer some time to convert the movies.
The camera does have standard composite out that will work on any tv with a single yellow video input plug, so no computer is required to watch movies. It also comes with a composite cable( 3 connector) that will plug into most HDTV's and you can watch your HD video right off the camera.
I purchased a 2nd battery when I bought the camera, it uses the same as a Fuji NP-120 and a good quality battery can be bought for under $20. The battery is suppose to last 1.5 - 2 hours and the charger is a 2 hour charger, so with 2 batteries should be able to keep recording forever if you have the charger with you. You can also get car chargers for this battery type for around $20 if you want to take a road trip.
For the technical parts: The audio records AAC 2 channel at 128k. 1440x1080p (HD) records around 8000-10000k, 1280x720p (HD) 4000-5000k, 848x480p (about the same size as a standard DVD) 2500-3500k and if you want to email or send a video right to youtube or myspace it records 320x240 at about 500-550k.
It officially supports SD and SDHC cards to 8GB, although some users said they have used larger cards on message boards. I would recommend testing them before recording anything important if you are tiring a larger card that officially supported. You are limited to a file size of just under 4GB per single video, this is the limit of the file system used on the SDHC cards and effects all card based video cameras. That works out to 50-60 minutes of continuous recording at 1080p & over 2 hours at 720p, you only need to stop for a seconds, then you can start again and keep doing that until your card is full.
I have only had one issue with this camera. The way it comes from the factory is the sound level comes down when zooming, so it dosent pick up the zoom motors, but you loose a few seconds of sound. The option is to use a slower zoom speed then the audio does not cut out. You can goto the dxgusa web site and download this update if you want it.
The directions were kind of unclear, to get it to work, 1. Take an empty SD card and put it in a card reader, format it for FAT32, 2. download the firmware from the website and extract or open the file, 3. drag or copy the file named like dvh596.bin to the empty card 4. Put the card in the camera, flip the mode switch to SET & press DISP & then ZOOM in at the same time, select FV VERSION, press enter (the joystick IN) and it should then update the camera. When it says Finished, you will have to turn the camera off and restart it.
Since updating the camera the zoom is slightly slower but the sound stays steady and you still do not hear any noises when zooming in / out.
In short, if you are expecting studio quality video, you should be looking at a studio quality camera, they start around $3000 and to shoot Hollywood movies expend to spend about $20,000, besides lenses, memory & battery backs, etc.... If you want a camera that looks much better than a mini-DVD camera or a digital camera shooting video, then here you go.
Incredible value for the price November 19, 2008
Jeff Held (San Francisco, CA United States)
27 out of 28 found this review helpful
I had resigned myself to having to spend $600 or so to get a camera to record HD video with my son. When I saw the DXG for about $200 (I got it for $199 at B&H) I thought I'd give it a try (the reviews elsewhere are better than here).
If you go in expecting flawless 3CCD quality 1080p video from this camera, then move along, the key is value for the dollar. My one criticism is that the anti-shake feature is not available in 1080p mode, effectively making 1080p a tripod-only affair. However, in 780p mode the camera shoots very good video, even in low light (it gets grainy in near-darkness, but that seems typical). The video is Mac-compatible and is stored in h.264 mpeg-4 files which play right off the SD card in quicktime and are importable into iMovie HD. Each clip you shoot is stored as a separate file, which makes editing easier, as some clips can get thrown out before the editor is fired up and the clips are imported.
I found this camcorder really fun to shoot with. it is very light, and about the size of three iPods taped together. The camera I got did not come with an SD card, fortunately I had extra cards from my digital camera. I found that you can tape over an hour of video on a 2GB card in 720p mode. I have thrown the camera in my laptop bag and hauled it with me to all sorts of places and it is still going strong.
If you want a simple HD camcorder that shoots good 720p video at an incredible price, this is the unit for you.
It's a great value! August 12, 2009
Robert F. Petrie (Clinton, NY)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
We bought this camcorder just before going on a "hiking vacation" in Southern Utah & the Grand Canyon North Rim. We hiked over 50 miles of the North Rim, Zion, Bryce & Red Canyon trails and returned home with over 24 GigaBytes of .MOV's & JPG's.
We had no idea as to what to expect, as to image quality on a 1080P Hi-Def TV, until after we returned home. Quite frankly, we didn't expect very much considering the very low price. We were amazed by the vivid, sharply detailed images that we saw displayed on our TV!
Some of the pluses:
It is very small & light weight and appears to be well-made.
It's very "user friendly" & the controls are all very conveniently located.
The battery is extremely small, so we bought a spare (for about $16) but we never had to use it, even on all-day hikes.
The SD-HC flash memory is very compact and inexpensive. Make sure that you buy Class 6 Hi-Speed! (the "Class" rating is located inside of the large "C" on the SD-HC label.) We bought (3) 8GB chips, (about $16 each) but never completely filled 1 chip during an entire day's hiking and off-loaded all of our files to our laptop each evening.
It appears that the "Zoom Noise Update" mentioned in C. Trent's revue has been incorporated in recent production units.
There are a few short-comings: (but what can you expect for $179?)
Only 5X optical zoom - not a problem when filming landscape scenes.
(Actually, we found that the detail was so sharp that we didn't need to zoom.)
It does have a rather small field - a wider angle lens might be needed for some uses.
No optical viewfinder - but many smaller camcorders omit this feature.
Image Stabilization isn't very effective in 1080P mode.
A few hints:
The best way to store and play Hi-Def movies from this (or any other)Hi-Def camcorder is to buy a "WD TV HD Media Player." (about $85 to $119) It connects to your Hi-Def TV with an HDMI cable and can connect to 1 or 2 USB hard drives, thumb drives or the Flash Memory chip from the camcorder (when installed in a USB adapter) and play Photos, AVI's, MOV's & many other formats. This is an awesome addition to any Hi-Def TV!
(Make sure that you update the WD TV firmware to the latest version to get rid of some of the glitches in the earlier versions and to make it compatible with additional media formats. A Western Digital support rep can help you do this.)
You can also connect the camcorder to your TV with component video cables for play-back.
 DVG 595V HD Camcorder February 22, 2010
William G. J. Aylward (Reston, VA USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I don't understand the objections some make about this little wonder. First of all the complaint that the zoom is only 5X puzzles me. Mine is 20X. I found the picture quality to be very good, and like most small cameras you have to use a tripod if you are addicted to zooming. I bought two extra batteries through Amazon for less about $17 including postage. I now can shoot for a couple of hours or more (wedding video)
Put it this way. If you want to shoot a professional documentary, for a two or three thousand you can get an acceptable unit. If, like my family, you want an all around camera inexpensive camera with excellent pictures (including stills...it also has its own flash!) then this is the camera for you.
It has most of the features of the (far) more expensive cameras and even comes with its own case and cables for TV, VCR or computer. It also has a built in light for low level light conditions!
One other thing. Several people complained that the playback on the computer was erratic. That is the fault of the computer not the camera. The camera comes with four different levels of resolution all the way up to 1080p. 1080p takes a lot of memory and a fast CPU. For slower computers use the lower resolutions. Same applies to attachment to e-mail.
Happy December 28, 2008
Jose L. Garcia (new jersey)
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is very nice camcorder, the price is good, the resolution is good, jus a little troubles with the audio,but with the software included I can fix that detail.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 10
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