1. SSD memory

Samsung releases the world first SSD memory Full-HD camcorder

Samsung has shown the world first SSD memory Full-HD camcorder in the CES 2009. SSD camcorders have better portability, transfer speed, noise, capacity, generation of heat, etc over HDD camcorders. On the SSD memory camcorder, Samsung puts on the 64GB capacity, so got an attention from all over the world with the Super storage Full-HD camcorder.

 

SSD (Solid State Drive) based on NAND flash which Samsung developed in 2005 is innovative data storage taking out motor and operating parts which were in HDD. Fast read/write speed reduces the booting time and battery consumption and is strong to noise and shock, so this has been attached in laptop and something as a B2B type. It was 16GB when it s announced, but in 2008 256GB(81g) has announced. This is transferred to the Full-HD camcorder. That s so Samsung.

 

8 strong points of SSD

This SSD memory camcorder has 8 strong points. It s lighter/smaller, fast, strong to shock and vibration, lower power consumption, temperature tolerance, lower noise/heat generation, reliability, and high capacity, so it s different from other camcorders in basic interfaces. Compared to flash based Cannon, it s 32GB bigger in capacity. It also supports SD/SDHC memory separately to consider users who are used to SD memories.

The new SSD memory Full-HD camcorder by Samsung Electronics is the HMX-H106 / HMS-H105 / HMX-H104. These 3 models have the same performance, but different capacity of the SSD. The H106 has 64GB, the H105 has 32GB, and the H104 has 16GB. Except slight color difference of outer part, the performance is totally the same.

(*This review is going on based on the H106 64GB.)

 

Up to 66 hours recording only with the SSD

Recording in SD quality, 66 hours of recording is possible with the 64GB internal memory. For the Full-HD quality, more than 12 hours, for the best Full-HD quality, it can take more than 8 hours. Besides, once another additional SDHC memory is attached, the recording time will increase. This is enough for one day recording. However, one video file size is limited to 2GB. When recording, if it s close to 2GB, you can automatically record again. This part is common in several products, but more capacity for one file is needed. Therefore, if you need longer recording file, you d better use HD or SD quality.

Based on WIDE(37mm) OIS lens high quality Full-HD video

The biggest feature of the H series is not only the SSD memory, but also the powerful lens performance. When it comes to the HMX20 last year, even though Full HD was made by big sensor, caliber lens, due to insufficient DIS function, people were disappointed a little much. The H106 has adopted the Schneider lens and OIS, and the FOV gets wider with 37mm. On top of that, by adopting the optimized 1/4.5 inch 2.2M sensor for video recording, it has focused on video recording not on pictures. Actual video quality is really great. If you want both pictures and videos, the R10 based on unique is good, but if you want videos and lens performance not pictures, the H106 is suitable.

 

Specification

Such a Samsung camcorder H106 by Samsung

H series has concentrated on SSD memory + lens base + Full HD. It doesn t have the common face recognition or other additional functions. I kind of doubt that this is a really Samsung product. Now Samsung is ready for the second movement.

Basic package including HDMI cable

You should see that the HDMI cable is included in the package unlike other brand camcorders. Those who use a camcorder first might not know the cable well, but if you have an HDTV at home, you will connect it to the TV right away. Then you will smile looking at the vivid display. Certainly, it s kind of useless for users who don t have an HDTV, but those who need the cable costing 2~30 thousand won will like this much. Besides, various output, transfer cable, remote controller, and AC adaptor charger are included.

 

 

2. Full angle grip

180 degree swivel full angle grip

The H106 has 180 degree swivel full angle grip. This swivel grip moves 180 degree horizontally, and this gives convenience for recording. Depending on the rotation, 3 angles are provides such as high, horizontal, and low angles. Using the LCD wing, recording and zoom adjustment are possible, so you can take a video to any angle and any pose you want.

Full angle grip

The hand strap is made of leather and the length is adjustable. The part meeting with the back of the hand is made of smooth suede, and once adjusting the length fitting my hand, you can record a video in a very stable pose.

The thick body allows the great grip. At the side, the protruding part holds the palm comfortably, so it feels like holding a baseball. Thumb is on the recording button, index finger on is the photo button, and middle finger is on the zoom lever. The wide viewing angle of the LCD makes the recording more comfortable.

 

When recording with a low angle, thumb is located on the smooth oval dent comfortably.

 

High speed start up

Quick start up

The booting time triggered by the power button is 3 sec fast. And the start by LCD unfold from ready is surprisingly less than 1 sec. It can capture the fast moment. On ready mode, the recording mode lamp is flickering with blue.

 

Comfortable and round appearance

The feature of Samsung camcorders is friendly design by anyone. It shows the cutest and prettiest style among camcorders, and this feature is going on 2009. Besides, compared to last year s models, it becomes cuter and more dynamic to be a real camcorder.

 

The front of the H106 is shining chrome color with a little pearl feel inside, so it gives luxurious feeling. SSD is engraved, and a sticker with features of the H series is attached on the upper side. This sticker can be detached. On the barrel of the lens, stereo microphones are located on both sides. You should be careful not to hide the speaker with a hand while recording.

 

Inside the body, speaker, power, display, Easy Q, flash, and IS button are located. Easy Q button is an auto mode to set everything by the camera itself for beginners, so users can t set any options.

 

On the top, oval dent grip supporting putting on a finger, zoom dial, and photo button are located. The zoom dial and photo buttons are protruding a little, so the recording is more comfortable.

 

There s an automatic lens cover moving automatically according to power adjustment on the front of the lens. Filter part for various converter lens, flash, recording lamp, and remote control sensor are located.

 

On the curved back, the recording button takes a wide part, so it allows you to take smooth recording control with grip. You can see the video/picture buttons are located together on the rec/play mode change button. It has dual shot concept to take video or picture directly without changing a mode. Opening the cover on the bottom, mini HDMI, USB, AV output, and DC input are gathered. The DC input ports is used to charge with the AC adaptor.

 

SD/SDHC memory supporting. Necessary additional batteries

On the bottom, there are 4 projections to prevent scratches, and tripod hole made of metal strong to wear and battery/memory are located.

 

The included battery can take continuous 90 min of HD, but actual capability is only a third of continuous recording. Therefore, the additional battery is necessary. The manual also mentions the additional battery is needed. Charcing time is about 110 min, and after it s done, the lamp changes to green from orange. With the LCD, the battery status is divided with 6 types, so it s enough to see the status of the battery.

 

 

3. Optical 10x zoom OIS

37mm wide optical 10x zoom Schneider HD lens

As a face of the H106, the optical 10x zoom Schneider lens is covered by the auto open/close lens cover which is automatically open/closed through the power button. The zooming speed is quite fast. The zooming speed is adjustable to 3 levels by the zoom lever. It has less chromatism and the quality is degraded on tele zoom, but to the middle level of angle, it shows the great vividness.

 

Fast zoom speed

Standard zoom speed

Fast zoom speed (Inside)

The wide angle of the lens is 37mm which is much better than other camcorders.

Wide angle of the HMX-H106

Wide angle of the VM-MX10

 

Unlike digital cameras, camcorders have only 40mm wide angle even though having wide angle. Compared with the SD camcorder MX10, the H106 shows much difference in the angle.

Thank to the wide angle, it has easier self shot.

 

On the wide angle, there s a slight distortion, but zooming like 3 times, the distortion disappears.

Maximum wide angle                            Optical 3x zoom   

The bright F1.8 lens for all regions is also a good thing. The lowest 3 Lux reduces noises inside, and makes background blur when taking portrait pictures. The range of F value is F1.8~F16 and that is so wide. Below picture is a video taken on F1.8 and F5.8, so you can see the difference of the background.

 

Aperture F1.8

Aperture F5.6

 

Strong performance Optical Image Stabilization

Middle tele, IS off

Middle Tele, IS on

Max. Tele, IS off

Max. Tele, IS on

Those who need OIS will like the OIS the most. Once you try actually, you can see how useful the OIS is. Compared with DIS, blur or shake is much less, so it s very useful when taking fast moving scene or more stable shot is needed.

Zooming without OIS

Zooming with OIS

2.7 inch 230K wide touch LCD

Touch sensitivity is great. Touching it with fingertips, the reaction comes slowly. Accuracy and reaction sensitivity are also great. The vividness and viewing angle of the LCD is good, too. Besides, the automatic adjustment of brightness depending on the light is good. Contrast is relatively not good, but I couldn t feel any inconvenience while using it outdoors and indoors.

Soft touch

Use the zoom button

Q.menu button

With buttons on the LCD side, you can adjust zoom and record without using buttons on the body. The Q. menu buttons sets the location of files, scene mode, resolution, white balance, exposure, and focus as a quick menu.

Picture, Video dual recording function

The H106 doesn t have a separate picture mode. Video recording is made by the video button, and picture can be taken through the shot button. That s why it becomes simpler. Futhermore, while recording a video, 1920x1080 snap shot can be taken. However, while video recording indoor, taking a snap shot causes color noise and quality reduction. So for a snap shot, capturing a video or photo shot is better.

 

 

 

While recording a video, snap shots can be made by the photo button.

 

Anyway, the synchronous shot interface is similar to the Sanyo Xacti. You can just push what you want such as a picture or video, so it s more convenient than former models.

 

 

Smooth continuous AF

Continuous AF and exposure are the basic of basic for a camcorder. The H106 is not ultra high speed, but relatively catches continuous AF smoothly according to moving objects or changing objects. It s good enough for normal shot, and the exposure is also responding quickly. But, sometimes, the focus couldn t be set where the light is insufficient.

continuous AF

 

 

Great closeup shot

It also has a great closeup shot function as a basic function of a camcorder. It s better than I expected for ultra closeup shot and low magnification closeup shot. The ability to see more details which can t be seen from eyes will be shown for closeup shot.

Ultra closeup shot

 

 

Touch Point Focus focusing on the place you touched

Supporting AF is Auto, Manual, and touch point focus. Setting to the touch point focus, it focuses on the part you touched. Setting the composition and fixing it, then you can just touch it with your fingertips! It s useful when focusing on the position and for close objects and tele portrait.

 

 

Touch Point Focus 

 

 

 

4. Full - HD

 

 

Fine quality 1920x1080 Full HD video

The thing the H106 aims is the convenience based on the video quality. Without detailed setting, adopting 1/4.5 inch 2.2M sensor, it has high level quality compared to Full-HD camcorders, and compared even with SD camcorders, the difference is much begger. Therefore, once connecting the video of the H106 to a HDTV, you can watch more vivid and clean videos.

 

 

H106-Full-HD video                                 VMX-MX10-SD video

100%capture CROP                                 100%capture CROP

 

 

Another superiority of the H106 is the small quality difference according to compressing rates. Adopting 2.2M sensor, it realizes HD and SD, so the video quality of small size files are great. It considers not only Full HD, but also HD/SD video quality.

 

 

1920x1080(60i)

1280x720p(60fps)

720x480p(60fps)

Capture CROP

 

It supports Full HD 1920x1080 60i with 3 types of compressions. HD 1280x720p and SD 720x480p also support 3 types of compressions. Especially, the progressive type 1280x720p and 720x420p are very useful. Those 2 resolutions are progressive 60fps not interlace (60i, 30fps) used for Full HD, so the video is played more smoothly.

Interlace type                             Progressive type

 

 

Diving 1080 horizontal scanning lines to half and scanning them one by one every 1/60 sec is the interlace for Full HD quality of the H106. Scanning all 10180 scanning lines every 1/60 sec is the progressive type used for HD/SD quality. Therefore, the size of the progressive type 1280x720p is not different from the size of the Full-HD.

 

 

Less noise, Bright video quality

Noise canceling is great. This is a common thing of all camcorders Samsung has released this year. Under normal light indoors, you can rarely see big noise. On top of that, even if it s a very dark place, a little red noise only happens, and because it has great detail and light expression, you don t need additional fixing work usually.

 

 

Clean Stereo sound

Sound is transmitted clearly and like 3D. I think it s because of totally separate stereo microphones on the left and right side. When it comes to concert scent on surround, words of people and music seem divided surely. It s better than models having microphones on the front.

 

 

5. Additional function

 

Wind elimination function

The wind elimination function eliminates the noise of wind coming to the camera. This function is so strong, that it almost kills bass. Therefore, it might the video worse, if the video includes some music, so you should apply this when it s necessary and check this option always.

 

 

Wind elimination off                          Wind elimination on  

Backlight fix instead of face recognition

Unfortunately, the H106 doesn t support the face recognition function. Instead, it supports the stronger backlight fix function than the face recognition under backlight recording. But, the backlight fix unconditionally increases the exposure, so you have to use this under the backlight condition.

 

Backlight fix off                             Backlight fix on

 

 

You can also adjust the exposure manually. To apply this function during recording, you have to go into the internal menu, so it takes a little while. So you decide before recording, then set the exposure to +0.7. When it comes to concert scene gotten concentrated light or objects under dark background, -0.7 is good.

 

 

Exposure fix 0.0

Exposure fix -1.0

Exposure fix +1.0

 

 

Various effects

It has effects such as black and white, sepia, reversion, and art. It s a great function to make a special video. It supports various white balances such as sunny, cloudy, fluorescent, light bulb, and custom. The basic auto balance has quite good color feeling. Because it shows colors well, I don t think you will need various white balances.

black and white                                         sepia        

reversion                                               art      

 

 

Interval recording for dramatic videos

 

The interval recording used to take supernatural thing, natural documentary is to set the interval between taking and recording for a long while and play them as a one video. It s good to take cloud, sun, and flower blooming.

 

 

 

6. 4.7M Photo

 

Good quality 4.7M photo

The image quality of 4.7M photo (2880x1620) made by 1/4.5 inch 2.2M sensor is pretty good. The image is more smooth and clear. Certainly, it s not as good as digital cameras, but the quality of the H106 can make images enough for web and small development. In some way, for portrait, this smooth quality might be better. Shot details for indoor and night decreased, but there s no noise, so the images are smooth. Please keep this in mind the quality of normal picture is much better than the snap shot during the movie recording. The F1.8 still can be used for pictures.

 

 

Indoors

It takes smooth shots without color noise.

Outdoors

of smooth image quality, it doesn t need any edit function.

 

For development, 4.7M size could be a good chose, but for web, the smaller size 1920x1080 is also great, because it can reduce the file size and the detail is still good. For the closeup shot, background goes blur, and the IS functions does its job well in the darknees.

 

IS off (3 max. tele shots)

IS on (3 max. tele shots)

 

 

8 continuous shot per 1 sec

The high speed continuous shot is one of the features of CMOS sensor. It s taken at 1920x1080 size, and 8 shots per 1 sec are taken. It s not very satisfactory that it only takes up to 8 pictures at a time, but it s a still good function for fun, and it doesn t decrease the image quality.

 

 

Internal software: Intelli-Studio

Connecting the H106 to a PC with a USB cable, the intelli-Studio which is an internal software for video editing is automatically installed and run, and it will ask if you transfer data files in the memory.

  

The intelli-studio shows data of PC and camcorder as small thumbnails dividing them into photo / movie. When clicking the thumbnail of a video, the video is played in the small thumbnail. At this moment, if you double click the video or push the play button, the Full-HD is played in a big window.

 

In the edit, you can simply edit them such as effect, minute adjustment, reversion effect, and text/sound insertion.

 

The Sharing is an option to upload the video on a web site such as YouTube, Flicker, etc, so simple upload and direct email transfer are possible.

 

In the camcorder, very simple edits such as cutting videos are possible, so you should use the intelli-Studio allowing users to put various effects and converting. It doesn t support magnificent edit functions, but normal users can easily use it seeing icons. For your information, if you install the Intelli-Studio, the program is running more quickly when connecting a camera, so I recommend installing this.

 

 

New criteria of the Full-HD camcorder

It s so Samsung. H series is the camcorder having the fundamental of camcorders the most among Samsung camcorders. Adopting the high capacity/performance SSD, they suggest a new criteria. Better thing is that they ve focused on the fundamental of camcorders. Not just by various functions which they emphasized, by Full-HD videos based on the OIS lens, they make up their late start. With this, the H series will be the best selling items of Samsung in 2009 with the unique R10.

 

 

 

I hope A little delay in recording interval and dimming focus indoors happing occasionally will be improved for the real product. And they should consider exposure making highlight part taken too bright and 2GB size limit. Those who are used to digital cameras might not satisfied with the photo quality, but as a camcorder adopting 1/4.5 inch sensor, it s good enough, and that they focus on the video more is great.

 

 

Samsung Camcorder s golden age is coming.

The Samsung SMX-F34 became a winner of the TIPA award (2009) in entry level camcorders in Europe. Of course, the market share of Samsung has rise as much as other brands, but the fact Samsung camcorder is on the list means a lot. Samsung s camcorders make HD videos more comfortable to users. It s from the round appearance to the easy interface. Now it has great quality and performance.

 

 

The full HD vivid video records every moment which can t be captured by snap shots. Taking all the moment and enjoy them one by one will be a new remembrance not just reminding the moment by one snap shot. I hope those who haven t experienced a camcorder will experience the Samsung Full-HD camcorder. You will see the new world.