The new Canon DC330 is a camcorder belonging to a dying breed – its primary storage medium is a DVD-rom although it also has a memory SD/SDHC card slot.
Introduction:
With constantly dropping prices of harddiscs and all kinds o memory cards with larger capacities and lower prices it is not surprising that manufacturers more and more often tend to make use them instead of DVDs. So we can see that camcorders recording to DVD are less and less often made and I think that many of you will agree that it is a good thing. The new Canon DC330 is probably one the the last camcorders with standard definition and DVD.
Canon DC330 pros:
+ Image quality
+ Good battery life
+ Very good zoom
+ Decent low light performance
+ Good value for the money
+ ‘Easy’ mode
Canon DC330 cons:
- Films cannot be recorded to SD/SDHC memory card
- Still photos cannot be recorder to DVDs
- Uncomfortable viewfinder
- Poor connectivity
- Poor quality navigation joystick
The design:
Canon DC330 measures 66 x 90 x 126mm (2.6 x 3.5 x 5 inches) and it weighs 380g without the battery so it is not the most pocketable camcorder on the market. It is mainly because of the DVD hatch which has to have its size. The front of the Canon DC330 houses the lens with built-in manual lens cover and a microphone underneath it. There is no flash or a video light in Canon DC330 so not surprisingly the low light performance of the camcorder is rather weak. And although thanks to an interesting feature called LCD light the display can be turned into a sort of video light it is much too weak to do any good and it works well only if you are very near to the filmed object. On the left side of the Canon DC330 you will find the LCD cavity with some controls and ports. The right side of Canon DC330 houses the DVD hatch which has quite innovative, but also rather inconvenient way of opening. Unlike in other Canon and Sony camcorders it does not open vertically, but horizontally which had its influence on the overall design of the camcorder and resulted in less convenient handling than we could expect. At the back of Canon DC330 you will wind the optical viewfinder which has no rubber eyepiece, and does not extend, so if you play to use a bigger battery you may forget about using the viewfinder. The battery compartment is below the viewfinder and close to it are several buttons. At the bottom of Canon DC330 there is the SD/SDHC card slot, battery release switch and the tripod mount.
Performance:
The Canon DC330 is quite a good performer in most circumstanced and it does quite well when compared to some of its competitors. The Canon DC330 produces sharp and well saturated colors while, for example, Sony DCR-DVD910 tended to oversaturate. The Canon DC330 produced also a bit more fine detail than Sony DCR-DVD910. Even in bright light Canon DC330 did better than the competition. So considering its price range the Canon DC330 does a good job with films, but you should remember that it can only record to DVD which limits the length of a single clip which might be a major drawback for some shooters. The camcorder has three different quality settings for video recording: XP (9Mbps), SP (6Mbps), and LP (3Mbps).
When it comes to still images the Canon DC330 can take photos in up to 1152 x 648 which is not too good and most probably your mobile phone will do a better job here. Additionally, the Canon DC330 has no flash and can only save images on memory cards so if you plan to take photos with it you will have to purchase a memory card in addition to DVDs.
Menus / ease of use:
The Canon DC330 menu structure is not a straightforward as some shooters might wish, but after a few hours spent with the camcorder you will get accustomed to it. Following Sony, Canon came up with an Easy mode which turns some settings to auto and blocks manual controls doing everything for you. Although the easy mode is not as good as in let’s say Sony HDR-CX12 but it is good enough. So if you are more advanced user you might tamper with manual settings, whereas novices should be satisfied with the easy mode. That makes Canon DC330 good for everyone, or at least everyone who likes recording to DVDs.
Selected Canon DC330 features and specifications:
Digital Video
Power Consumption TBA
Image Sensor 1/6-inch CCD
Total Pixels Approx. 1,070,000 pixels
Effective Pixels disc: 16:9 – approx. 550,000 pixels (ADV.Z off) 16:9 – approx. 710,000 pixels (ADV.Z on, wide) 16:9 – approx. 410,000 pixels (ADV.Z on tele) card: approx. 800,000 pixels
Maximum recording time Single Layer: 1.4GB – XP: 20min., SP: 30min., LP: 60min. Dual Layer: 2.8GB – XP: 36min., SP. 54min., LP: 108min.
Lens Zoom Ratio: 48x Advanced Zoom 37x Optical/2000x Digital Focal length: f=2.6 – 96.2mm Zoom Speed: Variable/3 Fixed Zoom Speeds Max. F/Stop: f/2.0 – 5.2
Minimum Illumination 2 lx (Night Mode)
Recommended Illumination More than 100 lx
Viewfinder 0.35-inch widescreen EVF (approx. 114,000 pixels)
LCD Screen 2.7-inch widescreen LCD (approx. 112,000 pixels)
Other recently reviewed camcorders:
Sony HDR-CX12, Sony DCR-DVD910, Panasonic SDR-H60, Canon Vixia HF11, Samsung SC-HMX20, Panasonic HDC-HS100.