... My first choices were the Panasonic NVGS120 – 3ccd at under £450, and the tiny Canon MVX20i and 25i. Both, I am sure, would have given a better picture quality, but the Panasonic had awful picture stabilisation and I just couldn’t hold it steady, while the canon 20/25i ran at least £600 – ... Read review
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Advantages: Image Quality! and size Disadvantages: well, it is £400 odd
...under £450, and the tiny Canon MVX20i and 25i. Both, I am sure, would have given a better picture quality, but the Panasonic had awful picture stabilisation and I just couldn’t hold it steady, while the canon 20/25i ran at least £600 – a little more than I would chose to spend! Cameras are available for just over £100, but you just could not expect a really good quality picture for that price.
Which all led me to the Canon MVX200i. ... ...to the “Digic DV” that Canon uses, but I wont try to explain what this is as I have no idea. The grass looks so green, the picture is so colourful! It looks a bit rough if you try to follow fast moving objects – I guess camcorders are designed more for slowly panning around – but I am sure I am going to get some really good footage on my next holiday! In more or less dark conditions; don’t bother. For this I guess you would want the 250i’s Super ... more
I looked long and hard before buying a camcorder – I wanted to find a balance between price and image quality. My first choices were the Panasonic NVGS120 – 3ccd at under £450, and the tiny Canon MVX20i and 25i. Both, I am sure, would have given a better picture quality, but the Panasonic had awful picture stabilisation and I just couldn’t hold it steady, while the canon 20/25i ran at least £600 – a little more than I would chose to spend! Cameras are available for just over £100, but you just could not expect a really good quality picture for that price.
Which all led me to the Canon MVX200i.
The MVX200i is the bottom model of 3 options – the 200i, the 200 and the 250i. All are basically the same (ie the same lens, casing etc) but the more you pay the more you get. The 250i offers additional zoom, a super + night mode, and things like dv-in. And sure enough these are things you may miss with the 200i – the night mode is not brilliant and while you can output the video to your PC, you cannot put the edited video directly back on to the camcorder’s mini dv tape. But do you want to pay the extra £100 or so? I chose not to.
So what do you get?
The 200i is a nice size, definitely portable. In fact I am rather impressed with how small it is, although there are smaller camcorders out there. Even more importantly I can hold it without shaking. An absolute must is to go and hold the camera. I find that some camcorders are comfortable and easy to hold still, and some are not. I suspect this is a personal thing depending on the size of your hand. If you gain only one thing from this review it should be the importance of getting a shop to power up the camcorder so you can see how much it shakes when you hold it!
The 200i takes SD cards to save 1.3mp photos too, and comes with an 8mp card (enough for 8 photos at the very highest resolution). The photos are decidedly disappointing when viewed on a pc screen compared to my elderly 2 mega pixel camera – I imagine they would be pretty bad if you tried to print them! But this is probably true of all camcorders unless you want to pay the extra and get one of the new 2 or even 3 mega pixel camcorders.
The menu; you might have to practice and read the manual to make sense of it all, but once you’ve figured it out everything seems in a good place tog et to.
The image quality; This is what I wanted most, and I am impressed! Inside in normal lighting the image is perfectly acceptable. It won’t blow your mind away, but it is just plain “fine” – no problems. Outside the colours are so much more vibrant than I had ever hoped for! I suspect this may be in part to the “Digic DV” that Canon uses, but I wont try to explain what this is as I have no idea. The grass looks so green, the picture is so colourful! It looks a bit rough if you try to follow fast moving objects – I guess camcorders are designed more for slowly panning around – but I am sure I am going to get some really good footage on my next holiday! In more or less dark conditions; don’t bother. For this I guess you would want the 250i’s Super Night Mode +, but do you want to record with all the lights turned off?
Plus you also get “true 16:9 mode” which means you turn it to 16:9 mode, the picture gets thinner but wider and your video then looks right on a widescreen TV!
So, all in all, I am happy. Very happy. There is no doubt in my mind that I bought the right camcorder, and you can’t ask more than that!
What would I change? It would be a huge bonus to put edited video from the PC back on to the Mini-DV tape. And I must admit that the manual is a bit rubbish at times, as is their webiste. But thats pretty minor all in all!
Price; I was going to buy this from Amazon, but for an extra £15 odd I got a free tape, case and spare battery worth £40. Total cost £429 from ukdigital.co.uk (friendly place, recommended).
The hidden costs; Of course you don’t get everything you need. With the above extra package you get the camcorder, 2 batteries, 1 minidv tape, remote control, 8mb memory card, lens cap, usb lead for transferring photos to the PC, case, lead for charging the battery, basic software, and a lead & scart for viewing the video on a tv. There might have been a few other things chucked in but that is most of it. What you have to buy; 1 mini dv tape wont last you a life time; £10 for a pack of 5 off ebay. There is no firewire stuff included, so no way of transferring video to your PC; Firewire card and cable (6 pin to 4pin) from £15 ish (presuming your PC doesn’t have firewire. Also you may want to get software like Ulead Video Studio thrown in). You may want to buy a UV lens which will protect your camcorder lens from damage and improve video quality in bright sunlight - £10 ish from Ebay (I haven’t received mine yet, so the review is all without the effect of the lens!). Finally you may want to soup-up your PC – you will need a vaguely reasonable PC to edit video without huge delays, but it seems to take less power than what a lot of other people say on the internet.
There we go. I think I have typed for long enough now! Hopefully this will be of help for someone; if so please leave me a rating, or even a comment! Thanks!
The MVX200i combines form and function to great effect. It has a compact ergonomic shape and an impressive specification that includes a powerful zoom and the ability to shoot stills. With a sleek, compact body that fits easily in your hand, the MVX200i is ergonomically designed and beautifully balanced. It's easy to operate, with key controls positioned at your fingertips. The MVX200i provides superior image resolution thanks to a 1.33 megapixel CCD. Whether recording movies or stills, images are consistently sharp and detailed. Canon's remarkable DIGIC DV processor means recorded colors are just as you remember them. Blue skies aren't washed out, green grass is natural, while 'hot' colors such as reds and oranges lose none of their intensity. Importantly, skin tones remain beautifully neutral. 14x optical zoom gives you a large magnification range. This increases to 280x in combination with digital zoom. And you won't have to worry about image-blur either, since the camcorder is equipped with Canon's unique Image Stabilizer. Virtually eliminating the effects of camera-shake, Image Stabilization is so effective you can even shoot from a moving car with no noticeable loss of definition. Night Mode means you can shoot at night - the camcorder automatically adjusting to the darkness. The MVX200i lets you shoot superb stills in the same way as a digital camera. Photos are genuine digital shots in that a mechanical shutter is used - eliminating the blur that's a common occurrence in conventional camcorder stills. You can also shoot stills at the same time as you're shooting a movie. Printing your digital stills is completely straightforward. With the help of a Print/Share button that lights up to indicate successful connection, all you do is connect the MVX200i to a Canon printer (or any PictBridge-compatible printer) and select the image you want and print. There's no need for a PC. You can make up to 240-minute long Motion JPEG recordings and transfer them to MultiMedia or SD Memory card. It's then a simple matter to send the recordings to friends and family via e-mail.
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