Not a bad budget camcorder.
DXG’s A85V falls into an odd market niche. It looks like a standard, hand-held camcorder, complete with flip-out LCD display. Even the feature set lies somewhere between a standard camcorder and a Flip-style camcorder. Let’s first take a look at the physical specs, then take a look at how it fares when shooting 1080p video.
The key features include full support for HD video (1080p resolution at 30fps.) The lens is a 12x optical zoom, supplemented by 10x digital zoom. We generally avoid using digital zoom, since you lose resolution, so the 12x optical zoom is welcome. That 12x translates to an effective zoom of 36-428mm (based on 35mm SLR format). Video is captured in H.264 .MOV file format. The sensor consists of a 1/2.3-inch CMOS 10-megapixel unit, which can capture still images at full resolution. The A85V also supports a 12-megapixel, interpolated resolution for still captures.
The DXG-A85V is a conventional camcorder with an unconventional price tag.
The video resolutions this camcorder supports are a little odd: There’s support for 1080p at 30fps, but not 1080p/24 or 1080i. It also handles 720p at 30- and 60 fps, as well as lower resolutions for standard-def shooting. The A85V also includes a stereo microphone, but it’s built almost flush into the camera body, and it didn’t always capture at listenable levels. There’s no provision for using external microphones. There’s also a built-in strobe, but it’s fairly anemic.
NTSC and PAL formats are user selectable, as are the 50- or 60Hz refresh rates. External interfaces are via HDMI (for video) and USB (for file transfers) While the A85V includes 128MB of built in flash, that’s not enough for extended recording, so you’ll likely want to add an SD card; SDHC is fully supported, up to 32MB (but be prepared to your fingernail or a knife blade to release the card). The battery is Lithium-Ion and slides into a slot; unlike pricier camcorders with external battery mounts, you can’t add a larger battery for longer shoots (although you can attach a USB charger for continuous power).
Overall, the feature set looks pretty good for a $319 (MSRP) high-definition camcorder that’s available online as low as $249. The lack of microphone input is problematic; then again, it’s not something we expect to find on a low-cost camcorder. The more important question is how well does it shoot? The answer: mediocre. We’re not comparing the DXGA85V to Canon Vixia HFS-100, which costs three times as much, but we’re focusing on the basics here, not any enhanced features.
The DXG-A85V has an SD slot, but extricating an SD card from it is a frustrating experience.
It’s worth talking about the user interface for changing settings. The DXG-A85V uses a straightforward and uncluttered touch-screen interface; of course, it’s uncluttered because it doesn’t deliver a lot of control: There are no programmed modes—such as “action” or “portrait,” for example.
Auto white balance isn’t particularly good. Varying light sources resulted in noticeable variances in color balance, something not so noticeable with the Canon. Low-light noise is actually pretty good, however, but you should be prepared to alter white balance or be prepared to “fix it in post” if need be. Note that the camcorder lacks any provision for manually setting white balance, so fixing it when you’re editing video may end up being your only option.
When shooting outdoor action scenes, DXG’s camcorder tracks pans pretty well, but the colors seemed a little muted. The green from an artificial-turf football field looked washed out and lacked detail when compared to the Canon.
The biggest problem was autofocus, particularly in relatively low light conditions. Even with high-contrast images, we experienced a lot of focus hunting with indoor lighting conditions, and cases where the autofocus just didn’t lock on to a static, high-contrast image. In brightly lit, outdoor conditions, autofocus still hunted a little more than we would have liked. Overall bit rates seemed adequate for 1080p, 30fps shooting, however.
In the end, a conventional camcorder that can shoot 1080p video and is available for under $300 sounds like a terrific deal. Just be aware of the limitations before you buy.
