We were fairly impressed with the Camileo S20’s video recordings in both 1080p and 720p modes. Motion was smooth, colours were vivid and, in good light, noise levels were low. Unsurprisingly, night shots did suffer from noise, and the built-in video light was pretty ineffective - which isn’t surprising, when you consider that it only offers 11 lux illumination when the Camileo S20 is 50cm away from a subject, and just 1.2 lux at 1.5m distance. Resolution was not as sharp as we’ve seen on a few other models, but lest we forget the price of this camcorder.
Great value, but menu navigation can be a bit of a fiddle
With the time lapse feature you can select an interval of one frame every one, three or five seconds and here, the mini tripod came in very handy. It’s great fun to use and even a 24-hour time lapse recording in WVGA mode will only notch up a 114MB file, so it doesn’t use that much memory card space. Motion detection too, worked well, although be warned, just moving the Camileo S20 is enough to activate it. Audio quality was pretty decent, although wind noise is noticeable.
As a still camera, the Camileo S20 is adequate. There was little difference between standard and ‘high quality’ modes but in good light it can deliver reasonable results. Interior shots were a little soft and noise was noticeable just avoid the high ISO settings, which simply boost noise levels without helping much in low light. Likewise, the 4x digital zoom is best ignored, as this simply reduces picture quality.
Verdict
When you consider what you get for your dosh, the Camileo S20 offers very good value for money. It’s compact, includes HD video, has loads of useful accessories and offers a pretty good performance. Non-Windows users would be wise to check thoroughly its compatibility, as the workarounds maybe too much bother. Yet those among the MS faithful looking for a budget HD pocket camcorder should certainly give this model some thought. ®
More Camcorder Reviews...
Sony HDR-TG7VE |
Toshiba Camileo P30 |
Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2000 |
Pure Flip Mino HD |
Toshiba Camileo S20
COMMENTS
A budget camera, yes.
I bought one of these and it is pants.
Not what I would call HD quality, my pocket stills camera takes better video and the zoom on the S20 is woefull.
re: Why not 24p mode as well
Off the top of my head, I would say because of the following:
Problems with fast motion – as a format 24p handles this less well that shooting at more frames per second. You really need to plan your shooting in order to avoid choppy footage, which means it’s not great for capturing ‘the moment’, which is why many buy this kind of camera.
Lack of editing software that can natively handle 24p – really you’re looking at pro software that can handle it well. Similarly how many consumers will have the hardware to burn blu-ray?
Cheapness of the camera – at this price, I doubt many are seeing the camera as a long-term investment and therefore aren’t looking at a ‘future-proof’ buy. The price point is low enough to be a strong impulse buy when the latest and greatest version comes out.
24p, what? – I suspect a lot of consumers don’t know what hell that is, let alone care.
The way users output footage – although some of these cameras produce great results and would be suitable for professional uses (especially if there’s an external mic input like the Zi8), an awful lot of users will using it to email clips or uploading them to YouTube (more than a few cameras are marketed as being great for YouTube).
Re: your last point (“Or do movie-makers want to leave their precious footage on a more delicate, easily deletable, flash memory card that will fill up, or a hard drive that could crash?”), well as we all know every computer user takes a robust approach to such things…
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I got the sister model of this camcorder last year on release... its awful it may technically be HD, but in 1080i your hard pressed to notice it over the compression and interlace errors, the colours too were crazy! try videoing a 2 yearold on his new trampoline in the sunshine... nope! it worked ok for almost static subjects though! in the end, sent it back waited a few months and got the kodak, which is much better, but not a patch on the titanium sony thing my mum bought!!
overall, the kodak is passable, the Tosh - an SD camcorder produces a better image!
Why not 24p mode as well - for easier archive to blu-ray?
Why not 24p mode as well - for easier archive to blu-ray?
Manufacturers still haven't seemed to have got it into their thick heads: They don't all offer full true hd at 1920x1080 at 24p - 24 full frames per second.
24 is blu-ray compatible which means less transcoding work needed on the original footage, compared with a non-24p format such as 30p reviewed here.
Blu-ray offers a final, permanent (debate about longevity about the chemical compounds aside), solid-state, reasonably robust and portable medium to archive and share your precious footage.
Or do movie-makers want to leave their precious footage on a more delicate, easily deletable, flash memory card that will fill up, or a hard drive that could crash?
