Samsung HMX-R10

Motion (7.6)

The Samsung HMX-R10 has a couple of frame rates for recording HD video. There's the regular 1080/50i frame rate, which is the traditional recording rate for HD camcorders. You can also shoot using a 1080/25p mode that offers a slower, more film-like aesthetic. We found the R10's 25p mode to be rather choppy, although it didn't have the trailing and interlacing issues found with 50i footage. If you want to record at lower resolutions, the R10 has a 720/50p mode that is very smooth and also has very little trailing. (More on how we test motion.)

The motion captured by the Samsung R10 at 50i wasn't fantastic, but it was roughly on par with other mid-range camcorders like the Panasonic HDC-HS20. There was quite a bit of artefacting in its image and you could definitely notice it—especially when filming scenes with lots of movement and detail. The video was smooth for the most part, and the image was sharp, but there was a good amount of trailing in our test footage. We also noticed some pixellation in the RGB pin-wheel in our test and some haloing around the edge of the grey scale wheel. The 25p mode was very choppy, but it wasn't much worse than Panasonic's 25p Digital Cinema mode or the 25p option on Canon's HD camcorders.

Samsung HMX-R10 300fps Mode
Click Here for large HD Version

The HMX-R10 has two slow motion settings that record using high-speed frame rates to produce extremely slow video during playback. The camcorder has a 600fps and 300fps option and both capture very low resolution video (416 x 240 for the 300fps mode and 192 x 108 for the 600fps option). Since the video quality of these slow motion modes is so poor, we don't recommend using them all that often. They can be fun to use with fast-moving action, but the video will look awful when viewed on a large screen. Clips also have a shooting limit of 10 seconds. We also couldn't get any 600fps videos to play on a computer, although the videos played fine on the camcorder or with the camcorder connected to a television.

We loved the motion on the GZ-X900 from JVC—it was smooth, crisp, and had very little artefacting. The camcorder doesn't offer any alternative frame rates at Full HD, but it does have similar slow motion options to the Samsung HMX-R10. The X900 can record 600fps, 300fps, or 120fps video, with each offering a varying degree of slow motion (and each shot at low resolution). You can see examples of the GZ-X900's slow motion video here.

The Sanyo VPC-HD2000 is a unique camcorder because it records HD video using a 60fps progressive frame rate (most consumer camcorders record interlaced, 50i HD video). This progressive frame rate allows for smoother motion and less blur when the video is viewed on an HDTV that can handle a 1080p signal. The Sanyo still has plenty of artefacting, however, so its motion isn't the best we've ever seen. A 60i and 30p mode are also included on the HD2000, both of which can be used to record full HD video.

The Panasonic HDC-HS20 rendered very similar motion to the Samsung R10. Both had quite a bit of artefacting in their captured videos, while both also produced fairly smooth motion. Since both camcorders offer one additional frame rate (25p), the only real difference between the two is the Samsung's slow motion options.

Video Sharpness (10.59)

The HMX-R10's video sharpness results are very good for a mid-range camcorder. This isn't all that surprising, considering the camcorder has a huge 1/2.33-inch CMOS sensor and a total video pixel count of 5.3 megapixels. The camcorder measured a horizontal sharpness of 700 lw/ph and vertical sharpness of 650 lw/ph in our test. Along with being above average for a mid-range camcorder, these are the same scores than the Sanyo VPC-HD2000 measured and better than the Panasonic HDC-HS20. Still, many high-end camcorders have captured sharper images than what the HMX-R10 showed us. The JVC GZ-X900, for example, recorded a whopping 1000 lw/ph in our horizontal sharpness test. (More on how we test video sharpness.)

Video Sharpness Score Comparisons		Compare the JVC GZ-HM400 to the JVC GZ-X900
		Compare the JVC GZ-HM400 to the Panasonic HDC-HS20
		Compare the JVC GZ-HM400 to the Panasonic HDC-HS20