Samsung H200 Full HD Camcorder with 20x Optical Zoom (Black) (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I purchased this camera with the intention of recording live slide presentations and chalk-on-blackboard presentations. I was positively rewarded for my decision. The captured image is bright and crisp enough to read the writing on the board quite clearly, even when used at the lowest possible resolution. My problem with this is that the lever that controls the zoom doesn't allow for greater precision and very often it becomes noticeably difficult to get the exact amount of zoom you want. That aside, the camera is quite handy, not heavy at all, and feels well built. The battery life is quite long with over 2 hours of non-stop video recording. The layout of the controls is ergonomic and not difficult to master quickly. I haven't tested this camera outdoors as I've only used it indoors, but most of the reviews provided here attest to its amazing outdoor image quality. Let me suggest that people do a firmware update as soon as they get this camera as it will fix minor technical issues with the bundled firmware. To do this, go to the Samsung website... The video type generated by the camera is mp4, which is a problem if you want avi video files supported by Windows Movie Maker and the most other video editing software. You can easily fix it by downloading a free converter program from the web. Format Factory in such freeware, and Format Factory does it in batch mode, which means you can convert many different mp4 files at once. There are other video file converter programs online, but I found Format Factory to be the best. Format Factory will also convert mp4 files to wmv, but when using the resulting file in Vista's Windows Movie Maker, I found that the resulting video would become silent after a few seconds even though the resulting wmv file released by Format Factory had sound, something quite confusing. Anyway, I highly recommend this camcorder. I would have rated it 5 stars out of 5, but due to the zoom lever and its lack of precise zoom adjustment, I only give this camcorder a 4 out of 5. I highly recommend this camcorder. ------ After 5 months of use: I have continued to use the camera to film live presentations and am impressed with the quality of the video. I must add that even after degrading them for easy uploading to Youtube, the quality is quite good. I'm used to filming in sd (standard definition) and the result is quite acceptable. I've also done outdoor videos and I have no complaints. Recently I closed an interview with a photographer friend and he found the quality and sound quite impressive, so much so that he would love to get one. Let me point out that you should do a firmware upgrade for the camera by going to the Samsung website. . I suggest you get the fastest possible SD card for recording. Regarding zooming, let me add that by using the screen, zooming issues with precision are greatly reduced and should not be a problem.