Samsung U-CA5 5MP with XVid MPEG4 video is a winner

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Product: Digimax U-CA5 camera
Company: Samsung Opto-Electronics America, Inc.
Resolution: 5 megapixels (2594x1944 max)
Zoom: 3x optical + 5x digital
Storage media: SD or MMC (32MB SD included)

Formats: JPEG (photos), MPEG4 XVID (video), and WAV (digital audio recorder mode)
Price: $219 (free ground shipping within the U.S.)

Compatibility: Linux (tested), Mac OS-X, Windows (tested)

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THE MEGAPIXELS RACE in the digicams field is giving us consumers unprecedented value for the money. Since my single-megapixel, first generation Kodak DC3200 camera broke -a useful camera for the time, yet as uninspiring as soviet architecture-, I started looking for candidates for its replacement. I was going to go with a 4MP camera, but two 5MP models from Samsung which recently dropped in price caught my eye: the Digimax A5 series, which breaks the $250 barrier for the 5MP category, and its mysterious sibling: the U-CA5. There are plenty of options in the 5MP, $300 to $370 greenbacks price range, but being a filthy rich freelancer, I wanted to push the price a bit lower and find the best bang for the buck. Luckily for me, I've found what I wanted and more, including linux compatibility, in the Digimax U-CA5.

Both the Samsung A5 and its sibling model, the U-CA5 looked interesting, yet very similar. After some digging around (hey, Samsung, a friendly suggestion: you guys need to clearly differentiate one model from another in the web sites and marketing material!) I found the main technical difference: the A5 records clips with the much less effective "MJPEG" compression codec, which creates much larger file sizes for the same recording time, while the U-CA5 is truly revolutionary: it encodes video into MPEG4 @ 30 frames per second in 640x480 VGA resolution, only limited by the size of the SD memory card inserted. The "movie mode" in older Samsung Digimax cameras -and plenty of models from other manufacturers- only captures short video clips, usually 30 seconds long, limited by the camera's RAM memory; the camera has to pause to copy the captured short video clip from the volatile ram to the SD/MMC or CF memory card. To top it all, the u-CA5 can be the journalist's best friend by also working also as a "digital voice recorder" for interviews, conferences, or confessions while hidden on a pocket. In "digital audio recorder" mode, it operates with the lens closed and allows for instance over 12 hours of recording with just a 512mb stick - make sure you carry a few extra batteries as well as lots of caffeine if you want to use it that long!-.

Back to the revolutionary video: as explained above, there's no old fashioned "time limit" for video clips in the U-CA5, as it can do direct-to-card captures, and that's the feature that sold me to it instead of the slightly cheaper "Digimax A5". I'm no real expert on cameras' optics, and my previous experience is limited to the first generation Kodak DC3200 and the two-megapixel Canon A20. So I'll let you be the judge as far as image quality (and movie quality) goes. Look at the link below this article along with the last picture for a selection of sample photographs taken with this camera over my one-month+ intensive test on the streets of Buenos Aires city.

The Digimax U-CA5 is smaller than what you'd believe by web pics. About the size and weight of a mobile phone.

Introduction

What first strikes you about the U-CA5 is the complete and polished package you get: the packaging is perfect, including not one but two 135 page printed user manuals (English and Spanish, the later a perfect translation not showing any of the usual poor translation pitfalls), the USB connection cable, the TV connection cable, the drivers and software CD, a 32MB Sandisk SD card, a folded "quick guide" and the rechargeable LI-ion battery pack and charger/ac adapter. The battery, which is a 3.7v Li-ion pack (1130mAh) that slides in a side door arrived with no charge, so I had to fully charge it before the initial shots. Luckily for me, the "charger" or power supply is a lightweight, multi-voltage, auto switching 110-250v adapter. Kudos to Samsung for recognizing the realities of this inter-connected world and taking world-travelers in consideration.
The Digimax U-CA5 box, and its contents

Second surprise: the camera is VERY lightweight, at around 130 grams (about 4 and a half ounces, according to Google) without the battery. My inexact, old fashioned kitchen analogue scale says the fully equipped camera weights between 160 and 180g. In comparison, both my old Kodak and the Canon A20 both with heavy AA sized regular batteries end up being a brick -or an anvil if you prefer- to carry around. Third surprise: it finds in the hand nicely. And it's way smaller than it looks on the web site pics. Perhaps the "UC" in the model name means "ultra compact"? Samsung is not telling, but here's a hint: It should!. Fourth surprise: the screen is bright and colourful, even when taking pictures outside in a sunny day (I'm sure you've heard of them, Londoners). Fifth surprise: the menus are a piece of cake to navigate and learn, in fact, there's little if any learning involved, it's all very intuitive. If you're a child at heart like me, the World around you will quickly vanish, and you'll find yourself endlessly playing with your new toy around the house, the neighbourhood, and the city. You'll miss all your deadlines and your boss will be mad at you. [no comments, please, dear Ed ;)]

Evolution of the Species: Kodak DC3200, Canon Powershot A20, and Samsung Digimax U-CA5

The included 32mb SD card is barely adequate to take a few test shots and "learn how the camera works", as only 11 photos will fit on it at the maximum resolution. For serious use, I'd recommend you get a 256MB SD stick as the bare minimum, with 512MB recommended and 1GB if you want to use it as a camcorder replacement. Now the good news... flash memory prices have dropped a lot recently: I've "fully equipped" my new Digimax U-CA5 with the lowest priced SD sticks I could find. Surprisingly for me, they're not from the usual suspects, Sandisk or Viking, but Kingston, at $37 per 512MB SD stick. The Kingston 1GB SD stick is $66. Disclaimer: Both Amazon.com US prices with free ground shipping, at time of this writing. "HEY, I paid $100 for a 64mb Sandisk CF card back in '01!" - I hear you all crying. Let me tell you, I share your grief -and the same d*mn expensive 64mb CF card in a drawer as well ;-).

Carrying the U-CA5 in the secure belt attached pouch is a pleasure. Here, compared with the Canon A20's carrying bag.

The user's manual says "the contents can vary depending on the sales region", and some things like optional TV set-top "cradle" -for even easier charging and connection to your TV-, a keychain-style "remote control" for self shots and the "carrying pouch" are shown with dotted lines as "optional" which may not be included. Luckily for me, it seems the US sales region includes the carrying pouch free of charge, because it was included with my Amazon purchased unit. With it, you can carry your camera everywhere effortlessly, you won't attract the attention of pickpockets, thieves or people around you, because it simply looks like a mobile phone inside its carrying bag in your waist line (or lack thereof).

The buttons to operate it are the best I've seen in a while. Most operations are handled through the multi-purpose "4-buttons star" next to the LCD with the "menu" blue button in the middle. This reminds me of ancient joysticks and can be used for specific functions while taking a picture -flash on/off, record voice memo for pic, toggle flash on/off, set macro mode on/off- or simply to do what you'd do with a 2-axis cross shaped control: move up/down, left and right on the on-screen menu structure. The blue button at the centre of the "star" is the "menu button". Perfectly located buttons control the zooming and out, while "secondary" buttons that never get in the way handle some features used less often: playback mode, image info, "album view", or "image delete". Plus, a small textured "wing flap" shape in the right end of the camera allows your thumb finger to have perfect grip while the middle finger grabs the other side and the index finger handles the shutter button. Let me repeat: this camera has perfect grip, both when aimed single handed in regular landscape or vertical (portrait) orientation. A sliding switch at the top right corner, next to the switches the camera between the Photos, Movie recording, and voice recorder mode. Plus, the power button is exactly of the right size, shape, location and strength. In other words: there's virtually zero chance of the camera "accidentally" turning on or off by a finger slipping into the wrong place or something else pressing the button while transporting it. The 1.8-inch LCD screen is more than adequate and the user interface uses big fonts and icons so it's perfectly readable. The U-CA5 passes the ergonomics test with an A+.

Let the games begin

I decided to start with the more dangerous and potentially troublesome tests first. So I took my linux-running Gateway 7422 AMD64 notebook, loaded Sun's Java Desktop System linux ( R2), and after the Gnome desktop appeared, plugged the camera using the USB 2.0 cable. Lo and behold, a new "Samsung Digital Camera" icon appeared in "This computer". I opened the folders and navigated to the thumbnails showing my digital photographs, voice recordings, and mpeg4/avi movies. I loaded MPlayer and played the video clip. Opened the JPEGs and printed a few. Success!.
Linux compatibility test passed with flying colours on the Gateway 7422 running Sun JDS

Next came the windows test. Detection of the camera was handled automatically by WinXP SP2 as expected (the camera's SD stick is identified as a mass storage device), and the bundled software was easily installed with no problems. The XVID codec, version 1.0.2 and dated December 2004 is included in the XVID folder/subdir of the drivers/software CD. I used the opportunity to install the codec, and to later pay a visit to the XVID.ORG web page to check and download the latest non-beta version (which is 1.0.3). A sample video clip is also included so you can check your computer's media player and codec installation before attempting to play the videos created with the Digimax.

I won't talk much about the windows bundled software, screenshots are included on my personal web site, along with sample photos and videos. Suffice to say there are three bundled apps: Digimax Viewer, Digimax Reader, and PhotoImpression 4. Digimax viewer is a simple photo browsing software, like a subset of Google's Picasa, but without the powerful search and indexing features, much lighter and faster. More than enough for the casual image browsing. PhotoImpression is an OK photo editor, with a somewhat awkward and cumbersome user interface - at least designed by someone who doesn't like following user interface design conventions. It's OK. I'd use something else. There's plenty of graphics software and if I were one of the guys at Samsung, I'd just take the company's embrace of open source technology a bit further and not only bundle the open source XVID codec, but also bundle the GIMP image editor. Or why not, the Gimpshop version which mimics the popular Photoshop user interface and menus whenever possible. Gimpshop is running on Mac OS-X and Linux, and has even been ported recently to Windows. And it wouldn't cost Samsung a dime!. But hey, WTF do I know. I'm just a very opinionated person with almost 20 years of keyboard tapping and software use.

Digimax reader is... surprisingly... an OCR PROGRAM!. Apparently someone thought that you'd use your camera to take pictures of books, and then OCR'd the text from those, instead of doing the right thing and using a SCANNER. Well, apparently there's an use for digital cameras as text-capture devices, because even the camera includes a manual "text mode" image setting. I'm still scratching my head on this issue. Finally, Mac OS-X compatibility of this camera was not tested. When and if I want to escape the "Redmond prison", I want the real free thing, not Job's other private little closed world, a slightly more comfortable cradle. Anyway, since MacOS-X is mentioned by Samsung in their manual, I'll take their word for it. It must work!. In the rare case you've got trouble playing back XVID videos on a Mac, my advice is to try the "swiss army knife" of video players: the open source "VLC Media Player" by the VideoLan project which plays everything you throw at it. There's a Mac OS-X version here. I hope no rabid Mac user has read the above comment about his holiness, Mr. Steve Case.

The little details for tech-heads

Non-techies feel free to skip over this section and jump straight to the "the good, the bad and the ugly" below. Nerds pay attention: the Digimax U-CA5 camera has the following image modes and resolutions available: 2592x1944 (full 5MP), 2272x1704 (3.8MP), 2048x1536 (3.1MP), 1600x1200 (1.9MP), 1024x768 and 640x480, with detail levels which can be set at "super fine", "fine", and "normal". Movies can be captured at VGA resolution (640x480) or 320x240 if you want to increase the recordable time twofold. While the movies are saved with the ".avi" extension, every techie knows that "avi" is very meaningless... it's a container format. The real key is the CODEC used inside the AVI, that is, the compression method. I was shocked and happily surprised when I ran the AVI FourCC checker on the Digimax U-CA5 created video files and found that it uses the OPEN SOURCE XVID codec, yes all created videos include the "XVID" 4 letter code, so they must be XVID. Kudos to Samsung for a great move!. XVID is an open source implementation of MPEG4, while others like DIVX are proprietary and also commercial (costs $$$ both for the device manufacturer and often the consumer as well, to licence).

This choice of XVID is a warranty of cross-platform compatibility for this camera when used outside the MS-juggernaut stronghold. Hint: I haven't tried it, but if you convert videos on your PC to the right format -XVID-with-mpa-audio- and rename the files accordingly, it should be even possible to copy full movies to a SD stick and then watch those on your camera while on a boring bus trip, hence turning the U-CA5 into a portable video player. Let me know if anyone achieves this. For those interested, the U-CA5 uses MPEG4 (XVID at 30 frames per second or 15 fps -user selectable-) for video, and MPEG1 (mpa) for audio (mono at 22.050 Khz, 64kbit bit rate). And for those who are wondering... when you use the camera in "digital voice recorder" mode, audio is saved as a .WAV file, with the following details: 8 bit, mono, 11 Khz, with CCITT u-Law compression, a standard once designed by the now ITU-T for phone communications. This is what allows it to achieve over 12 hours of recording time saved on a 512MB stick. While encoding directly to mp3 would have been nice, this is no big deal for me, as it works better than the analogue tape recorders I used to carry around.

This is what you see while aiming and looking at the U-CA5 LCD display

Here's a bonus trick I've learned in my month+ of testing and almost everyday use: if you want to use the playback mode to browse pics on the camera's LCD -or plugged to a TV- but do not want the lens to come out -not even for a brief time before it detects you're in playback mode-, you can put the top mode selection switch into the "voice recorder" position, power on the unit (the lens won't come out at all in this mode), and then press the "Play" button to switch to "photo/movie browsing" mode, there you have, photo browsing on the lcd screen with the lens sleeping undisturbed.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

The Good:

• VERY easy to use
• Ultra-compact and ultra lightweight
• Perfect placement of buttons/controls
• Bright, colourful LCD display
• Allows one to add voice snippets to each image
• The ability to function as a digital audio recorder is an added bonus (allows over 12 hours on a 512mb SD memory).
• Both PAL and NTSC output to TV
• Great, fast zoom
• Excelent macro (5 cm = 1.96 inches)
• Records full length, non-stop video, only limited by the size of the SD or MMC memory used in a nice 640x480 quality.
• Video recording uses open source XVID mpeg4 codec.
• Compatible with Windows and MacOS-X (officially) and Linux (tested with Sun JDS Linux R2)
• Nice, complete printed manuals included (both English and Spanish versions)
• Secure belt attached pouch with velcro included
• Because of the above, unless you take it out, unit passes as a cell phone to everyone
• Colour, size and non-shiny aspect of the device (which comes in three colours, grey, red, and blue) doesn't attract the look of everyone around you.
• Plays back movies in full mpeg4 glory on the device (or on the TV if plugged to one)
• Manual modes include:
• Built in, on-camera image rotation and photo resizing using easy to follow menus
• "Special effects" like framing
• All needed cables included
• Multi-voltage (100-250v auto switching) battery charger (hooray!)
• Can be mounted on a tripod
• Remote-initiated or self-timer for self shoots
• Optional "digital image stabilizer" for movie recording
• Advanced features like focus lock, voice memos can be attached to every photo, scene modes (Night, Portrait, Children, Landscape, Close-up, Sunset, Dawn, Backlight, Fireworks, Text, and Beach&Snow), and manual shutter speed in nigh scene mode up to 16s).
• Selectable UI/button/shooting sounds (can be completely eliminated for silent operation)
• Auto power off (can be toggled between off, 1 min, 3 min)
• Multi-language user interface: on-display menus can be toggled between english, spanish, french, deutsch, italian, swedish, danish, portuguese, russian, finnish, chinese, japanese, korean, arabic, and a couple others I can't identify. (!) :)
• User-selectable date imprint on images (including date format)
• Menus/user interface on LCD is "transparent" so you can "see through it" and continue watching the action you're about to shoot even while moving between the menus
• Red-eye reduction mode
• SF (Safety Flash) mode allows you to get a good image in low light conditions without the use of the flash
• Excellent single hand operation and grip
• orange-coloured AF lamp eases aiming in low light conditions when not looking at the lcd screen
• Can print images directly from the camera to a compatible USB printer, with no PC involved ( PictBridge).
• Nice optional "cradle" designed to be put on top of a TV set and act both as a charger and for audio/video connection.

The Bad:

• There's a keychain-style pocket "remote control" for self shots. Sadly, it's an optional accessory not included. It would be a nice addition to the default set.
• If you use the SF (safety flash) mode in 2048x1536 mode -or above-, the captured image size is changed "automagically" to 1600x1200, but you're not informed of this on the LCD screen, just in the printed manual (RTFM, I guess!). This left me scratching my head a couple times, since I couldn't figure why the camera was getting 1600x1200 images while it was set at the maximum 2594x1944 5MP resolution. Changing the flash mode from SF to "Auto" or "On" (-or Off for that matte)- allowed the camera to always get full resolution 5MP images at 2594x1944, solving the mystery.
• The included 32mb camera is good for a handful of pics. But you should get a 512mb SD stick at the very least to fully appreciate this camera, or a 1GB one if you want to do serious (long) movie recording.

The Ugly:

• Are you nuts? Haven't found a single that deserves a big complaint. I love it!.

The Verdict

Of course it's still a 5MP consumer camera, but I think it has enough to please even old grandma who only wants to push a button, and the most demanding techies like myself who need the ability to set it on a tripod, taking close macro shoots, as well as record the occasional video or long speech with its voice recorder mode. The macro allowing up to 1.96-inch shots is a joy to use in reviews and technical pics!. MPEG4 movie recording in the open source XVID codec is also a good move by Samsung. Including the codec on the product CD is even better!. Finally, the "non-shiny" appearance of the camera -unlike those from Canon or Sony that often scream "look, here, steal me"- along with its small size and belt secured carrying pouch with Velcro top makes it go unnoticed on daily life, disguised and looking as a regular mobile phone. The single hand perfect grip and operation, along with the added bonus of using it as a digital audio recorder, make it a killer. Menus available in about a dozen languages, PAL/NTSC tv output, two printed manuals (english/spanish) and an auto-switching 110v/220v charger are just the icing of the cake for the travelling "World photographer". Please note that this camera comes in three colours: blue, grey, and red. I've got the grey one.

This unit gets 4.5 Fernandos in my one-to-five personal rating scale. I could have given it five, but then people would think I'm biased and that I love my U-CA5. ;). µ

See also:

Dozens of additional review pics and extra photos of Buenos Aires city by Fernando
Korea is insisting we do a Press Release