Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, SC-MX20 users! Hope your camera helps you preserve your awesome memories.

No more posts.

Honestly, I'm tapped out of ideas for this blog. I've built The Fix and put it out there. I've tried to give some helpful hints, but honestly, I'm not a photographer. I'm just a dad with a camera. I point, shoot, burn to dvd and put it up on youtube. Other than that, I don't really know what else to say. So if you have something you want to talk about, let me know. Otherwise, I'm just going to let this blog be the home page for The Fix.

Laters.

fireworks

Just wanted to make a quicky post about filming fireworks.

The Samsung SC-MX20 is not really built to film fireworks. I tried last night using the cnite setting on 1/15, but that sets the exposure way too high.

If you try to manually set the exposure, you might have better luck, but the shutter speed is still going to be too high. Once you set the cnite, you can't change any other settings. Bummer.

Try it. Experiment. Let me know what you get. I hope to paste mine in sometime today.

Depth of Field Effect, can it be done?

You've seen the use of depth of field all over the place. It's kind of an artsy way of presenting something on film. More accurately, it mimics the way your eyes work when you focus on something. What you are focused on is clear, while everything else kind of blurs. This is especially noticeable if you look at something close, like the steering wheel of your car, then something far away, like a truck a half mile ahead. You get the idea.

Here's a definition and an example.

http://en.mimi.hu/photography/depth-of-field.html






Now the question is, can you get that effect with the Samsung SC-MX20? Since this is just a standard definition point and shoot camera, how much can you get away with?

Below is a sample I shot at the park. I played with the manual focus to see what could be done.



The problem with the manual focus is that is isn't really manual. It moves at the pace the camera lets it. But you can see, you can kind of, sort of get the depth of field effect if you play with it enough.

All I did was go into the menu, scroll over to the Focus option (kind of looks like this: [ ]) then chose manual. Now you can use the left and right controls to change the focus. If you push the center button, it lock in your focus and you have to go back into the menu to unlock the controls again. Then just set up your shot and push record. Use the controls to change the center of focus while you shoot.

It's not movie camera quality, but it is kind of a nice effect. There are limits with the Samsung SC-MX20, but with some experimentation and imagination, you might be able to get around them.

What I'm here for.

I get many messages from trolls and haters that say "just get a better camera" and "Windows Movie Maker sucks, get such-and-such" and "why bother, just go download such-and-such from piratedsoftware.com".

And you know what? If I had more money and didn't have a sense of morality that didn't allow me to pirate software, I might. But guess what? I'm broke, so getting a new camera right now is not feasible. And as a former software designer and developer, I know how much work goes into these programs and I firmly believe the developers deserve to get paid for their work.

Why do I continue to use the Samsung SC-MX20 when there are less buggy camera's out there? Why do I use Windows Movie Maker when I could just go download an Adobe program or something else?

Because once you overcome the bugs, the Samsung SC-MX20 is a really good standard resolution camera. It meets my needs of recording the events of our busy life and sharing them with family far away. And I use Movie Maker because it's free and it too meets my needs of putting together my clips into a good movie that I can burn to DVD and pass off to my mother to play on her TV.

Simple as that. I'm not a movie maker. I'm not a YouTube partner who is making money on his clips, I'm just a guy. A dad who takes short movies of his kids' programs and plays and shares them with family. I am currently disabled, so I can't afford another camera. I'm also a firm believer in getting your money's worth. I bought it, so I'm going to use it until it dies. Simple as that. Fortunately, I'm also technical enough that I was able to figure out how to fix the issues with the video produced by the camera and I'm happy with it.

So, would I suggest spending the money on a Samsung SC-MX20 to someone looking for a new camera? Probably not. You can get a Flip or something similar that doesn't have the issues his one does. Plus with everything going HD, you'll want an HD camera for your HD television.However, if you find one on Craigslist or eBay for cheap, get it.

And would I use Windows Movie Maker if I had access to a better program? Probably not. But I'm not going to steal it and you can't beat "free" as a price. Movie Maker does a great job for what I need it to do. Any more bells and whistles I probably wouldn't use anyway, so why bother with them? With patience and practice, you can get some great effects.

So, that's why I'm here. To help people like me who bought the Samsung SC-MX20, can't or don't want to spend more money on a different camera, and also can't spend the money on other video software and/or believe illegal downloading is wrong.

If that's you, then welcome, this site is for you. Please participate and ask questions and share your creations.

If you'd rather be a hater or a troll, that's your right, but I'm not going to respond to you, that's my right.

Have a happy!

Did you know?

You can follow me on Twittter @samsungscmx20! Be notified of new versions of The Fix as well as any exciting or interesting blog posts.

Unusual Reviews

I know this is translated from another language and I have no idea which one, but it just struck me as funny, so I thought I'd share.

Click Here

Wanted - reader submissions

I know there are a few readers out there. Maybe not many, but a few. I'm looking for your help in contributing to this blog. How do you use your camera? Have you found solutions to some of the problems? Have you taped anything really awesome? Do you have an example of the interval recording? Post a comment below if you have something you'd like to share.

Finally!

Thanks to a suggestion from blog reader and friend Trikster, I have built a new version of The Fix. Trikster suggested that I improve the way The Fix handles audio. I have done my best with the update to make sure the program does not touch the audio from the original to the converted version. You can download the update here:


https://sourceforge.net/projects/thefix/files/Converter.zip/download

Still Out here

Hi folks. I know it's been a long time since I've posted an update. The only day I have for blogging is Saturday and during wrestling season my Saturdays are taken up by my son's meets.

I've been using my Samsung SC-MX20 a lot over the lasts couple of months. I must have 10 hours worth of wrestling. Once I get it sorted out and pared down, I'll post some good stuff.

I do have some good news. At the request of a follower I have been working on a new version of The Fix that will handle the audio much better - less compression/distortion. I am in the testing phase now and will post it at soon at it is ready.

I'll talk to you all soon! Get out there and get shooting!

Battery Issue

About 10 days ago, I took out my Samsung SC-MX20 to record my son's band concert. It had been a while since I had used the camera, so of course I checked the battery before hand and saw that it needed charging. Plugged it in, filled it up, and off we went.

When we got home, I put it back on the charger so that it didn't use up battery life while I transferred the clips to the computer. By the time I was done, the battery was full again.

This morning, I'm getting ready to go to another son's wrestling match. Out of habit, I got the cameras out and checked the batteries. I was surprised to see that the battery one the video camera was down to 50%!

Now, I know it is the nature of any battery to drain over time, whether it is in a device or just sitting on a shelf. But I was very surprised to see that in 10 days the Samsung battery had lost 50% of it's power. It isn't very old, only about a year, and it hasn't been used extremely heavily, so why should it be losing so much power?

Have any of the rest of you had this problem?

Spring is here - time to start your cameras

My first home video of the year is of my son's band concert! He's a drummer, and if I do say so myself, he rocks!




This was, of course, recorded with my Samsung SC-MX20. All the settings were set to "auto", except the white balance, it was set to "Tungsten". Resolution was set to "TV Super Fine" and 16:9 widescreen was on. "Antishake" was also on, but I used a tripod, so it didn't have much to do.

It took about 10 minutes to transfer the MP4 files from the camera to the computer.

Since I wanted to edit the video using Windows Movie Maker, I ran everything through "The Fix". About one gig of video (23 minutes) took 25 minutes to re-encode on a Windows Vista computer with only 1 gig of memory. The settings I used were the widescreen fix and deinterlace options. Also had to resync the audio, since it comes out out-of-sync on Vista by .035 seconds. Still not perfect, but good enough.

On Windows Movie Maker, I cut out everything but the music and some applause, that edited everything down to about 12 minutes. I only used "fade in" and "fade out" transitions and had to cut the final product in half to make two videos due to YouTube's limitations. It was about a half hour of me messing around.

To publish, I used the "DVD widescreen" option; it most closely matched the original without re-interlacing. Each half took about 20 minutes to encode. The final result is 480p, which YouTube used to call "High Quality" or "HQ".

I sent each half to YouTube, upload time was about 20 for each half.

Total: 2 hours, 5 minutes for 12 minutes of video. I'm sure the time could be greatly reduced on a better computer with faster Internet. But the final result is pretty good for a home video. The sound is better on the before-YouTube video than it is online.

Overall, I'm really happy with how things come out using The Fix and Windows Movie Maker. I hear all the time about "you lose quality when you re-encode" and "Windows Movie Maker uses lossy codecs", but honestly, I can't see any difference between the original as it plays on the camera, and the final product that comes out of Windows Movie Maker. (It loses some when you upload to YouTube, but such is the nature of the technology.)

In fact, here is a sample of the original for you to compare, in it's squished, interlaced glory:



To my eye, the color is actually a little more vibrant and the contrast is a little deeper AFTER The Fix and Windows Movie Maker. What do you think?

Another way to fix the widescreen - no re-encoding

I found this topic on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/yjul4jv. I used it to shamelessly promote my blog, but he user Cactus has a great fix that doesn't re-encode your videos in case you want to use an editor that is MP4 compatible.

Here's his post:

TLDR:
Use MP4Box to losslessly fix the PAR flag on the MP4 files.
Use the ratios:
16:9 - 32:27
4:3 - 22:25

For example, if I have video file SDV_0004.MP4 that should be 16:9
MP4Box -par 1=32:27 SDV_0004.MP4

Long version:
Get MP4Box. Search the internet for it. To find the Mac version, search for MP4Box and the word Penguin. Copy all your movies over to your computer as MP4 files. Do NOT use any import wizards (like iMovie). Now copy MP4Box into the directory where the videos are stored. Use MP4Box to set the correct PAR flag.

I haven't tried it, so I don't know how hard it it to get done, but not re-encoding is always the best option.

Time Flies

Here's a great video made by a friend to the blog, Pika2001, using the interval record option. I think this is a really great feature that they included on this camera, something you don't see in the lower end price range.



I'm still waiting for the weather to turn so I can get out and have fun with my camera, but, alas, even though I'm in New Mexico, it's still cold. I'd share stuff from around the house, but my house is small and crowded and not terribly interesting.

What do you think are the FAQs?

Even though this blog doesn't get very many hits every day, I like to watch the trends and see what people are searching for when they come to it. Google has this thing where if a site is probably the most perfect match for what you are searching for, it just goes there instead of giving you the results. Interestingly, this blog is coming up more and more when people are looking for answers for their Samsung SC-MX20. I think it's kind of funny that a fan site gets more hits than the manufacturer.

But anyway, I thought I would try to build a little Table of Contents or FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file for people to see when they land here. For whatever reason, Google isn't indexing all the entries here, so often people just land on the most recent entry which probably doesn't answer their questions. So I thought if I had a permanent entry page with links to the answers to the most common questions, that would go a long way.

Following is a partial list of questions I have put together. I need your help and input to round it out. What questions brought you to this blog? What questions are you still hoping I will post an answer for? Please send me your input through the comments.

FAQs

1.) Videos shot in widescreen mode do not appear in widescreen when transferred to my computer.

2.) Videos shot in widescreen are full of lines or blocky.

3.) I am unable to import my videos into Windows Movie Maker or other Windows based video editing program.

4.) How can I get my videos to appear in HD (720p or higher) when I upload them to YouTube?

5.) Video and audio seem to be out of sync on videos taken directly from my camera.

6.) Where can I download the user manual for the Samsung SC-MX20?

7.) Cyberlink MediaShow (bundled with the Samsung SC-MX20) problems and issues.

8.) I bought a new battery and it doesn't work. (You have to buy a Samsung brand battery.)

9.) Where can I get a fish-eye lens or other lenses for the Samsung SC-MX20?

10.) The night vision doesn't work. (It doesn't have night vision, just a low light option.)

Some of these questions have already been answered directly, others have a short answer and I may have answered them as part of another post. In the coming days I will try to link all of these directly to an answer. Please send me your comments and suggestions for other things that belong on this list.

Please help!

If you've been helped by what you have read or seen on this blog, then please help! No, I'm not asking for money, but you can help by linking to this site from you own blog, Facebook or anywhere. Post a link to: http://samsungscmx20.blogspot.com or on Facebook you can also become a fan! Just search for Samsung SC-MX20 and join the fan page.

Spread the word so more people can join our community and start using their cameras instead of hating them.

Update

I have updated the version of ffmpeg.exe that installs with The Fix. It seems much more Windows Vista friendly and maybe even a little faster.

No updates to the program itself, at least not now. If you have any ideas how to make it better, let me know.

Click here to download.

Windows Movie Maker Live - hands on

I am in the process of condensing close to 20 hours worth of video taken during 2009 into about 2 hours to fit on a DVD that I give to my parents and in-laws that live far away. I do it every year and they love it. It allows them to see the goings on of the kids, even if it is well after it happened.

This year all my video was taken with the Samsung SC-MX20. Along the way I've figured out the glitches and am doing my best to make good quality videos, even it if is just home videos, and share what I'm learning with you.

I've decided to use Windows Live Movie Maker for my project this year. In the past I've used various versions of Move Maker, but it's my understanding that with the release of Windows 7, the Windows Live version is the only one being supported going forward. So I'm giving it a whirl.

I'm not going to bore you with a how-to because, honestly, all versions of Movie Maker are very simple to use and anyone can crank out a projects. Making a high quality video, however, can take some patience and practice.

Windows Live Movie Maker focuses a lot on the simple, almost to the point where it makes it hard to do some of the "cooler" tricks. It seems aimed at your average junior high student that just wants to crank out something to post on YouTube. It's still possible to make your videos look more professional, but it's not easy.

So far I've been kind of disappointed with what I've been able to produce. I mean, for the grandmas and grandpas, it's good enough, but for the wannabe Spielberg in me, it's just not good enough.

Have you used Movie Maker Live? Do you like it? Have you learned any tricks to make it better? Let me know.

A firmware fault

I discovered a fault in the firmware that was really heartbreaking, but easy enough to work around.

My wife was recording my daughter's baptism. When she was done, she didn't push the record button, she just shut the camera off.

Now, almost every other electronic device I have, my computer, my cell phone, etc. They all go through a shut down routine. They finish and close what they were doing before the power goes off.

The Samsung SC-MX20, however, just powers off. It doesn't stop what it's doing, it just shuts off.

When recording, just powering off does not save the file you are recording, it's just gone. My daughter's baptism was not recorded.

It should have been easy enough to build in a shut down routine that does the same as pushing the record button to save your movie.

I really wish Samsung would release a new firmware update to fix these issues. I know I'm not the only out here that is having a love/hate relationship with this camera.

Remember: Always end your recording by pushing the record button BEFORE powering off your camera.

Interval Recording

I'm always on the lookout for great projects to use my Samsung SC-MX20 camera for. I love recording home videos of my kids, but I always feel like I want to do more, something really creative. But my creativity fails me. Fortunately, we have the Internet, which makes it possible for everyone to share everything all the time. Where my creativity fails, someone else's shines and I'm able to steal ideas from them.

I found this video online of someone using the interval recording feature of the SC-MX20 to record themselves drawing.




My daughter is an art student, so maybe when she comes home from college this summer we'll make a video of her drawing.

I also found this Internet meme called "Geddan" or "Get down". Here's a video explaining this very weird meme:



There are literally hundreds of these videos out there. Here's one of the more odd ones:



I don't know why, but I like these. Maybe it's weird or sick or whatever, but for some reason I think they are just hilarious. The interval record feature on the SC-MX20 lends itself perfectly to making one of these. If you've made one with your camera, let me know, I'd love to share it.

Have you used the interval record feature for anything really interesting? Send me the link and I'll share it here.

ffmpeg.exe Not Found

This issue has come up a couple of times with my program "The Fix", so I guess I better write it up so you all can fix it.

First, let me state that I don't know if this is a Windows 7 problem, a Vista problem, or what. The users that had this issue didn't tell me which version of Windows they were using, so if this repair doesn't help, let me know and I'll adjust this help.

The Issue:

You've downloaded the program, installed it, you've set up your conversion, hit start and you get: "ffmpeg.exe was not found. Please locate the file." When you hit ok you get this confusing box with no further direction. Ok, that's my bad. I need to make that a little more clear, but until then here's what to do.

First, locate the file you downloaded and extracted. I always extract mine to he desktop. You're looking for the folder "New Converter Install". Not the ZIP file, the folder that was created after you unzipped it.

Open the folder an locate ffmpeg.exe. Drag it from the folder onto your desktop. Really, you can do that. Click on it, move the cursor onto the desktop. Really, that works. You might have to right click and choose "copy here" when you release it.


Next, right click on your start button and choose "Explore". On the left hand pane, locate "Program Files". Click on it to open it.

Now, on your desktop. No, not the window, the space behind it. Yes, there. No, don't close the window, don't minimize it, you need it open. Now, on your dekstop locate "ffmpeg.exe". Click and drag it into the right hand pane. No, it doesn't have to be in the left pane for this to work. You can drag it into the window. Really, you can. Try it. Again, you may have to right click and choose "copy here". Make sure you drop it in a space where it won't go into a sub-folder.

Now ffmpeg.exe is in the default position for "The Fix" to work. Close everything, reopen The Fix and run it. If you get the error again, make sure ffmpeg.exe is in Program Files and not some folder inside Program files.

If you still get the error, then I don't know what to do.

Samsung SC-MX20 Audio Sync Problem

I continue to monitor the traffic that comes to this blog, always on the lookout for problems that people are having with their Samsung Sc-Mx20. One that keeps coming up that I wasn't sure what to do with is "audio sync". I wasn't really sure what the seeker meant. Is it because they are trying to convert the video and then it's out of sync on the new video? I had that issue and thus I added the option to re-sync the audio to my converter program "The Fix".

But today I was cataloging my videos from 2009, preparing to create DVDs to give to family members when I came across the problem that I think others may be having.

The very first video I recorded with my Samsung SC-MX20 was my three-year-old son's birthday back in March. I had just gotten the camera and I hadn't even had a chance to play with any of the settings or anything. So, I just pointed it and shot. I didn't have any desire to put it on YouTube or anything, so I archived the file to disk and just forgot about it.

Now, not quite a year later, I dug out the file to prepare it for editing and I found the issue.

The clip is about 3 minutes long. At the beginning, the sound is ahead of the video. At the end, the sound is behind the video, and for a little bit in the middle, it seems in sync. This is on the original video that came right out of the camera, no converting, no editing. I thought "that's odd", since I have not had this issue on any other videos. Then I started looking at the other original files and found that the ALL have this issue. Had I not noticed it before?

Being a geek, I have several computers at my house. Being a POOR geek, none of them are the newest latest greatest screaming fast thing, they're all off the shelf, Wal-Mart, Craigslist specials. My desktop computer, the one with the big monitor that I like to use for video, was one of the first to run Vista. I hate it, but it works for most things. It was on this computer that I noticed the sync problem.

I took the birthday party file and tried viewing it on my much older Windows XP laptop. And guess what? It works perfectly (in terms of audio, the original files still have the interlacing and the aspect ratio issues).

So. If you have problems with the video from your Samsung SC-MX20 seeming to be out of sync, and you are using Vista, the problem is probably not with your camera. It's Vista. If you have access to another computer, try playing it on there. The file is fine, it's the way your computer is playing it back.

I'm seriously thinking of getting rid of Vista and going with Linux on that machine. The only issue is, I have yet to find a video editing program that is as simple as Windows Movie Maker.

So How Did You Use Your Camera This Christmas?

What did you record with your camera this holiday season? I've captured several hours of Christmas morning and as a result I've discovered an issue.

When recording for a really long stretch, it results in really large files. Obviously, but what's the issue? Well, on my cheap, off the shelf, Compaq desktop with Windows Vista and 1 gig of memory, the file completely crashes the system, locking up everything and making it impossible to edit it or do anything else with it.

The good news is, my wife's laptop, from Dell, has 3 gig of memory and I am able to edit it into smaller chunks and work with it.

Have you had this issue? It's not really an issue with the camera, rather my computer, but I thought I'd mention it. The best way to deal with this is to utilize your record button to pause recording every now and then. When you do this, the camera quits the file it's creating and starts a new one. It does take a couple of seconds to do that, but with practice you can avoid missing some precious moments.

I'm sorry.

I need to apologize to me regular readers.

When I started this blog I used the "monitize" option in Blogger. I thought, what the heck, I could use a few bucks. I didn't read the fine print and didn't really pay any attention to it after that. I thought just showing the ads I would make like half a penny per view or something like that, I never really expected to see a check.

Well, that's not how it works, people actually have to click on the ads for me to make any money. But that's not the point. I happened to look at my blog on another computer (I use FireFox with an ad blocker on my own) and say that there were some very confusing and offensive ads!

I am so sorry. I have no control over the ads and it was not my intention to mislead you or to offer services that decent people might find offensive.

So I have disabled the ads. This blog is free and will always be so. Content wants to be free, so share it.

If you like what you find here and would like to buy me a coffee or something, I have put a donate button on the sidebar. I won't ever ask for donations, don't worry, but I do like coffee. If I've helped you in some way and you'd like to donate something, it's there for your convenience.

Again, I'm so sorry for the ads. But, they are gone now.