Canon DC10 DVD Camcorder

Pros: small and light, nice conversation piece

Cons: DVD eedia is unstable, loses video footage by wiping out entire disks. Small battery.

Summary: It was a mistake to buy this camera. The technology for using DVD Camcorders is not mature. Several times, I have encountered disk errors, which wipe out all of the footage that is recorded on the media.

One time, I turned the power off while the disk was still spinning. It caused a disk error that lost all of the data on the DVD.

Another time, I started the camera up with the Movie/Still switch in Still Mode without a SD card in the slot. It took about 10 minutes for the camera to initialize. Afterwards, it issued an error message that there was no media, followed by an error that the data was unrecoverable. Again, it wiped out all of the footage that was already on the DVD.

The cost of the media is high. It is about $2-$3 per DVD. Each one records only about 20 minutes.

The small battery is hidden inside the cavity behind the display. Canon estimates that the battery will run for about 40 minutes of recording time. I have never confirmed if this is true. Extra batteries are about $70 each.

A few months ago, this model of camcorder was over $700. Today, you can purchase it for around $450. I think that it is becoming steeply discounted because so many users are unhappy with it. I would return mine, but it has been more than 30 days since I purchased it.