Product Reviews

Despite their popularity, Canon's existing MV700-series camcorders came in for a lot of criticism for poor low-light performance and audible tape transport noise, so it's no surprise we approached this latest offering with trepidation.

In design terms, there's little to differentiate the four models in the MV800 range, of which the MV850i is the flagship product. The sleek, glossy, grey body styling resembles that of the MV700 and even MV600 ranges, and they all have a 1/6in CCD that delivers an effective 400,000 pixels in movie mode and 528,000 pixels in stills mode (using an optional MMC or SD card). Unlike its siblings, however, the MV850i's f1.6 Canon Video Lens offers an impressive 22x optical zoom (53.7-1181mm in movie mode), with a maximum digital zoom extending to 440x; the other models offer only 20x zoom. It also boasts a variable electronic shutter in the range of 1/6-1/2000th of a second.

It has an anamorphic 16:9 widescreen mode, which effectively squeezes the image laterally onto the image sensor. However, it isn't the usual crop-and-squeeze compromise, with the CCD being allocated additional side pixels that reproduce to a full 1024 x 576 pixel window. These additional pixels are also used by the image stabiliser, as well as by the digital stills utility.

Unlike the MV800 and MV830 models, the MV850i has the full range of digital and analogue inputs and outputs, with the exception of S-Video. AV connection is achieved via a single minijack-to-phono breakout cable and, in addition to a FireWire socket placed adjacent to the lens, there's a USB 2-compatible socket for the transfer of still images and Motion-Jpeg video clips at 320 x 240 pixels.

This camcorder is pleasing to handle, but not outstanding. Many of its functions are accessed by conveniently placed buttons - notably, the transport buttons that sit above the LCD screen - and the play/pause and stop buttons also double as focus and night-mode buttons respectively.

The 112,000-pixel colour LCD screen is rather small, at 2.4in, but does provide access to additional functions, including a simple, one-stop widescreen button. Disappointingly, the fixed-position 0.33in colour viewfinder isn't particularly easy to use, and the pull-out eyepiece tends to push in accidentally if you apply too much pressure during recording.

The MV850i isn't perfect, but it's certainly better than expected, given the lacklustre image and sound quality of earlier models. Even allowing for the smallish CCD, colour processing is acceptable, with the camcorder producing rich, warm tones in good sunlight and delivering a good contrast ratio between very bright and dark areas in an image. Low-light performance is also better: when we moved it from a bright interior to a dim interior, the camcorder made its automatic adjustments inconspicuously and resolved colourful, badly lit objects with good clarity.

Improvements aren't restricted to digital video: sound quality has moved up a notch, too. The built-in microphone still has a tendency to pick up motor noise when recording, but it's much less obvious and is consistent with comparable models. Sound quality and stereo separation are very good when recording, even when they were played back on a high-quality digital sound system.

We were less impressed with the quality of digital stills, which can be saved to either MMC or SD cards at a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels in Jpeg format. For Mac users, transfer via USB to the computer doesn't require the installation of the supplied software, as iPhoto does the job perfectly well.

Disappointing stills quality should not be held against the MV850i, however. It's very much a video camera with stills as a bonus. Canon has plenty of options for those who want higher resolution stills from a video camera, including the MVX350i.

Proper widescreen, improved low-light performance and better sound quality make the Canon MV850i a much better contender than its predecessors, and Canon must take credit for listening to its users and correcting past mistakes. The addition of proper widescreen and image stabilisation that appears to work well is more than welcome, and the image quality is superb for a device with such a small CCD. It's not perfect, but it's an improvement on what came before it.