Review: Mustek DV4000 Digital Video and Multifunction Device

Don Bradbury reviews an inexpensive option for basic digital video, digital still photography, MP3 playing, and voice recording among other things.

Product	DV4000
Company	Mustek
Web	www.mustek.co.uk
Price	£98.34 incl from
We like	Small, light, inexpensive, multifunctional
We don't like	Basic, mediocre video, no optical viewfinder
Rating	8/10
Requirements

While dedicated, upmarket digital devices - some costing an arm and a leg - now bristle with advanced features and may have the first-timer wondering which one to go for, there's always the introductory option of an inexpensive multifunction device that can make a brave attempt at covering digital video, digital stills, digital voice recorder, MP3 player, webcam and while we're about it, memory card reader as well.

Make it small, light and pocketable, offer it for less than £100, and it could in fact be a winner in the eyes of those with few aspirations towards the highest quality in any one of these departments. The Mustek DV4000 is firmly in this category.

Build in four megapixels of resolution (albeit by hardware interpolation from a basic two megapixel CMOS sensor), add MPEG4 encoding, a trendy TFT colour screen for the fashion conscious, a Li-ion battery and two ways of charging it (via a USB port or the supplied mains transformer), include a touch screen control panel, and integrate a microphone and speaker and you have the basis of what sounds like a neat package. But earphones are also included, as are TV and USB leads, a secure rubber lens cover, a carrying strap, a felt carrying pouch, and even a diddy five inch tripod, complete with tilt head.

MultiMedia/Secure Digital is the preferred storage medium - 32MB of it are included - and the resolution for both video and stills photography is user variable to optimize usage of the capacity. The lens is a basic 5 element f2.8 glass job, though with no optical zoom. However, there's a 4x digital zoom capability for those who must use such a facility while ignoring the reduced quality which naturally follows.

In focus

Focusing is fixed but covers the range 70cm to infinity, with a 25cm macro switch on the lens mount that works nicely provided you don't engage it accidentally. Having no optical viewfinder, the DV4000 has to reply entirely on its swing-out 1.5inch TFT screen. It's small, and difficult to see in bright daylight, sure, but it's sharp, displays good colours, and is otherwise functional.

Exposure is controlled via an electronic shutter whose speed is automatically varied over the range 1/15th sec to 1/4000th sec. With a rather modest capacity for coping with contrasty subjects, stills photography in good daylight gave rise, in other respects, to few complaints. Acceptably sharp when taken under these conditions, with half-decent colour presentation, this rating is reduced somewhat, as you might expect, in poorer light.

Integrated digital effects include sepia, mosaic, and black and white, and there's a 10 second delay you can engage as well as exposure lock. Add decent usability, and a software lineup to get you going with digital video editing (Ulead Video Studio 6) as well as an installation CD bearing Photo Express SE, Photo Explorer, Cool 360, Acrobat Reader, and video capture and camera drivers to complete the package.

The multi-language user manual is fairly easy to follow, despite a clearly non-English writer, and getting to grips with control of the device follows a few minutes of practice working your way among the menu settings.

We say 'getting to grips', but video replay seemed 'sticky' and did not always proceed. If that setting is deactivated and then re-engaged for another try, your most recent file is the default, and scrolling to the one required is the only option, a tiresome procedure when there are many files on the card. MP3 files are stored in their own folder, but video, stills, and voice recordings are lumped together, which is unfortunate.

Output quality

Provided expectations are not set too high, we think the user of this sub-£100 device will not be hugely disappointed with the quality of it's maximum 2304 x 1728 resolution stills photography, as we've said, bearing in mind the functions/price ratio. Some image softness should be anticipated. Similarly, in video work, a degree of shakiness is to be expected if the camera is used hand-held.

A camera held against the forehead while using an optical viewfinder is so much more likely to result in a steady display, but most users in this particular buying bracket seem un-phased by such imperfections in their output. A viewing screen at arm's length might, indeed, be what they insist upon. With the DV4000, that's what they get.

Shooting video at the maximum resolution of 640 x 480 gives a frame rate of only 20fps and so output is quite jerky. At the lowest resolution of 320 x 240 the frame rate is a decent 30fps but the picture quality, as viewed on a TV screen say, is then relatively poor. There's an intermediate setting of 352 x 288 that you can use, however.

The DV4000 can only handle ten minutes of video, even at the lowest resolution, with the supplied 32MB card, which is not enough for anything remotely approaching serious. You either dump shots to the PC frequently or you buy more card capacity.

Advanced features

Playback mode includes multi file preview, quick search backwards or forwards, as well as slide show where a few seconds of playback, for either stills or video, is helpful. There's also a night shot mode, voice-attach for stills, date/time attach, variable 'auto off' to save battery power, a repeat mode for playing all your MP3 files, ninety degree rotate (for stills), as well as delete file(s) and a facility for formatting the memory card. You can also switch between NTSC and PAL, and 50/60Hz for TV playback.

Supporting ASF, MP3, and WAV file formats as well as JPEG, the non-photographic functions work well enough. Don't expect magnificent quality from the built-in speaker, of course, or the earphones for that matter, but they work alright, and many will settle for the convenience of this arrangement in such a tiny device. At only 82 x 33 x 62mm, and weighing just 94g without the battery, it's very small indeed, thanks mainly to tapeless storage.

As for a PC to attach the DV4000 to, you'll need at least a Pentium 266MHz, Windows 98SE or later, a free USB port, DirectX 8.1 or later (provided as an update on the CD should it be required), Super VGA and colour monitor, and 200MB of available HD space. If ambitions extend, a bigger SD/MM card will be required, but that apart there's little that needs to be added.

In conclusion

If something better than the DV4000 is required, it's recommended that the prospective purchaser opt for dedicated devices in each field. Within its limitations the Mustek device does at least a half-decent job, especially for stills photography, but it has to be born in mind that covering many fields like this inevitably leads to compromises in performance that some will find unacceptable.

So, for small prints, pretty good; for video footage, just passable; for TV viewing, good enough; as an MP3 player, not bad; as a voice recorder and card reader, it works quite nicely.

 

Don Bradbury