The CX360V captures good, but not great, video for the money.
Lori Grunin
I've been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handed out buying advice for what seems like forever; I'm currently absorbed by computers and gaming hardware, but previously spent many years concentrating on cameras. I've also volunteered with a cat rescue for over 15 years doing adoptions, designing marketing materials, managing volunteers and, of course, photographing cats.
Like many cameras and camcorders, the CX360V does its best work close up. Here you can see that most of the scene looks pretty sharp, if a bit overprocessed in high-detail areas. (The bee was moving, so it's understandably soft.)
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Video quality, bright light
The CX360V delivers acceptable, but not great, video quality under the best circumstances. It's relatively artifact-free and has good color and exposure, but the video is a bit soft. (screen grab)
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Video quality, bright light
This screen grab highlights a few of the CX360V's weaknesses. As with many cameras and camcorders reds don't render very accurately. Plus, and there are odd quantization artifacts on the street sign and fringing on the edges of highly saturated colors.
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Video quality
Despite a relatively high bit rate, you can see some blocking artifacts (especially on the fountain) in highly detailed scenes. (screen grab)
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Photo quality, bright light
The CX360V's photo quality is about the same as a camera phone or budget camcorder--OK for viewing small but smeary with compression and interpolation artifacts when viewed at actual size.
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Lens bokeh
The lens is one thing that differentiates the lower-end models from the more expensive camcorders, as you can see from the polygonal out-of-focus highlights. The mushiness is image processing.
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Video quality, low light
This shot, taken at dusk, shows the camcorder does a solid job of maintaining exposure and color in low-ish light. There's some noise and the video is soft, but overall it's acceptable.
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Video quality, low light
In dim light the video looks noisy and soft, though the camcorder does a decent job preserving color saturation and exposure.
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Distortion
The lens distortion isn't bad given the camcorder's minimum focal length of approximately 29mm. (Sorry about the shadows; poor time of day to shoot there.)
