$99 720p HD Camcorder Sample

[sigamy]

Just got the Aiptek A-HD from CC for $129 with $30 mail in rebate.

Here is a sample. Outdoors this thing did a good job. Let me know what you think.

http://gallery.mac.com/brian.andrews29#100094

[HBlack]

It's hard to evaluate it with the web compression. Could you post some full res stills?

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

I have not looked at specs yet, but looking at the footage it does not look spectacular. I do think it looks best when zoomed out, and that is either because that tends to smooth handheld movement or it's some kind of digital zoom. Sometimes I swear it looks like it's a non optical zoom, which is nothing more then zooming in post.

Where you zoomed in on that bird>? Because that box on your porch looked much better.... until you zoomed in on it.

I would like to see some full res. stills as well. And please post another clip. This time try and test it in as many scenarios as possible and if I could request a little bracketing in exposure (unless it's auto)

Well I'm off to find some specs on this.

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Sorry to double post but I found the camera
http://www.aiptek.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=R-AHDB&Store_Code=AS

And wow. It does not have optical zoom, which means it is digital zoom as I had noticed.

If you want your 720 resolution DO NOT ZOOM. Digital zoom just means magnifying the pixels. That is why it looks so much worse.

For the best footage possible always stay zoomed out and move the camera more close or far from subject to get your composition. Even if you can't get that close, it would probably be the same zooming and cropping in post vs doing it in camera.

For any posts in the future please do not zoom so we can understand the quality better.

Thanks!

[David W. Richardson]

Okay, so how hard would it be to get the .m4v file from the Aiptek camera into my Adobe Premiere v6.0? Would I need to convert it via Quicktime or something first?

[Huy Vu]

Not quite sure if it's the same model but here's a review of the Aiptek GO-HD one that I found:

http://www.microfilmmaker.com/reviews/Issue25/Go_HD1.html

[sigamy]

Thanks for the notes on zooming. I'll run some more tests over the weekend. From what I've seen online you are correct about digital zoom only. I haven't cracked the manual yet. There are some basic white balance settings, not much more.

There should not be much compression in the large version. The cam shoots H.264. I feed that into iMovie '08 and just sent the large to web gallery.

This is the A-HD which is diffrent than the Go-HD. Go-HD has an optical zoom and but users complained about a very hunting auto focus on that cam.

I shot the same footage with my Panny GS400 (top end consumer SD cam with three 1/4.7" CCDs). The GS400 was not white balanced so I need to do more tests but when viewing on the computer this $99 cam maybe beats the GS400 in outdoor shots. Of course indoors, in normal household lighting we see some noise in the Aiptek.

[David W. Richardson]

So what is the file type native to the recorder? .MOV or .M4V?

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Sorry to double post but I found the camera
http://www.aiptek.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=R-AHDB&Store_Code=AS


I think this is what he has, so if you want tech specs read this. Please correct me if this is not the right model.

http://www.aiptek.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=R-AHDB&Store_Code=AS



So what is the file type native to the recorder? .MOV or .M4V?

H.264 Mov

[David Jimerson]

I have not looked at specs yet, but looking at the footage it does not look spectacular.

What would you expect for $99?

[David W. Richardson]

Okay, so I'd have to find some way to convert the .MOV files into something like .AVI, so I could import them into my Adobe Premiere 6.0.

Guess it's time to break down and buy Quicktime.