Aiptek 720p 1280x720 H.264 Cam - Sub $300.00

David Saraceno

David Saraceno

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Just say this.

The GO-HD records video at 1280 x 720 pixels, at 30 frames per second (FPS). It uses the H.264 codec to compress video on the fly, and can store up to four hours of video clips on an 8GB high capacity SD card. Alternately, the GO-HD can also record in D1 (720 x 480 pixel) at 30FPS or CIF (352 x 240 pixel) at 30FPS. At lower resolutions you can squeeze more video onto a card — more than nine hours at D1 resolution, in fact.
 
Just ordered one for morbid curiosity. $256.95 on amazon.com

Will give a full report once I receive. I have the feeling that the material might be able to be transcoded and edited in ProRes 422 on FCP 6.

Obviously, I do not expect Varicam (or even HVX) quality. Where this has the potential of being very useful are in a couple guerilla shots I need in a few weeks where it would be impossible to get the HVX through the door without press pass. It will look like a little consumer camera. Furthermore, as we all know, sometimes rough looking footage intercut with higher quality footage creates an effect and helps tell the story.

To fund this large investment of $256.95, I am eliminating 2 months of pizza from the diet and only drinking cheap wine.

Ned Soltz
 
I'm anxious to see how this h.264 cam intercuts with the HVX200.

Should be interesting.

One suggestion that works for me is selling a lot of my designer suits on eBay.

That frees up more money for pizza.
 
I look forward to hearing what you think- especially the night shot function ( its range, look and if uses the on cam light or if its inrafred)

Thanks
 
Yes. It is going to be fun. Right, David... if anyone wants an Ermengildo Zegna suit for $256.95, let me know.

Ned
 
Received it today and it even came with a cute little docking station which includes a speaker, clock radio, and connections for any MP3 player. Also comes with 2 Lithium Ion batteries and component cable.

After charging battery and inserting SD card, shot a few seconds of HD video albeit indoors without any lighting.

Created 3 . mov files about 6 sec each and used a card reader to transfer files to Mac. They played perfectly in QT player and showed dimensions of 1280x720 with frame rate of 30 fps and H.264 compression.

FCP would not import the files, as I would expect. I transcoded them using Compressor, QT Player and MPEG Streamclip to both DVCPRO HD 720p60 and Apple ProRess 422 HQ. These files, of course, imported into FCP.

Image was definitely consumer quality but still surprisingly sharp. It was very grainy but tomorrow I'll test outdoors. The built in microphone picked up the zoom. I did not try acquiring directly from the camera via component. There is something a little skewed about using a $2500 Kona board to acquire footage from a $256.95 camera.

Bottom line-- it's cute and it might even have some real world applications.

The real test, of course, will be durability. It is very flimsy plastic.

Ned
 
My question is, how much of that grain is from the camera, versus low light and compression from re-encoding it?
 
Other issue is artifacting on fast pans and fast moving footage.

Could you set up a spy spoof chase and let us know?
 
outdoor test of camera

outdoor test of camera

Ned,

any other comments on the camera- how did the outdoor tests go? I am thinking of using it as a remote camera for some more wary wildlife shots... How does it do in lo lite? Any info is appreciated!
Thanks,

Vince
 
I have been so busy that I have not been able to get any footage up.

Here is very preliminary testing--

Did some outdoor shooting just of house, street and some bright flowers. I used the auto white balance setting and it was very biased to magenta. FCP color correction fixed it very easily.

Yes, there is grain and I do detect some artifacting since I had to transcode this H.264 footage to something editable by FCP. I chose both ProRess 422 (not HQ) and DVCPRO HD. The ProRes footage looked better (I monitor via Matrox MXO). But, yes some artifacts and the grain was tolerable.

In short, this looks very much like "helmut cam" footage. It may have some limited professional use. It is a great consumer toy. It is also a foreshadowing of how as codecs improve we will be seeing cameras capturing to single SD cards using very efficient high quality codecs.

I will get some footage up. I hope I can clear the boards this weekend.

Ned
 
I'm in the middle of a couple of projects now and will also be out of town a few days. But I have been using it for fun and can say that the quality is great. It does take work to get editable footage but I basically transcode the H.264 files to DVCPRO HD and edit in FCP.

Ned
 
Hi Ned:

I too have been looking at buying a few of these to use as in-car cameras for a roadshow pilot I am working on. The big question is, is there ANY way to affix a wide angle lens on this little cam? They really would only be useful inside a car if they can accept a wide angle lens.

Thanks for checking,

Dan
 
Hi, Dan

I would really doubt that you could affix anything to its lens. I suppose the best way to describe this little camera is "it is what it is."

Ned
 
nsoltz said:
I'm in the middle of a couple of projects now and will also be out of town a few days. But I have been using it for fun and can say that the quality is great. It does take work to get editable footage but I basically transcode the H.264 files to DVCPRO HD and edit in FCP.

Ned
Click to expand...

Thanks, I've managed to find a few samples online so I get the idea. It appears as though the camera is fine if it's on a tripod or fixed, but there seems to be some serious motion artifacts when the camera is moved quickly. The sample clips I saw had this weird 'wobbly wave' effect top to bottom when the camera was panned quickly.
Looked like some 70's TV dream-scene effect.
 
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