headhunter23

Just as subject states... need little more details, wondering if anyone has tried one of these cheap high def video cameras? How much does it weigh, how are light and color conditions?

http://www.aiptek.com/Merchant2/merc...&Store_Code=AS

Ivan.

skyskysky

Last month we just received this aiptek camcorder, it's a deal price of $206, you can give it a look

http://www.dealstudio.com/searchdeal...d=94081&ru=290

I picked up this camera not expecting anything much... but I was surprised! The video quality is very good and its pretty much a no brainer to use.
these kind of camera's are really designed for quickie type videos. They are convenient because the file is ready to go with no need for tape conversion then the dreaded compression which take forever...

headhunter23

Yea I hear ya on the recording and conversion. Tried out a hdhv10 canon and absolutely lost it trying to get from tape to computer. 1 hour of tape to 1 hour of recording, then letting the putter crunch on the video was unreal. Solid state drives seem to be the way to go especially for ap. Thanks for the info.

Ivan.

eles1

I offer a couple of pionts.

1. I still havent found the correct cables to link this cam to my new wireless RX from Rangevideo...
2. I did have it working with a cheap RX, when the RX would loose the downlink even for a split second the cam switches to lens mode. I have inquired w/ the mnfcr and they say that that is normal and there is no way to lock it into AV-in mode...

If I had to do it all again I would save up for 4 months (that is how long I have had this equipment) and buy a $500+ hard drive based camcorder with pass thru recording ability from a place that I could take in the RX and wireless set-up and test it at the store. Seems to me that most of the responces I get is that people are recording to some form of VCR hooked to a mess of ACDC converters...

ok I am going back to the shop to smash my thumb with a hammer, I prefer that over messing with this AV stuff...

bamspeck

Mike @ our flying field bought a similar looking digital camcorder from K-mart, on sale for $100. It says it records in HD and the video on it's roughly 2 inch screen looked very good. He got a 2 Gig SD card for it and velcro'd the camera to the side of his Hobico trainer (with a zip tie for backup). He pointed it down slightly but still got the prop in the upper portion of the video. The only thing i didn't like was that he had to put a small piece of foam between the screen & the camera housing so that the unit would record. If the screen is stowed flat against the camera ( as if you were carrying it in your pocket or something ) it won't record.

Unfortunately he's not very computer 'savy' and lost the video while transferring it from the SD card to the hard drive. He had no idea what I meant when I asked him what format the video was in but did say that the video wouldn't play until he loaded the software that came with the camera. He runs Windows XP so I'm guessing it's in a quicktime video format.

headhunter23

Hey bam ask your buddy to shut off the camera, close the video screen then turn it on without the screen open. I just bought a canon hv100 and had the same issue, I was freaking out that this $800 camera couldn't record without the damn screen open. So closed everything and tried turning it on and it worked. But if you open the screen or turn it on with the screen exposed and shut the screen it stops recording. Very weird. I decided to go with this model because there is no hard drive. I can just forsee a couple bad landings and something moveable inside stop working or go on the fritz. On top of that, you just slap the card in the laptop and your done. [)]

jpjamie

The problem with these small flash camcorders is that the manufacturer (rightly so) thinks nobody would ever want to record video with the LCD door closed against the body. You can defeat this problem by removing a small magnet inside the LCD door. When the magnet lines up with a magnetic sensor on the camera board the power is shut off. My Aiptek was like this, but of course yours might not be engineered the same.