Camcorders - Flash (non High Definition)

Dec 2008 Camcorder for Rebecca (Christina has Sanyo Xacti CG6 VPC-CG6

Amazon List of best selling Flash Camcorders
$209 Flip Video MinoHD Camcorder, 60 Minutes 720p high def, no zoom, very popular
$290 Sanyo Xacti HD700 7MP MPEG-4 High Definition 720p 720p high def, with 5x Optical Zoom (Oct 2007) Digital image stabilization
$535 Canon VIXIA HF100 1080p high def with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
$208 Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG9 9MP Flash Memory Camcorder with 5x Optical Zoom Newer version of what Christina has Earliest review is April 2008
------ So So -----
$139 Aiptek A-HD 720P 5MP CMOS High Definition Camcorder NO Optical Zoom
$143 Kodak Zi6 HD Pocket Video Camera
$177 Aiptek A-HD Pro 1080P High Definition Camcorder
$150 Aiptek A-HD+ 1080P High Definition Camcorder No Image Stabilizer, no zoom
------Don't get these ------
$270 Sanyo Xacti CG6 6MP MPEG-4 Flash Memory Digital Camcorder Only 3 month warranty (Ealiest review is Sept 2007)
$280 Canon FS100 Flash Memory Camcorder MPEG-2 video (2 hours per 8 gig)

640 x 480 = 307,000

1280 x 720 = 922,000 3 times the number of dots

1920 x 1024 = 1,966,000 6.5 times the number of dots

Aiptek Action HD camcorder

May 2008 $200 1440 x 1080 at 30 fps (but NO optical zoom), uses h.264 http://www.aiptek.com/ Walmart sells them

Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder

$180 June 2008, new smaller size

http://www.amazon.com/Flip-Video-Camcorder-Minutes-Black/dp/B0016BXRB6/ref=adv_mino_typ

Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder Nov 2007

2008 Jan CES announcements

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141238-c,ces/article.html

http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=118

Canon VIXIA HF10 HD Camcorder http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=118

Panasonic announced on Saturday that it will introduce a 32 Gigabyte SD card to the market sometime next month

Zorich says some of those new Canon camcorders, like the FS10 and FS11, both super-small HD hand-helds which will hit the market for under $600, have “dual flash memory.” That means you can shoot onto 8 or 16 gigs (depending on the model) of built-in flash memory and then transfer video onto a removable SD card...convenient if you want to make a quick copy of a party video for a friend.

Panasonic’s camcorder announcements reflect a flash-happy philosophy as well. Many of its new models, some of which have lavish 42x and 50x optical zooms along with Optical Image Stabilization, record to SDHC memory cards. The DSR-SW20, a $399 ultra-portable camcorder due out in February, is shock-proof and even submergible...all because recording to flash memory means a camcorder needs far fewer mechanical (a.k.a. breakable) parts. With a 16 gig SDHC card, the DSR-SW20 will let someone shoot for 13 hours without having to change a tape or lug extra batteries.http://www.dealerscope.com/story/story.bsp?sid=85808&var=story&publication=Dealerscope&publicationDate=1/9/08&slug=DSEnews03_010908_flashhappy&category=None&section=Unknown

When Camcorders Go Tapeless: Looking beyond MiniDV? link Steve and Angela caution you about the competition. Posted June 24, 2005

JVC Camcorders with Hard Drives June 15, 2005

New Sanyo VPC-C5 as of Sept 2005

LINK 5x optical, 5meg camera, 1 hour Mpeg-4 on 1 gig card, S video to DVD

What cable from camcorder to PC

From an amazon review of Panasonic SV AV100

Does renaming the files from .MOD to .MPG cause a loss of video quality? No, none at all. It just causes them to be identified as MPEG2 clips with PCM audio (as they really are). The .MOD extension was to simply avoid having royalties issues with the MPEG2 author group.
.MOD file format: simply change the files extension to .MPG and nearly any video tool (Windows Media Player included) can read the MPEG2 files produced by the SVAV100
do not use the software that came with the av100, instead, at the end of the shoot, just plug the digital wallet into your pc via the usb cable, where it appears as just another hard drive... copy the .mod files onto your local hard drive, and rename them as .mpg's... there is nothing to convert, and you can burn the .mpg's directly to dvd.
While the Pansonic D-SNAP has the potential for usable video quality, you need to realize that it is going to take atleast an additional $799 card to make it functional. To reach a useful quality, the D-SNAP uses a high speed Panasonic version of the SD card, which is now available as a special version 32x SD card by other sources. Today, people try to get the best price for a 30 - 60 minute DV tape at $5. With the D-SNAP, you'll be shopping for a $799 32x SD card, with 1 gig of storage, so you can move from 10 minutes of video to a whopping 20 minutes (which really is the bare minimum) at $799. Also, beware that the manual is clear that the high speed write times will wear down the card, and you need to run special procedures to help reduce the errors which will start occurring.
The quality of the video is there with the D-SNAP. But the STILLs are completely unacceptable and you will be paying thousands of dollars to get 30 - 60 minutes of video.

The Sanyo Fisher is equally as compact, very solid construction, provides 3 megapixels for STILLS, and provides the resolution (30 frames per second) and size (640*480) required for TV. It also comes with a 512kb card, BUT it achieves 20 minutes of DVD-like quality or 45 minutes of VHS-like quality (which is very good), out of the box. It uses more recent compression technology to write at multi-mb speeds on a normal SD card. You even get 30 frames per second to meet your 360*240 PC requirements, which provides more than an hour of video. The interface is much better thought out on the Sanyo (everything is there at your finger tips, whereas the Pansonic makes you want to rip off the LCD at times because the controls are at the side). The focus is 6x zoom optical on the Sanyo, instead of 10x like the Panasonic, which is still excellent. And the ISO levels and features are exceptional. Bottom line, you can live with any downside of the SANYO. You can't live with the downsides of the Panasonic.

Fisher FVD-C1 LINK

Picture

pocket-size lightweight 5.4 ounce solution

Digital Still photo performance is unparalleled, True 3.2 Megapixel Digital Still Images and 5.8X Optical Zoom Lens; 10X Digital Zoom and internal special effects make the digital still operation of this camera capable of photos very close in quality to professional 35mm shots.

Digital Still storage capacity (with supplied SD 512MB Memory Card): 491 Pictures in Super Fine 3.2 Megapixel Resolution (2048 x 1536) mode 786 Pictures in Fine 2.0 Megapixel Resolution (1600 x 1200) mode 3931 Pictures in Normal 0.3 Megapixel Resolution (640 x 480) mode

The Fisher CameraCorder achieves its video performance with our own exclusive state-of-the-art MPEG-4 chip. This leading-edge technology enables the Fisher CameraCorder to record at the 2Mbps bit rate needed to capture over 30 Minutes of DVD-like full-motion, VGA 640x480, 30 frames-per-second video on the supplied SD 512MB Memory Card. The Fisher CameraCorder offers a total of five MPEG-4 modes to capture full motion video. Ranging from larger file sized High Quality DVD-like video clips (31 minutes of record time) to smaller file sized (151 minutes of record time), easier to E Mail video clips.