How does a HD camcorder for £125 sound?

Raikiri

Raikiri

Raikiri

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Aiptek have just released a budget camcorder that does 720p @ 30fps for $300 but is going for around $250 on a lot of US sites...

There is a sample video here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=63XP6M5P

Thought it might be of interest to people looking for a decent quality but cheap camcorder :) Quality isn't great, but for £125 it's not bad either.
 
True, but there are places that ship over here that are likely to stock it, bought a few things from one of them with reasonable shipping and never got any import charges.
 
Raikiri said:
True, but there are places that ship over here that are likely to stock it, bought a few things from one of them with reasonable shipping and never got any import charges.
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I think i know where you mean, i've used them too, but i still can't see it being less than 200. Probably more close to 250, considering theres a similar spec'd camcorder for £244. Then again i could be completely wrong. Look at mirai TV's, they were dirt cheap compared to rivals.

Love being up at 4am btw :cool: :D
 
Well, you never know... I know when I have bought things I have just paid in dollars so I got the correct exchange rate + $25 shipping. Still only £165 if they charge the RRP of $300.

TBH I am surprised they're not on the bay yet, not even the US site :eek:

'Love being up at 4am btw'

Well, week off college what else is a self respecting student going to do other than sleep all day :cool:
 
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Raikiri said:
Well, you never know... I know when I have bought things I have just paid in dollars so I got the correct exchange rate + $25 shipping. Still only £165 if they charge the RRP of $300.

TBH I am surprised they're not on the bay yet, not even the US site :eek:

'Love being up at 4am btw'

Well, week off college what else is a self respecting student going to do other than sleep all day :cool:
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Take photos!
 
thats damn good quality. need to find where to buy this camera.

funny thing is, could read pages of reviews, but the sample video says a billion words. for the price i doubt i ever gonna get something as good as this. question is how do i get it in the uk???
 
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Found one available for £77 with a 1gb memory card, it's the lower end model though. The one I mentioned in the OP is available for £233 from the same place with a 2gb memory card, card reader and carry case.

edit: The £77 records at 720x480 but says 720p... never mind. £233 is still cheap.
 
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ok i got the camera on order now. should be here this week since its on 48 hour delivery. cost me £175 all in so for that price it should be good enough.

ill do a full review on it when it comes. probably just take a video and post it on here since that will be more than enough to cover a review i guess. :) (also im lazy) :p
 
Package Progress
Location Date Local Time Description
EAST MIDLANDS AIRPOR,
GB 07/15/2007 11:43 P.M. IMPORT SCAN

ROISSY, PARIS,
FR 07/13/2007 9:04 P.M. EXPORT SCAN

CHILLY MAZARIN, PARI,
FR 07/13/2007 6:00 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN

FR 07/13/2007 11:54 A.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED


Tracking results provided by UPS: 07/16/2007 5:50 A.M. ET

right looks like this camera should be with me today sometime, its been shipped from france i believe. should be interesting to see how its quality is.
if anyone is interested in knowing how this camera performs let me know and i will try and put up a sample video once i get the camera.
 
ok so far very impressed with the camera, for the price i really doubt it can be beat. ill make some videos tomorrow and put them up.

camera comes with 2 batteries one is a spare i guess, and a remote control. camera also comes with usb cable to charge up from the pc. also various tv connection cables.
 
Im really interested in the sample movies you take, id love to see how the camcorder performs in less than ideal conditions, indoors, low light, closeup... stuff like that. :)

Great find anyway, i will probably buy one just to stick in the car for when im out and about and see something funny.
 
yep same reason i bought it, all i have currenty is a 2mp digicam when has good quilty pictures but videos are crap. and when taking baby pictures the videos are what im after.

apparently there is already a firmware upgrade for my camera available. im running version 1.4 and version 1.5 is out now. need to get it and flash.
will do some videos of different lighting conditions and post them up here for you.

i love the codec it uses though, h.264 is used and with the coreavc decoder in windows media player there is lowish cpu utilisation and very nice playback. good quality in small filesize.

need to get a tripod for it though.
 
Anymore info like a model number or something? Also does it have a MIC in and how is the sound quality on the imbuilt mic?

Do you know what audio codec it uses also? like to see a homemade sample vid also. :)
 
its an aiptek z300 otherwise known in america as the Aiptek HD-GO.

codec used for video is H.264 and audio is encoded in AAC LC.

it does not have an external mic connection just the inbuilt mic is all it has.

right im uploading my first home video made indoors at 2:30am so its dark outside and all its using is the indoor lighting. not much in the video other than a few monitors and an low rez tv rip running on the middle tv.
volume iv had to keep low since other heads in the house are sleeping.

will do outdoor video probably tomorrow.

videos play fine using nero showtime. i use windows media player with the coreavc codec for more speed, the video takes 65% cpu usage on a xp-m2600 clocked to 2.3ghz. not bad at all for software decoding. then again 720p is not that hard to do compared to 1080.

camera encodes using variable bitrate so the more complex the scene the more bitrate is used.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y7W57ZUJ

above is the first video, hope that works, megaupload was asking for cash so dunno if it will allow you to download it. its almost 60 seconds long and is 29mb big.

not too shabby under low light conditions.
 
Looks good under poor light conditions, there does seem to be a stuck pixel on the video about 1cm down an 1/3rd across the image from the top, it seems to come and go, which is odd... maybe an encoding artifact. Shows clearly in the last frame, once you see it, it is obvious.

I will definately get one. :)
 
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