I spotted on Maplin’s site a special offer of a Full HD Camcorder – now after me almost buying the Toshiba one for £150, I was a little worried about buying a Lemon. The price on the site was previously £199 and now it was onoy £149.99. I did a search and came across this page and it seem to get quite a good review. I went ahead and bout the thing anyhow plus I signed up for a newsletter which saved me a further £7 off the price. Now we go onto my own little brief review of the model I had bought.

It states it takes upto 8meg SDHC Cards and from what I have read, can record about 45 Minutes onto 2 GIGS – so do the sum’s yourself on this one. It has no HDMI port but it claims to display HD – via the leads supplied. It has a lens cap and a 3″ TFT Screen. It cannot be powered via the charger but the Batteries are cheap enough to buy – £5 or $5-$10 for example.

Her we can see the back of the Camera, the wheel switches to Video, Camera and Settings. It has a USB port to connect to a computer and it is picked up as a drive letter, this is for people who may not have a card reader fitted but t is easier to whi the card out and move the files around. It cannot be used as a Webcam not matter what you do – its is only picked up as a Drive – so if you wanted to use this like a Firewire model (webcam) – then nope, this is not for you but then again, this is not what you would buy a CamCorder for right.

This is were the Battery Fits in – the NP-120 which is what Fuji use in fact for there digital camera’s – so you should find replacement / spares both easy and cheap. The camera does not swivel as I have seen some do in your hand but for this price, you would not expect this.

As mentioned, it has a Lens Cap, Flash swtich (for still camera mode) and a light for use when the thing is recording movie’s but do not expect it to light up the room. It has a night Vision mode and this makes the picture lighter.

Computer in Mineral Oil from LoStBoYkEv on Vimeo.

Conclusion and thoughts

Pro’s

• Very Cheap Full HD Camcorder
• Records in H.264 MOV Format
• Light and Small
  
• Easy to use.

Con’s

• Cannot be used as a Webcam
• Can only run off battery
• Does not handle Low light very well

Which CamCorder you need to buy depends on many things and no one camera will fit everybody. Of Course a £800 Sony Camera is going to be better and do more and have more features but I personally do not have that kind of money to spend on something I will use only now and then. I wanted to record something, pop it into iMove and edit the results without having to re-convert it (such as some have a .MOD file) and thus loosing quality. As I will be uploading the movies to Youtube and the like – then it won’t matter as much. To compare this to say a Mini DV Cam – I would have to sit and import the movie for the total time it took to record it where as with SD Card models – its instant.

I have not had much time to really mess about with this and not sure if the Sony HC51 was a better or worse buy (The HC51 is a Mini DV Cam – tape, with Firewire).

After looking into every angle on which camera to buy and finally thinking about buying one at long last, I had said to myself that the Sony HC51 which used Tapes but had firewire was the model of choice. The local Curry’s had this very model on sale for £135. Now I know I could find it on-line for £119 but by the time you add P&P – then its not such a bad price and of course you get to take it home then and there.

The problem came about when this was the last one they had (display model) and they were not willing to take any money off this. I asked about tapes and they do not come with any – she picked off a pack of 6 from the shelf which retailed for £23.48 – a rip off by any means. She was willing to reduce the price to £19.95 which brought the grad total to about £155. I asked her to reduce the price of the 3 Pack (£15 in the shop, £11 on-line – same shop) but she would not do that. In the end I walked away from this – I can buy Tapes on-line for next to nothing and there was no reason why as it was shop model to chuck the 3 tapes in for free.

The conclusion here is that in this instance they lost a potential sale and the fact I will probably choose not to go in there for some time. They say they cannot complete with On-line selling but this I fail to see and the reason why so many of them are starting to go bust (such as Woolworths) and loosing out to on-line. Out of interest, I can buy the Same Camcorder plus 5 tapes for £131 on-line (Amazon), if I stretched all the way to £155, then I could get 15 Tapes plus a Bag and the recorder and still have change.

If they do not change there ways – I can see a lot of shops going from the high street – people might well be out in there droves looking but the number of people actually buying (judging by the lack of bags) is not that much, they went out to see if they could get a bargain, realised the prices really have not changed and went home again. People are empowered these days – they can cross reference prices in seconds online and with the advent of web enabled devices (such as iPhone) – stores have no option.

To a few example’s – I saw a Logitech 9000 Pro Webcam – we start off with £79.99 (which happens to be the original price when it first came out years ago), £53.94 but if you do a search online – You can find it for £35.64 if you include postage, that £40- you saved £14 already.

Toshiba Camileo H10

I thought that the old DV Tape technology camcorders was not the route to take, so I got to thinking that a small SD Card one would be better as it would be smaller, better battery life, better quality and so forth. I spotted in the local supermarket (Tesco’s for all your Brits that read this) this very model for £149.95 – previous loads more (They always say that right). They were out of stock, so I came back and did some research when I stumbled upon a youtube video that reviewed it and by god – it’s probably the worst Camcorder ever.

As it says on the end of the Video – its really just a rebadged Chinese no-name model. Verdict – Do not buy this period or you will be wasting your money !!

I have been thinking for some time now to buy myself a CamCorder – times have moved on and there is some varied choice out there and of course my needs are slightly different from the average person. The Mac has both Firewire 400 + 800 right on board and the ability for the Cam to be picked up as a Webcam should the need arise and this is what a lot of people already do when streaming.

Requirements

I need to be able to plug this Camera into both the Mac and the PC – all of my igs have Firewire and USB – so no major problem there. I need to be able to use it as a Fancy Webcam (with zoom etc), record and edit normal stuff and the quality to be god along with the cheapest one that does the job.

DV Cam

These are now on the bottom shelf, use Tape and feature 35/40 Zoom plus Firewire – this fits the bill so far – most are light to carry around and very cheap indeed (probably the cheapest out of all the models on offer). The fact it has Tape means it will be heavier, mechanical noice and maybe eats the battery. Out of all of them though – I can plug it in and use it as required BUT it will not be the highest resolution for sure.

Memory Card Cam

These take the SD Cards and in theory are the lightest out there, it is easier to carry out 5 SD Cards to record whatever and you can get them in HD I think (not sure). The problem is none of these feature anything but USB – this means it probably rules out connecting it as a webcam – it is something that no review will probably mention.To edit I guess – you stick the SD Card into the Computer and re-edit the movie – depending on the format though – recoding the movie is going to loose quality.

DVD Cam’s

I am not a fan of these at all – writing to a Mini DVD with the theory you can pop the end resutl in a player but this is just not the case from what I saw. I will pass on these.

HD Cam’s

These are quite appealing – none feature Firewire but with a 30GIG HD for example, no tapes required but means you have to get the movie out via USB and re-edit and from what I have heard, this is where the fun starts as some manufactures could not care less about the editing part.  Once again, no idea if these things can be a webcam – not the end of the world if they do not I guess as this is what webcams are for right?

Conclusion

We can see it a choice between old technology that we know will do what I want and new technology that might work but might not but offer a much high reselution. Maybe it would be wise to move away form the “Webcam” thought and stick with looking just for a CamCorder.