[Recovered Thread: 97175]

[shelded]

Instructions say to turn the thing on then plug it into the USB cable for data transfer. If done out of seqence the camera will not power up and I have to remove batt to correct the problem. Sometimes the device is not detected and so thecamera shuts off before I get the device detected and the seq isn't followed correctly in that case.

[fishycomics]

we understand

and for pointing outthese observations to others

1 keep in mind do not attempt aftermarket cables unless you know the wiring schematics

2 do not try to recharge batt's in camera? unles it has a shut off or timer batts will overheat and casue damage.

3 do not hide items that contain batteries, can cause serious damage.

congrads again and hope your decision works out. North east area Lol no camera yet. either sold out or out of stock

[shelded]

You know how the hair dryers always tell you not to use them in the tub?

I wish this said how important that USB cable was, since I had no idea until doing this. Thanks for the tip about wiring.

[shelded]

I confirm that the LEDs are similar to using a penlight flashlight, rather ineffective. You can cover a dinner plate at 3 feet and recognize something dark at 6 feet. When unit powers off the feature resets to default,off. Grrr. Feature is buried in a menu which is not worth accessing most the time, esp. in the dark, squinting at the too-small screen to figure out.

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Menus are nice for features you don't use often, but dials are for things you need often. I like to switch resolution often and that's on the menu. Cam should have a dial for some features but no dial exists.

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Transposing/reorienting the video in the cam would be nice. Stuff which is shot sidewayscan't be flipped until I put it on the computer (and I don't yet even have any software that can do that).

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information appearing on screen has white text on a gray background (bad contrast). It appears briefly and I can't focus on it before it goes away (I'm over 40). So I don't know what is said... memory full... battery weak... subject moved...

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Have determined how the cam is to be held. It's a "claw grip" of thumb on back of unit, two fingers on top, two fingers on front. Works unless you need to flash, then carefully move two fingers down on front. At this point the lack of swiveling LCD really is noticeable because to avoid bending the wrist I hold the cam rather high. Might take my minpod along

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I put a slow 256MB card in and the vid was choppy on VGA. I plan today to put a fast 1GB card in and hope it will perform better. The 256MB gave us many minutes of recording, and it's essential for any buyer to expect to add memory immediately after purchase. Target salesman was good and helpful but forgot to suggest that purchase (I already have several SD cards for my PDA).

[fishycomics]

Shelded. you are a lucky Person Target out of stock got bars ofsoap instead.

I would have Purchased one to do my review and returned the camera?

the MPVR newest one shall be out soon?

Your continued review is very interesting

a claw grip , and moving the hand is a great tip for all



faded out with lettering well an Updated firmware will improve that ibet?

A flash light a reflector lamp even hyper white leds was a vid test and if positioned correctly. works great

I preferre to see soon a infrared sensor

butt he Aiptek england t100 or higher has a swival. will wait for that camera

keep the good work up?

[rgvcam]

shelded wrote:

I confirm that the LEDs are similar to using a penlight flashlight, rather ineffective. You can cover a dinner plate at 3 feet and recognize something dark at 6 feet. When unit powers off the feature resets to default,off. Grrr. Feature is buried in a menu which is not worth accessing most the time, esp. in the dark, squinting at the too-small screen to figure out.

Actually you can toggle the LED lights by briefly pressing the power button. It says next to it 'LED light' if I remember :-)
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Menus are nice for features you don't use often, but dials are for things you need often. I like to switch resolution often and that's on the menu. Cam should have a dial for some features but no dial exists.

I agree that the controls could be better butconsidering it'sa cheap camera I can put up with them since they aren'ttoo bad really.In anycase I don't see the point in using anything other than the native 3MP mode for photos, so no need to change that. 6MP is interpolated ie a waste of time and you should never use a lower resolution unless absolutely necessary such as to save space. Even then with 1GB cards being as cheap as they are, you should never run out of space. Also the same applies to video, always shoot in the highest quality mode all the time.

Remember you cannot increase the information captured in a video or photo that was captured at the lowest setting. Once it has been taken, that's it, you can't increase the detail,whereas you can always DOWNSIZE a photo or video to your hearts content.

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Transposing/reorienting the video in the cam would be nice. Stuff which is shot sidewayscan't be flipped until I put it on the computer (and I don't yet even have any software that can do that).

I think that would be a bit much to ask of a cheap camera, and after all, as you say, it's something that could be done on the PC with much more processing power. There are other features I would rather they incorporate for the price that are way above this in my list.

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information appearing on screen has white text on a gray background (bad contrast). It appears briefly and I can't focus on it before it goes away (I'm over 40). So I don't know what is said... memory full... battery weak... subject moved...

---------

Have determined how the cam is to be held. It's a "claw grip" of thumb on back of unit, two fingers on top, two fingers on front. Works unless you need to flash, then carefully move two fingers down on front. At this point the lack of swiveling LCD really is noticeable because to avoid bending the wrist I hold the cam rather high. Might take my minpod along

Yes this is the problem I found, in that the lack of a swivelling LCD means you have to hold it up high. Of course you would have to do that with a digital camera as well.
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I put a slow 256MB card in and the vid was choppy on VGA. I plan today to put a fast 1GB card in and hope it will perform better. The 256MB gave us many minutes of recording, and it's essential for any buyer to expect to add memory immediately after purchase. Target salesman was good and helpful but forgot to suggest that purchase (I already have several SD cards for my PDA).

The choppiness is due to the PC not the camera. The bitrate is higher than some older PC's can cope with like mine. On a powerful PC the video is smooth and if you convert it to a lower bitrate with a video conversion program you will get video that will play smooth on less powerful PC's.

Don't forget to install the codecs that came with the camera as well.

A 256MB card is a nice size as that will give 20 minutes of recording in HQ mode which I found was plenty for using with my son for instance. 1GB cards are very cheap these days and will give 80 minutes which is more than enough for most people.

[fishycomics]

rgvcam has some good points

As the next generation digital cameras are here

we'll see editing features in there. that is great . can edit on demand but once done that's it . again some new ones will go back as well.

holding high or low. a good stand in shooting is placing out at a firm grip at shoulders height almost like holding a weapon. slow panning is best never pann fast.

memory is a key issue tday at 20-50 you can ante for 2 gig. well worth the money . I started out 100 plus 32 mb boo hoo

led will have a certain way to go on (as not an owner ) flash is right or left mouse click. as well as wb. short cut keys would be nice?

If you add all these extras that's a lot of Money

for a few dollars more I again preferre the t100 plus models overseas.

[shelded]

I think we are keeping the camera. Took it to the garden today and it went through only a whole pack of AA batts:? I explained to spouse that most ppl use rechargeables. Shot 465MB of stuff today.


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Oddest thing. None of my rechargeables fit. They're like .5mm too short. I need a conductive spacer to make them fit. There is next to no spring in the battery compartment so it's touchy even with alkalines from the same 30-pack.
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Recorded a voice memo and it did not go to the SD card where the pix and clips went. It went to the internal memory. Not expect that.

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Appreciate rgvcam's comments... I have been shooting at 6MB thinking that it isthe highest setting, but occasionally wondered if there's no improvment in the result versus 3MB. Have not done controlled comparison yet.

Wondered also if this may affect the choppiness. Will try running same video on newer computer to see if it's still choppy.

--------------

Had trouble with washed-out display in the sun; even with it cranked up I could not review wht was being shot and simply used it to aim the general direction. One shot was impossible to locate, I panned up and down to make sure I hit the subject matter sometime. Here's the answer to why I still use SLR's -- I get a BIG BRIGHT IMAGE TO LOOK AT DETAIL before I expose.

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Inserted my 1GB card and was told "Card Protect" which I thought meant the slider had moved but no. So I couldn't use the 1Gb and we started with the 256MB. During lunch I used my PDA to move the data off the full 256MB to the 1MB. On a whim I tried using the 1GB in the cam again and it worked. What was wrong I don't know but now it's friendly.

It is really nice to have a PDA that can take 2 SD cards, what do other mortals do on the road when they have problems? (Tapwave Zodiac yeah!)

[fishycomics]

shelded wrote:

I think we are keeping the camera. Took it to the garden today and it went through only a whole pack of AA batts:? I explained to spouse that most ppl use rechargeables. Shot 465MB of stuff today.

rechargables should fit i own a 5300 aiptek its tight but it fits mybe the sticker is too thick?


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Oddest thing. None of my rechargeables fit. They're like .5mm too short. I need a conductive spacer to make them fit. There is next to no spring in the battery compartment so it's touchy even with alkalines from the same 30-pack.
-----------

Recorded a voice memo and it did not go to the SD card where the pix and clips went. It went to the internal memory. Not expect that.

improvement or not fill the whol e internal up snd then see what happs?

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Appreciate rgvcam's comments... I have been shooting at 6MB thinking that it isthe highest setting, but occasionally wondered if there's no improvment in the result versus 3MB. Have not done controlled comparison yet.

Wondered also if this may affect the choppiness. Will try running same video on newer computer to see if it's still choppy.

the camere states 29fps or not? not reading its spec again 19015 fps will show choppiness
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Had trouble with washed-out display in the sun; even with it cranked up I could not review wht was being shot and simply used it to aim the general direction. One shot was impossible to locate, I panned up and down to make sure I hit the subject matter sometime. Here's the answer to why I still use SLR's -- I get a BIG BRIGHT IMAGE TO LOOK AT DETAIL before I expose.

tft screen lcd is known forthis the cameras I have are like that butt he MPVR seems best. the smaller the screen the harder to see contrast or turning up or down may or may not corect this

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Inserted my 1GB card and was told "Card Protect" which I thought meant the slider had moved but no. So I couldn't use the 1Gb and we started with the 256MB. During lunch I used my PDA to move the data off the full 256MB to the 1MB. On a whim I tried using the 1GB in the cam again and it worked. What was wrong I don't know but now it's friendly.

It is really nice to have a PDA that can take 2 SD cards, what do other mortals do on the road when they have problems? (Tapwave Zodiac yeah!)

Did you format the sd card first in the camera? sometimes it needs that

all these items are very important and Bestthing to do is invest in a call to Aiptek ask them this?

[rgvcam]

shelded wrote:

I think we are keeping the camera. Took it to the garden today and it went through only a whole pack of AA batts:? I explained to spouse that most ppl use rechargeables. Shot 465MB of stuff today.

When you say 'a whole pack of AA batts' - what size pack?When I tested mine, I used the origianal batteries in the package and thought the battery life was quite reasonable. Not great but decent enough though to be fair I didn't have it long enough to do a scientific test of battery life.

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Oddest thing. None of my rechargeables fit. They're like .5mm too short. I need a conductive spacer to make them fit. There is next to no spring in the battery compartment so it's touchy even with alkalines from the same 30-pack.

I noticed this as well. The camera would not always turn on properly with rechargeables in, due to the loose fit.

I don't know why they didn't use proper springs. You could try and bend the tabs but with use they will just become loose again, especially if youuse the slightly longer alkalines,and there is only so many times you can bend metal before it breaks!

In fact it was thisthat also made me decide to take it back as I am very picky with things like this. Don't get me wrong, if the camera had been excellent I would've put up with it, but it was just the straw that broke the camels back for me.

I imagine it must be easier and cheaper to manufacture the battery compartment with tabs instead of springs.

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Recorded a voice memo and it did not go to the SD card where the pix and clips went. It went to the internal memory. Not expect that.

I never tried this as I don't use it. In fact I don't think I ever used it on my IS-DV either, so it's good you tried this out. Are you sure the SD card was actually recognized by the camera before recording? ie did the SD card symbol show up? The reason I say this, is because of your comment below about itthinking the card was right protected which suggests the SD slot may have a problem, at least with one of your cards? Or did you not use the same card?

-----------

Appreciate rgvcam's comments... I have been shooting at 6MB thinking that it isthe highest setting, but occasionally wondered if there's no improvment in the result versus 3MB. Have not done controlled comparison yet.

Wondered also if this may affect the choppiness. Will try running same video on newer computer to see if it's still choppy.

The still image size won't affect video quality as they are unrelated.

--------------

Had trouble with washed-out display in the sun; even with it cranked up I could not review wht was being shot and simply used it to aim the general direction. One shot was impossible to locate, I panned up and down to make sure I hit the subject matter sometime. Here's the answer to why I still use SLR's -- I get a BIG BRIGHT IMAGE TO LOOK AT DETAIL before I expose.

If I remember, the LCD gave a better picture if you viewed it from below rather than above. I am guessing this is because they assumed people would be using it at eye level where you would be looking slightly up.

-----------

Inserted my 1GB card and was told "Card Protect" which I thought meant the slider had moved but no. So I couldn't use the 1Gb and we started with the 256MB. During lunch I used my PDA to move the data off the full 256MB to the 1MB. On a whim I tried using the 1GB in the cam again and it worked. What was wrong I don't know but now it's friendly.

It is really nice to have a PDA that can take 2 SD cards, what do other mortals do on the road when they have problems? (Tapwave Zodiac yeah!)

Yes that is certainlyhandy having 2 SD slots. My Pocket PC just has one, but then it has a built in thumbboard which I love and feel is worth the compromise!