Aiptek camcorder

[georgyporgy 0]

What's your experience with any Aiptek camcorders?

They are small, light, cheap and operate on an SD card.

I have not found a canadian retailer that carries them so I hope some of you have experience with them.

The model I'm interested in is MPVR for 200$ US. It's resolution is 640x480 VGA@ 30 fps, Dims are 4.1" x 2.6" x 1.25". It has some other fun media features but I only care for the video and its light weight.

I want to know if the camcorder records steadily when subjected to opening force and if the quality of the image is worth the camcorder, but not for professional use.

the ground IS the limit

[georgyporgy 0]

http://www.aiptek.com/

the ground IS the limit

[hexadecimal 0]

Be careful... you'll anger the camera snobs

[AndyMan 7]

It's not a matter of angering the snobs.

If anyone wants to waste their money on a toy, I really couldn't care less.

If anyone really wants a toy, then go ahead and buy one.

Please do us a favor though, and let us know how it works out.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[BenHall 0]

I got one, the MPV, for a christmas gift and ended up returning it. It is failry light w/ the resolutions you mentionned. I'm not sure how it would work in freefall though, it felt pretty cheap and there was no lens cover. I'm not even sure you could even put a lens on it or not. From playing with it, I really didn't get the feeling it would work for skydiving at all--which is why I returned it and bought some radios instead. There was nothing wrong per se w/ the camera functions, it's just that it tries to be too multi-funnctional (w/ the mp3 player and voice recorder and whatnot). For jumping I would stick w/ a more dependable brand, ebay always has cheap offerings. Good luck!

[steveorino 7]

Quote

Be careful... you'll anger the camera snobs

Why do people think those of us who have 100s or 1000s of jumps flying camera, and the only camcorder the majority of us have found to be reliable over any significant period of time is Sony, is being snobby when we tell you so?

Like Andy said, buy it, then tell us what YOU think.

steveOrino

[hexadecimal 0]

I'm not talking about that... I was only making reference to someone getting defensive when all I did was post a link to some new technology that might appeal to someone now, and could improve greatly in the future.

[davelepka 4]

For shooting real video, it's got be Sony.

Provided they can stay on, and survive the openings, it would be fun to strap them to an arm or your belly. Maybe even do a hand held (left hand) self portrait.

You could do stuff with it you wouldn't want to risk with a regular camera. Like the disposable stills cameras people jump with, it fun to play with, and if it gets dropped or broken no biggie (unless it lands on someone or something valuable).

[steveorino 7]

If it was $200 I wouldn't be abl to say "no biggee".

steveOrino

[davelepka 4]

Did you check the link? They've got one for $25.
Thats no biggie. It might not be the top of the line, but they're all just toys anyway.

[steveorino 7]

No, I was at work-- I usually don't go to links from there. Yeah $25 would be through away type. Most likely the quality would be like my camera phone.

steveOrino

[christimeyer 0]

Hey, do you remember if the LCD screen had to be open in order to record, since there is no viewfinder. I was looking at this camera, I like some of the other features like recording a movie to it to watch while traveling, having it for some on the ground video, and I was hoping it might work for student and coach jumps.
But if the LCD screen has to be open in order to record this is obviously not a freefall option.
The unit got good reviews on epinion.com.

[Praetorian 1]

No where near as cheap but I have a Panasonic SV-AV100 works on SD small and light, works great... but the cost is higher, and as I use it mostly as a flight data recorder I cannot tell you how well it shoots compared to "real" cameras... I think the image quality is comparable.. but the video I shoot sucks, as I'm not a Camera flyer, just a guy who jumps with a camera on his head that he remembers to turn on most of the time

Good Judgment comes from experience...a lot of experience comes from bad
judgment.

[dragon2 0]

Quote

I think the image quality is comparable..

Not possible. Video that´s on SD is very compressed, miniDV video is very very big, about 3.6 MB per second, or 13 GB per tape!

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[scotttodaro 0]

I've had one for several weeks.
you can buy them at circut city on line for $109.oo, and drop in a 2gig sd card for $25.oo

The screen will flip open, spin 180 deg and lay flat back in it's slot and you can film for a couple of hours.

it shoots 30 frames a sec, so it's not up to quality and not really something you want to charge money for.

It has image stabilizer and does a fair job.

it also comes with movie making software.

at that price everybody should be shooting every jump they make.

you can also get the same camera in 8gig for $149.00 at Best Buy......

You could build a box to put it in and mount a wide angle to the box. (I filmed whales in maui last week using bi-nocs)