SVAT CVP800 Mini Portable DVR Digital Video Recorder with MPEG4 Compression Review

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(More customer reviews)I purchased the SVAT CVP800 with the CCDCO camera. After some minor initial bumps, I am very satisfied. When first received, the camera had a defective video cable. It took a while for me to figure out the problem, but once done, SVAT customer service was very responsive and sent a replacement cable immediately. The only significant negative comments that I have are that the CVP800 does not include or offer as an optional accessory a 12VDC plug-in car power supply; also the instruction manual is not very helpful in several areas. On the positive side, the CVP800 is extremely small (easily fits into a shirt pocket), light weight and consumes very little power (under 1.5 watt). It has a powerful feature not found on other similar mini-portable units that I evaluated, specifically, the ability to loop record, i.e., continuously record, writing over the oldest data when it reaches the capacity of the SD card. This allows the unit to record 24 hours a day forever without any attention whatsoever. If an event happens that you are aware of and want to review and save, simply stop the recorder and selectively play back the last minutes/hours recorded, and if you want to, download the data onto your computer to save it or simply pull the SD card with the recorded data, and insert a new one in the CVP800. Overall, I have found this unit to be well designed - user friendly, easy to understand, and highly flexible in both recording and playing back. The only reason I gave the CVP800 a 4-star rating (rather than 5-stars) is the absence of an out-of-the-box way to power the unit in a car other than depending on the internal AA batteries.

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Swann SWA43-D6C12 Digital Wireless Camera and 4 Channel SD Recorder Review

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(More customer reviews)It took longer to unpack the camera and recorder than to set it up - literally. If you're not tech savvy, this is the camera for you. When I first installed it, the recorder kept beeping. I finally figured out it was the alarm that is triggered by motion. The problem - there was no motion! I finally turned off the alarm.
I set the camera up in the kitchen late in the evening - we're almost never there that late. The motion detection triggered every few minutes for no obvious reason. I checked the video files - around 200 of them. Only four had motion, and that was me getting a cup of coffee. The rest had ZERO motion.
Since the motion is simply on/off, the camera is not suitable for use when pointing towards trees, for example, monitoring your yard. It would constantly trigger.
If you don't care about the motion trigger, the unit is great. You can record to chip automatically when motion is detected (supposedly) or on a schedule. For example, record between 1am and 3am. It includes a 2gig CF card - the manufacturer claims a 3hr recording time.
Video quality is decent, not great. It's designed for lower resolution displays, not hidef, so looks blocky on our LCD. You can easily recognize peoples faces. I have to do some more tests and see if I can get the motion detection to work correctly. I want to use the camera by the front door - ideally the motion alarm would trigger when someone approaches the front door, and I could then switch the TV to AV input to see who's there. We have a universal remote - I programmed one of the buttons to switch to AV1. So the front door alarm goes off, I hit a button and see who's there. That was the plan - I'll see how it works out!
For another test, I set the camera on a table pointing at the inside of the front door. The door is glass, so the video is too bright - the camera does not compensate for it. Again, it continuously triggered. I called tech support - they had me point it at a wall, four feet away. It still triggered. They were at a loss. After additional testing I found the problem - in very low light, or extremely bright light, the motion detection appears to be triggered by the higher contrast pixels being transmitted. In regular light, the motion detection works fine. In dark or very bright light, the motion detection is useless.
The menu system is pretty basic, and the navigation to watch recorded videos is just a directory tree - you're better off watching the video on your computer.
Camera: Larger than expected, but not too bad. Large array of IR LED's provide light to 25'. Included stand is light duty, but will work fine if you set t up and forget it. My guess is it wall last a couple of years outside. Base has mounting holes, screws provided.
Receiver/DVR: Small, archaic menu, easy to use.
Supports NTSC and PAL. Two resolution settings, 640 x 480 / 320 x 240.
FYI, this is NOT a network camera, IP camera or web cam. It can not be hooked up to a computer (unless you have RCA audio and video inputs) - it's designed to be hooked up to a TV. The receiver supports up to 4 cameras.


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GoPro Helmet HERO Wide Camera Review

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(More customer reviews)I was looking for a small, wide-angle video camera to take some footage of a new "ropes-type" adventure course in the Oak Trees high above the Central Florida Zoo. I wanted to create a video of the course so that whoever watched it would FEEL like they were doing the course themselves.
I looked around and it came down to two cameras, the GoPro or the Vholdr Contour. I chose the GoPro because of its: price, 170 degree lens, top mounted on helmet, and it's really waterproof. However, now that the ContourHD is out, I'd seriously consider getting it instead because of it's outstanding feature set.
Here are some pros and cons I have from using the GoPro 5MP.
Pros: Simple, rugged, aim through viewfinder, 170 degree lens (easy to aim!), several mounts included, mounts on top of helmet...not on side, takes AAA batteries (find them anywhere...and rechargeable NIMH's work great). With it's "take a picture every 2s" mode, it can serve as a cheap and portable security camera too.
Cons: No view screen to see replays (but competition doesn't either), only takes 2GB memory cards (1 hour video), Mode icons are too small, no display of elapsed/remaining time, only "medium" video quality.
The end result is the GoPro worked great as an entry level priced helmet camera...it did exactly what I expected and I wouldn't cry if I broke it during an "adventure".

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Zoom Q3 Handy Video Recorder (Metal Blue) Review

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(More customer reviews)I think the past reviews are pretty slanted towards video enthusiasts and not audio enthusiasts, so I think the low ratings reflect that. That being said, yea, it's 640X480, but there's also nobody on the block offering a hi-fi audio recorder with video. If you know the parent company (Samson), then you know it's an audio company, not a video camera company, and their target audience is musicians who can see the usefulness of recording gigs and rehearsals. I know from experience in many groups that some of the best riffs and song ideas come from impromptu jam sessions that happen between tunes. By having this recorder running through the whole practice, I can now isolate those jams and play back the clip at home to transpose the parts, or I can simply throw the clip on YouTube if I like it as-is. The software it comes with is meant to be user-friendly and isn't trying to replace an expensive big-box video editor, it's there to make the editing process easy and quick. As a 19 year musician, I really find myself caring very little about video quality when I want to check out a new artist's clips on YouTube... and until this point, I've just put up with bad sound from standard handheld video recorders. Now I have a good solution to making the audio as hi-fi as possible in a convienient all-in-one solution. Will Zoom come out with an HD version of this? That seems pretty inevitable! But until then, I am very happy with this device and what it's meant for... high quality audio with decent video quality in a unit under $250.
PS- Does anyone really expect to get their high quality music video shot with a $250 handheld device ANYWAYS? Let's be realistic! Rent at least 4 or so $2k HD cams and run it through a real mixing board if you want your best bet! In the meantime, I feel this device will work great in getting all of those 'lo-budget/good audio' video clips up on YouTube!

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The Q3 Handy Video Recorder brings Zoom's renowned audio technology to the camcorder, making it the best sounding video camcorder you've ever heard. The Q3 uses the same microphone capsules as our industry-leading H4n Handy Recorder and is perfect for recording anything where great audio and video are a must. From live musical performances and rehearsals, interviews, conferences to video podcasts, journalism, education, recitals, weddings or sports, the Q3's pristine audio quality takes your videos to another level.Designed with everything you need to make your movies right out of the box, the Q3 includes HandyShare software for editing, and a 2GB SD card for up to 1 hour of video recording time. And the Q3 will also accept up to 32GB SDHC cards for a staggering 16 hours of moviemaking!The Q3 puts a little bit of video and a whole lot of audio together in one quick and easy to use camcorder that lets you produce great movies on the go.

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Dash Cam Dual Camera Mini DVR System - Records Video Inside & Outside Vehicle w/ Audio - Police Style 2 Channel Car Dashboard Windshield Camera + Microphone Plus GPS Tracking Device & Accident Recorder w/ Google Map - IR Night Vision Recording Of Occupants Review

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(More customer reviews)Well I have owned this for 2 months now.
I live in Taiwan, so it is imperative to record your driving since only about 10% of the drivers follow any type of traffic laws. The problem I now face is that the software will not play back the video or convert it to MP4 format for archiving and future use.
The manufacturer has answered my emails (albeit slowly) and aknowledged that the software supplier (blackbox) has documented that the software is not really comaptable with Win 7 or Vista (32 or 64 bit).
They have promised to keep me up to date on the software issue.
The hardware works great and apparently records everything (because I cannot view it to verify this). The gps is fairly stable as far as the voice prompt goes, and it picks up a gps lock when my Garmin fails to do so.
Once I get an operational viewing software from the manufacturer I will update this review.
I have had some issues with 32GB SDHC cards as they work for about 3 days and then the recorder fails to recognize them anymore until they are reformatted. I have had the same issues with 16 GB SDHC cards as well. The happy median seems to be 8GB SDHC cards as it has been in place for 2 weeks and I have not had an error yet. I have several class 8, 6 and class 4 SDHC cards laying around and I have tried them all and everything above 8GB errors out after 2-3 days of use and is unrecognized by the device. All of the cards are name brand and lifetime warranteed. I even had the device fry one of my 32 GB class 10 cards, but the SDHC supplier replaced it without question and verifeid that the recording device had over voltaged the card, and destroyed the SDHC unit. I guess the lower quality 8GB cards can take a wider voltage variance where the higher capacity cards are more precise and sensitive to current and voltage variances.
I recomend this product as long as they can get the software operational. I am sure it will work with XP 32 bit, but I don't have any available machines runing that OS right now.

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