Digital Cameras Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘Palm Of Your Hand’

Creative Labs Vado HD 720p Pocket Video Camcorder with 8 GB Video Storage and 2x Digital Zoom Black

See it, shoot it, share it – capture life’s unforgettable moments in high-definition clarity and share them online with Creative’s Vado HD Pocket Video Cam. The thin, lightweight Vado HD is small enough to fit in a pocket, purse or the palm of your hand, and easily captures video in 720p high-definition quality with just the touch of a button. The Creative Vado HD is the only pocket video camera to feature high quality HDMI connectivity and an included HDMI cable that provides 1080i output to an HDTV. Sharing videos online is simple with built-in software that helps you post videos to YouTube, Photobucket or Box. net. The VadoHD is the only pocket video cam to feature true HDMI Connectivity and an included HDMI cable for a superior viewing experience on an HDTV. Take the VadoHD Pocket Video Cam with you everywhere you go and never miss a moment. Up to 8 hrs extended recording capacity (640×480 @ 30fps) HDMI & RCA connections for TV (HDMI cable included, AN cable available separately). Removable, rechargeable Li-ion battery VadoCentral software for simple video editing and sharing Memory size – 8GB Sensor – HD CMOS (1280 x 720) Video quality (pixels) – 1280 x 720 Low light performance – Extremely high sensitivity at 3.3V/lux-sec LCD – 2 diagonal, 16 million colors Screen resolution (pixels) – 640 x 240 Zoom – 2x Digital Zoom Recording capacity – Up to – 2 hours (HD+ quality), 4 hours (HD quality), 8 hours (VGA quality) Digital video format – H.264 AVI at 30 frames per second TV out – RCA, HDMI (HDMI cable included) PC connection – Built-in flexi USB connector Battery life – 2 hours Dimension (H x W x D) – 3.9 x 2.2 x 0.6 Weight – 3.5 oz. Package Contents – Vado HD Pocket Video Cam, HDMI Cable, USB Extension Cable, Silicon Skin, Rechargeable Battery

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Highly Recommended!
I purchased a Vado HD about a month ago on a whim in preparation for a trip around Europe, thinking it might be nice to have some video footage of the things we do and see on the trip. I have owned several bulkier video cameras in the past and am a developer at an online media company, so some of this review will be a bit technical but it should be useful for everyone. I have used the Vado HD for about a month now, taken and processed many hours of video, and have even put together a DVD of some of the footage for friends.

First and foremost, I am very impressed by the Vado HD. Creative opted to use the state of the art H.264 video codec, the image quality is excellent given the limitations of a small image sensor and the device is extremely easy to use. Unlike my DSLR I can hand this to family and friends and they are able to use it in one try, just press the big button. This is extremely useful around children, grandparents, etc.

Image quality is dependent on the amount of available light and the amount of motion (including global motion / shaking of the camera). Less light results in a less clear and noisier picture. More movement results in a less clear picture and possible encoding artifacts. So, if you mostly record in decent lighting and try to hold the camera still or use a tripod then the image quality is absolutely excellent. The camera auto-adjusts exposure settings to your current environment, but realize that it can take a second when moving from very light to very dark environments and such. If you plan to film a lot of night scenes you need to remember there is a limit to the amount of gain the camera will use, so if it is very dark you will get near black video. The sensor is just too small to add much gain to the signal. The video format is 1280×720 H.264 Main, level 4, at 30 frames per second with a bitrate around 8000kpbs. The video is progressive (not interlaced).

Sound quality is about average for such a device. The audio format is Microsoft ADPCM, one channel at 44100kHz. Try not to directly face the wind and you should get decent quality. It can’t be compared to a powerful dedicated directional or wireless mic system, but remember the purpose of the device.

The container format used is AVI rather than MP4, which has a few implications depending on the operating system you use. Apparently it makes life easier on Microsoft Windows, but I’ve never tried using it with Windows. On Mac OS X 10.5 it works fine as long as you install the Perian Quicktime codec pack, which adds support to all applications using the Quicktime library (Quicktime Player, iMovie, Final Cut, etc). If all you care about is playback then VLC will play the files beautifully without installing Perian. Ubuntu and other Linux distributions will play the files out of the box (or automatically install the required components and then play the files). Kdenlive, PiTiVi, and OpenShot support the files perfectly for editing.

The Vado HD is a USB mass storage device, so it is literally plug and play. The files show up on a disk and you can watch and/or drag them to your computer easily. The Vado HD is really that easy to use.

In my opinion the bitrate is pretty high for the quality, but that’s probably a limitation of the hardware encoder in the camera. When storing the files on my computer for editing or archiving I will generally transcode them using FFmpeg, an excellent free video processing tool. The settings I recommend for others are:

ffmpeg -i VID00001.AVI -vcodec libx264 -vpre default -crf 23 -acodec libfaac -ab 128k VID00001.mp4

In my experience the above will result in H.264/AAC in MP4 at a bitrate of around 5000kbps and an SSIM of 0.985 (very near the original quality at 60% of the original file size).

An issue that you most certainly will run into is the shakiness of your videos, especially when moving around / walking with the camera. I’ve found the free AviSynth DePan plugins to be extremely useful for combating this, but it does require running AviSynth through wine or a virtual machine on both Mac OS X and Linux, as AviSynth is Windows-only. Recent versions of iMovie now include a deshake feature so this should be less of a problem for Mac users. After deshaking the videos look much more professional and are far less likely to cause your friends and family to experience vertigo.

There was one severe issue that I ran into that should be mentioned. A week ago I turned on the Vado HD and when pressing record the screen would go black. Nothing was recorded and nothing worked. I was able to format the device by turning it on with the play and trash buttons pressed. After the formatting everything works beautifully again, however if I had any important videos on the device they would have been permanently erased. Since this happened it has not happened again, and I’m likely to call it a filesystem corruption one-time fluke. If it ever happens to you, don’t panic, just format the device. Be aware that you should copy your videos off the device when you can, just in case. Backups are always a smart idea! Also note that formatting the device removes the included software bundle for Windows, so if you are a Windows user you may care about that. I don’t and it gave me an extra few minutes of recording time when it removed the software.

Overall I have to say this is an amazing device. High quality video in your pocket, everywhere. I carry it in my jacket pocket everyday now, taking it out from time to time to film friends or interesting things I see about town. You really can’t beat it for the price and the features. The Creative Vado HD just works, and it works well. I recommend it to anybody wanting to get into filming or wanting to document trips or his/her life. I am extremely happy with the purchase and would buy it again (and may actually purchase another one as a gift).

5 Stars Great video camera for YouTube
Love this camera: battery life is unexpectedly long, high video resolution, super-easy youtube transfer. If this video camera has zooming capability and much better sound quality, it would definitely deserve a five-star rating.

5 Stars Fantastic image quality for an HD camcorder of this size!!!
everything is perfect except one thing – when taping indoors, VadoHD automatically changes the exposition level, so for example if you are taping a person with a window or another good source of light in the background, the person might come out heavily darkened in video. so just try no to come to close to the object you are taping, and everything will be great.

in short – extremely happy with this purchase, one of the rare things that is really useful in everyday life, especially when taping little kids – believe me, in 15-20 years they will be SO GRATEFUL to you for preserving in video their childhood… simply priceless… no need to run for your big DV/HD camera to another room, look for it on the shelf, take it out of the carrying case, turn it on (if battery is not dead – when did you charge it last time?), open the display, check the settings, tape, disk, hdd, flash memory, whatever — well, too many operations. with this tiny beast you can instantly have on video whatever you want – birthdays, get-togethers, fishing/hunting trips, hiking, picnics etc. it is always in your pocket, with a nice light-gray silicon protective case on it (included w/ the device).

whoever sees it, immediately asks (1) what is this and (2) where it can be purchased from.

video format is AVI (HD compressed, of course) – a standard, classic, compatible w/ everything, format.

and yes, did i say it – unbelievably good video quality for a device of this size!!! especially outdoors. wide-angle (!!!) glass lenses are great!

but just remember that this camcorder is really useful in situations when you don’t really need zoom. for school, sport, music or similar events, big concerts etc, take your DV/HD camcorder with you.

5 Stars Incredible Video for a camera this size.
Instructions or suggestions for creating a DVD are not included. It would be helpful, however if you have various DVD creator programs you’ll be able to figure it out.

5 Stars Gr8 HD cam all round
The Creative Vado HD is the perfect work companion for me. I own a lot of gear including a full 3ccd HD camcorder, and while that is undeniably great, my Vado is by far the thing I use the most. I am not going to go into a big review of the features, there are plenty of reviews already doing that. What I will say is that for one on one interviews, capturing footage from tradeshows and conferences, and social events at work, it’s perfect. Anyone can use it, so it’s very easy to give it to someone to use and not worry about them struggling to work out what to do. The size is great it’s about the size of my old Blackberry Pearl, and the battery is great, gives me plenty to shoot for a weekend, or a tradeshow.

The built in sw is pretty good, for short edits, but I do use another editing package that I edit the footage with, which gives me more control over sound/transitions etc – it’s not surprising that SW cost more than the Vado.

I love that the sw is built into the camera, and loads through USB, it means I can use it between all my machines. I do have one feature request though, currently the sw has a fixed window size, which is fine on most of my machines, but… when I use on my Netbook, the 600px screen height is not quite enough to use the sw correct. Creative, if you can make Vado Central resizable or have a Netbook optimized view, now you’re cookin!

I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone.

Buy/More Info