New 720p Pocket cam $169. Aiptex A-HD
 

Looks like an improvement over the Go model in ways.

http://www.aiptek.com/Merchant2/merc...&Store_Code=AS

http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/v...m_id=92&page=1

An review:
http://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...96&forum_id=92

Still trying to find out details of HD component out.

No 24p. Yawn.

Funny, no 24p an serious disadvantage for an $169 HD camera ;). 30p good for the US, no 25p is the kicker for Australia and Pal market. The low data-rate of all these cameras is the real sore point. 9mb/s h264 25p would be acceptable, 18mb/s preferable.

In theory 720p doesn't have to be more then 4mbit/s when using Mpeg4 or H264. It just depends I think on the quality of the encoding. So my question is how good is that chip. I shot a sample footage using that camcorder at IFA 2007 and I'm posting it at http://techvideoblog.com/ifa/?year=2007

My goal with a 720p camcorder today would be to shoot HD for video-blogs, which looks perfect on computer screens and which look better than DVD on big screens and using projectors. So for me less than 4mbit/s might be just perfect, I just think it's also important that it records good sound quality and also supports an external microphone.

And I'd rather actually have a DivX 720p camcorder then a H264 720p camcorder even though h264 might improve compression by about 10%.

Does anyone own this camera , or has anyone owned the go model ? From the buyer reviews I've seen , the quality of the product is very low , but about a 1/3 get an acceptable camera . Does that mean I need to buy 3 ??

Just ordered one today from Aiptek website. Free car charger... Yippie... Otherwise I'm looking to find a camera that I can use to place on a bunch of motorcycle racers. If the first one is good. I'll buy 4 more to place all over the riders... Will post video when I recveive the camera. I know it probable won't have stablization but I plan on using FCP's "SmoothCam" feature. Which has given me great results before. Will check back...

No 24/25p?
It's not even worth buying as a paper weight.

Wake up, manufacturers!!!!!

looks like a fun little camera to me!

Right, this is the camera to hook up to a skate board, motorcycle, dog, RC plane, hole in ground, railroad tracks, etc. Doesn't matter if the sound sucks or if it's shaky footage, it's for the impossible shot. Hell I'd wrap it in bubble wrap and throw it off a building!

If you get the shot, the file will be worth more than the camera :-)
Jon

I'm also very interested in this units video quality. What control there is (if any) over image. And how well the cam works with movement, actual resolution, and low light. I do not care at all about audio.
There appears to be a HD resolution "Go" model that has better low light capability. Anyone help with this?
It seems like a fantastic option for specialty shots and long record time given how cheap the mem cards are.
I think I'm going to get one just for the analog-in view/record and media player functions.

I found the manual here:
http://www.goaiptek.com/manuals/manual-ahd.pdf

Manual features include white balance and exposure. There is no explanation of how shutter works, but it isn't user selectable. It does state that night shot lowers shutter.

The Go-HD offers 3x optical zoom, and some free accessories, but doesn't inclued the analog in function. Any idea why it is 2x the price of the A-HD?

PS- one shocker I found was these cams offer a histogram! Huh!

Go-HD ~Get One right away!!!
 

Saw one- bought one............WOW!
This thing is worlds better than the JVC HD10U or HD 1! Does a much better job of handling highlights (but does blow out extremes- but much better at holding bright areas!)
This camera produces much better footage than my $1600 JVC Everio HD7! I simply can't believe how good this plastic fantastic is. Everything about it screams "toy" but it does produce very nice, sharp, footage. It produces .mov files that have these properties-
http://www.stevenunez.com/GoHDMediaProp.jpg
and is surprisingly good at low light levels (much better than the HD10U/HD1 or HD7!!!)

How Aiptek can do this for $279 is beyond me- kinda makes you wonder what these companies are really paying for these so called "expensive" CMOS sensors.

The downside is no image stabilization at all- NONE! No manual controls other than some preset white balance options and EV adjustments a few steps in either direction (I believe the less expensive model doesn't offer this- but not certain.)
If Aiptek can produce this camera that shoots to SD cards (and they don't have to be high speed HC type either- standard SD is suffice) I can't imagine why Canon or Panasonic can't do the same but on a higher level! Full manual controls, focus ring, mic input, custom WB, optical IS etc.........this is what we want!!!!!!!!!

Guys trust me on this one- if you can do with the shortcomings I've listed- this camera will knock your socks off! This camera has single handedly killed the Sanya Xacti camera- which has horrible low-light shooting (but better manual controls.)

(Mac users note: Call Aiptek and ask them for Firmware 1.5- they don't officially support it but will email it to you upon request. It will allow the camera to be used as a card reader <even SDHC cards> and when recharging via USB port it will mount the card on the Mac OSX desktop- allowing full access to the video files!)

I really hope a "Pro" version get's released- this thing is great and shoots progressive 720P.........makes me smile every time I pick it up.......all for $279!

(You can even find them on sale at various shops- I've seen them under $240 with discount!)
Have fun and let us know what you think about yours!

Let's see some footage then...

Just picked up an A-HD at Circuit City for $150... too dark now to shoot much test footage but I'll upload some samples tomorrow.

Overall impressions - it's small, light, cheap and simple. As Steve noted the only image control options are white balance and exposure compensation - everything else is auto. It's not something I'd recommend buying if you have expectations of using it for professional work.

That said, the image quality looks pretty good so far. At 4Mbit/s it's definitely pushing the limits of h.264 for 720p res - this mostly seems to manifest itself during fast pans, with the image going soft and then sharpening up again when the camera stops moving. We'll see tomorrow if it's as noticeable in bright light.

This looks to be a great travel cam - I'm not going to carry my XHA1 on vacation, but I can see taking this with me almost anywhere I go. I'm also thinking it'll be good on my bike for road trips - almost like a helmet cam but without the hassle of cables, etc. No image stabilizer, so I'll have to mount it on me instead of the bike (twin vibrates enough to overwhelm OIS anyway). Only odd thing - again as Steve noted - the instructions say to hit record & close the LCD for longer battery life (which I'd like to do when riding) but as soon as you close the screen it shuts off. Still with a claimed 90 minute battery life, and 60 minutes per 2gig card, it's probably fine with the screen on - you can flip it down flush with the body to keep it out of the way.

I think at $150, there's not much to lose here, unless it's HORRIBLE, and it doesn't sound like it. As soon as I see some footage, I'm just about sold... maybe. I already have too many consumer camcorders.

This is cheaper than most lipstick cameras guys are strapping to their heads. And it does not require a capture unit.

Didn't end up having much time to really get out and shoot any tests, so you'll have to make do with my dog playing fetch...

http://www.divergentshadows.com/vide...y_A-HD720p.mov (right click and 'save as...' if you don't want to watch in your browser)

This is straight from the camera with no recompression - shot the video, plugged the camera in and the card mounts like any other drive, copied the file to my hard drive and used MPEG Streamclip to trim down to this segment.

A few observations... there is no focus on this camera - it's basically a pinhole, with a small fixed aperture so that everything is in focus from about 15" on out. There is a switch for a close up mode - you can see me switch into it at the point where Benny (that's my dog) steps up very close to the camera.

Since the aperture is fixed exposure seems to be handled entirely via shutter speed - you can see the strobing when Benny wags his tail. The sensor is clearly a CMOS, as there is a little bit of rolling shutter effect during movement - you can see the 'wobble' when I pick the camera up and walk closer (the camera is on a little REI pocket tripod for most of this shot).

No image stabilizer + CMOS wobble + high speed shutter strobe + HD resolution + high compression = rough handheld shots. I think you just need to be careful when shooting handheld with this camera. I'll have to experiment some more to figure out the best way to use it - I'm not certain how well it'll hold up for fast motion on my bike but I'll try to get out for a ride tomorrow and upload some shots.

It also shoots SD (720x480) and web resolutions, both of which look pretty good. Down-rezzing for the web works really well, too - here's an iPhone-compatible (640x360, 900kpbs/video, 128kbps/audio, 2-pass compression, no b-frames) version of the same video recompressed in MPEG Streamclip:

http://www.divergentshadows.com/vide...ny_640x360.mp4

It also looks pretty decent via component on my HDTV, so despite all of it's limitations I can't complain - it's a good casual, take anywhere camera, especially if you're primarily shooting video that will end up on the web. You can also use it as a portable media player - I don't know what it's limitations are in terms of bit rate, but I'll try copying some higher quality stuff to the card and playing it back on my tv - might prove to be a great portable means of playing back HD material.

I'll shoot some more samples in a wider variety of situations over the next couple days and add the links as they're ready.

Thanks for posting this. If the video looks more like the ipod footage before you trimmed it , it's not bad for the price.

Man what a cool little dog you got.

The first video is exactly what you get straight from the camera - MPEG Streamclip does lossless editing unless you specifically tell it to recompress, so trimming it down didn't change the quality. The camera encodes HD @ 4Mbit/s, which definitely hurts the video quality - in my own tests I've found 6Mbit/s the lower limit for 720p material before quality starts to degrade. However, in this case it may be that the imaging system isn't high enough quality to warrant much more than 4Mbit/s anyway.

Cool , I didn't know that. Im may pick one up to keep in my car .

Is there a tripod mounting screw-hole?

I may pick one up to mount to a car if so.

yes, there is a standard tripod mount. I'm going to grab one of these this evening:

http://www.rei.com/product/697398?vcat=REI_SEARCH

I think it'll be a perfect match - clamp the camera to just about anything and shoot...

I'll pick one up as well, I think, if I've got money in the budget. My big problem is that if my 1080p camera breaks, the next step down is a standard DV camera, meaning I'll have to downrez the whole movie to match.

I'll have to capture sound separately (which I would have had to do with the DV camera anyway,) but with this camera, I can downrez to 720p instead.

And, as people have said, it's a great "crash camera."

From the posted clips I have seen so far,
the Aiptek A-HD at around 150 to 170U US$ seems to be much better in video quality than the
Go-HD at about 280 US$ !

It seems it made sense, to drop the optical zoom and thus
there is no annoying permanent automatic focus as with the Go-HD,
which made the Go-HD unusable e.g in low light rock concert conditions,
which I already tried.

Is there the possibility to hook up an external mike to the A-HD ?
If not, maybe with this low prize it is possible to hack the camera
and include a jack for an external better microphone sound that will
not distort in loud concert conditions ?

How is the digital zoom with the A-HD ?
Is it working only in steps or is the zoom smooth ?
Many thanks.

I guess it depends on what kind of movie you are making, but personally I'd go with a DV camera uprezzed rather than this camera - I just wouldn't consider it suitable for any type of serious production work.

Watching video from the camera on my tv looks pretty good in HD - until I switch between it and my A1, which makes all the shortcomings of the A-HD much more evident. Which means cutting between this and a better camera will only draw attention to the camera's limitations. As a crash cam, you can probably get away with it - in situations where the nature of the shot makes up for the quality difference.


No, no mic inputs - but I suspect it would be easy enough to open up the case and wire something in. The built-in mic is pretty bad.

It's smooth... I haven't tested it much but it doesn't appear to reduce quality much either. Since the camera apparently has a 5 megapixel sensor there appears to be enough extra resolution to zoom in and still produce 720p video.

A nice bonus feature of the A-HD is analog input capture @480p. Very handy feature.
It has a voice recorder feature and records to .wav

8GB cards are available for under $90 US/CAN will give you 5+hours of 720p30 record time and 10hours in 480p.
The cam uses N60 batteries will last 90min in record and cost around $10.

I would like to have any verification if the cam can operate as a media player. I know it does not accept mp3's, but does anyone know if you could send a PC encoded file (Mov) and have the cam properly decode it?

Here is an entertaining review of the A-HD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-VQr...elated&search=

PS- Anyone have a link to where I could buy one in or will ship to Canada?

GSpot codec analyzer gives me these stats on the raw Benny clip.

Quicktime(.mov)

Under audio codec it reads
mp4a: MPEG-4 AAC LC
48000Hz 128 kb/s tot , stereo (2/0)

Under video codec it reads:
avc1
H.264
kbps=3916 and Qf=0.142
Not sure what Qf is though?

Frames=29.971
1280 x 720
1.778 (16:9)

This may help for anyone trying to convert.

Wow! 160 bucks? Cool.
Is this camera the same as the GO-HD just without the optical zoom or does it use a different sensor and produces lower quality images?

Bronx, NYC Custom Car Show
 

One small annoying quirk is lack of focus during zooms or rapid movement- but for $169 what can you expect.

Here are 2 quick vids directly from camera, hand held no editing or any adjustments- just straight from camera:

Right click and save as.
1. Lamborghini's at the Bronx Orchard Beach Car Show- very harsh direct sunlight:
http://www.stevenunez.com/videos/lambos.MOV

2. Just a quick clip of a hotrod driving past:
http://www.stevenunez.com/videos/hotrod.MOV

Great clips. What more could one ask for at that price point. Wow.
Thanks Steve.

hey guys, would anybody like to take a crack on my question above?

Great clips indeed! Not HV20 quality but for 1/6th of the price it's great. I'm thinking of getting one of those. Just not sure if the GO-HD or this.

Michael,

From what I understand it is the same chip.
The main differences are:
Go-Hd has optical zoom and AF
A-HD has digital zoom and fixed focus.
No LED lights on the A-HD
The battery life is better on the A-HD

I've see 2 clips demonstrating the zoom of both. The GO-Hd had a bit more reach when zoomed all the way in.

On the A-HD think they fixed some issues that were really a problem on the GO-HD. By looking at the clips I can see that the AF on the GO-HD is really poor and slow. It hunts too much initially and it gives a blurry look until it locks in. I don't expect instant AF but this one is just too slow.


My money is on the A-HD.

The clips I've posted are from the Go-HD.

Can't get this thing out of my pocket.
 

I don't know what it is... I bought an A-HD and I seem to bring it everywhere. I own two other HD cameras but I find my self using this thing anywhere and everywhere... basically because I think its just fun and if you happen to drop it you won't be disappointed as much as one of your big cameras.

Here's a link to a video I shot of fall colors using the foootage from the Aiptek A-HD only. I didn't use the audio. To rough. Currently working on doing car mounts and motorcycle mounts with it. Considering buying two more just to get those extreme shots without the worry.

Here's the clip:


http://youtube.com/watch?v=sGXhS6QXQ3g

RAW Video Samples at: www.skyhighsports.com/Aiptek/Aiptek.zip

Hmmm those raw samples are actually fairly blocky don't you think? No post processing or conversion at all? It seems to have an awful lot of artifacting.

I hope you aren't judging by the YouTube examples as those are converted with heavy compression to SWF/SWV type for quick viewing.
I don't find it blocky at all, for the price it just can't be beat!

I was looking at the raw zip files that were posted.. they just looked really blocky to me which was why I was wondering if they were "raw" or had any kind of post processing or encoding?

yeah, they have a little bit of 'crunch', but i think its pretty manageable considering the versatility of the device.

seems like it might be an interesting project to tap video directly from the sensor (hint hint any soldering gurus out there.)

The clips are directly from the camera. I agree that water and heavy detail with movement offer some artifacts. But if you were going to take this down to an SD-DVD it might not look so bad.

I bought one and returned it the next day. Sound quality was absolutely terrible. Very distorted at even moderate levels. Video quality was OK. I did exchange it once for the same camera in case mine was faulty. Same issue.