New $279.99 720p H264 pocket camera, before anybody else (Sanyo?):
 

My contact has just let me know of a new camera shipping, apparently good reviews, but I am off to do some important business and cannot look them up for now:

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Aipte...oductDetail.do

We can expect more in future.

Here is another link.

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

So what is the thing here, it might be possible that this camera will offer similar workable quality of codec to the Sanyo HD1, but at half the data-rate. Future, as the data rates rise we will see much better quality and cameras, that are suitable for on demand professionals to carry in their pockets.

I'm not sure about these Aiptek cams. To me Aipteks have the look and feel of disposable photo cameras you get at the petrol station or at KMart. I could be mistaken about this one though. Aiptek, please proof me wrong (despite me having bought a HD2 just two days ago).

But when you're comparing this one to a HD2 or a TX1 keep in mind, that this one has just an 3x optical zoom and squeezes 720p through a CMOS sensor.



EDITH says: I just found a forum entry at "Steve's DigiCams" where a member already has got an Aiptek Go-HD. He posted sample shots as well.

I have to say I'm not really impressed (but then again I may be biased as I just paid 830 US$ to get a HD2). Video seems to be quite jaggie as well and the colours are pretty washed out. I didn't see the xacti crawling though. But then again he hasn't posted any low light shots yet.

Everything to be found here: http://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...m_id=92&page=1

Thanks for that Alexander. Just the first of many cameras I think. Codec wise is my main concern, I don't expect too much from Aiptek, but I would not be surprised if it sell plenty HD TV's (along side PS3 and Xbox 360, of course).

I didn't find footage in that thread, but there is some here.

http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/v...62&forum_id=92

It's in the post of Fri May 4th, 2007 06:41 pm about three quarters down the page.

Ah, what the heck, I'll just post the links here. These are not my samples!

------------------
First file: Zoom Test #1 (12 MB):

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NT4HITHM

Second file: Zoom Test #2 (9 MB):

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C8TKUW26

Third File: Simple Panoramic (14 MB):

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=63XP6M5P
-----------------

Does anyone know if the videos from this will play on a PS3 un-edited straight from the camera ?

And here comes the low light (or at least lower light/indoor) footage.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8G9ZEKX6

I have to say I'm pretty surprised how little crawling/noise there is in the picture. Definetly less than on my HD2. Also it it handles white balance rather well.
But I have to say it definetly has a focusing problem. The image never seems to be sharp on any object. Also the zoom motor is incredibly loud.

But all in all I have to say you seem to get quite a lot for your dollar. Definetly something to build on for Aiptek. Also worth mentioning is the filesize. 38 MB for 1 Minute and 16 seconds of footage!

Only that this camera really stuffes up my mac. VLC Player won't play it at all, MPlayer is incredibly choppy and Quicktime doesn't play it well either. I never had that much trouble with vlc on any file before.

Sorry Joey, no idea about the PS3. But I believe these files are straight from the cam. So you should just try to put a downloaded file on a SD card and see how it goes.

Thanks I will do that when I get home.

Tried to get it to work on VLC last night, I could get it to crawl very slowly with an slant, but the wrong color, reds and blues reversed or something. Quick time gave em the odd frame. You will have to count me out of this round, my equipment is not up to playing it, though I can probably get stills from VLC.

Is it my imagination, or does this have the diagonal block problem of the original Sanyo HD models. When I got it working at an crawl, there seemed to be an lot of interpolation crawl on moving details (codec) was this my card, or was this in the picture?

The color doesn't look too saturated, yet I don't know if it is too washed out. Is everybody getting this on there different players, as an player can effect things. Latitude was interesting, could see in the shadow, in what appeared to be bright light, but this might not be an accurate representation from the little I saw flashing by. It maybe an interesting camera, but more so when cameras reach the 9-24mb/s range at 720p25/30 and 50/60p.

Yeah, these files really stuff up your computer. So I took the indoor file and put it through ffmpegx and encoded it to .avi. Now vlc can handle it without a problem.

From what I can see the encoding is pretty much lossless where the image detail and colour saturation is concerned. So you can get a pretty good idea about the cameras' picture quality. Unfortunately ffmpegx created some strange artefacts popping up. These were not in the original footage. But maybe that was what screwed up vlc player in the first place.

Filesize went up from 38 to 58 MB.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NC7K9RZ4

Ha, ha, I just finished downloading the original at around 3k a second ;).

Thanks for this, I'll look out for the artifacts.

Wow, my vlc just smears artifacts and codec problems everywhere with my machine, along with blue wood, and brown blues (this from an fresh install too).

I've been downloading codec stuff and trying players, even got media player to play the clips (very slowly) and VLC is not one of the better ones this time, presently downloading k codec to try.

The one at Megauploads called Panoramic played in QT 7.1 just fine.

VLC .8.6b works here too

Pretty good for under $300.

More.... It is really slow going, but I have dropped both the Panoramic and File001 samples into Liquid 7.2. It is converting them to M2V 720p, but able to read them. Cool.

not so bad for the price. im not sure its really worth the extra resolution judging from the heavy noise reduction filtering and heavy rolling shutter artifacts though... thats just from the one clip i saw though.

This cam uses the new Ambrella AVC H264 codec, so it is
just only 4 to 5 MBits/sec,
at least this is what myMediaplayer Classic says after installing
the newest FFDSHOW.

Rename the files to avi, then they play much smoother
as then the FFDSHOW decoder is used !


But it seems we again have the Jaggies problem.

You can see it very good as the green plant big gras
with its diagonal leaves...
There are these annoying jaggies...

Maybe one can set this camera to manual mode
and thus avoid this sharp image mode with its pretty sharp
contrast and thus get less jaggies at the perepherie surface of
high contrast edges ?

But I must say, for a 300 US$ this camera is still a bargain !

If you convert the footage to standard 720x480 anamorphic
16:9
DVD resolution it will be better than any available
DV camera costing 3 times asmuch money !

So now I have to make the decision, if I go with this one
or will buy a HD2 ?
Hmm, is it really worth to get a bit better picture
with also 10 x Zoom and pay around 400 to 500 US$ more ?

Regards, Stefan.

I don't expect the 4-5mb/s H264 stream to be any better than the 9mb/s Mpeg4 from Sanyo, and in some cases it, might, be worse. the 4-5mb/s might be very similar. The low light looks an lot better than the Sanyo normally does. I think it is an good buy for the price, and would be tempted to buy it and chuck it once something better comes out.

Yes it is ambarella, good on you for finding that, their camera chips have an much faster top end, into the professional realm in data rates. The lowered data rate is expected on an consumer SD card camera, as an advantage in card storage. Hopefully there should be at least an 10mb/s-15mb/s mode on more expensive cameras under $1K. But the diagonal problem (is that the one you are talking about?) makes me wonder if the codec, hardware of the HD1 is involved, or Sanyo, bazaar artifacts spotted on an few cameras now. It is almost like an quality downgrade fro consumer cameras?

I theorised that diagonal block problems of the Sanyo might be an problem with interpolation on Bayer, as Bayer is heavily leaned towards the green channel, and the colors are red blue striped, and green striped on bayer sensors.

Yes, the Aiptek camera seems to have simular Jaggies
problems as the Sanyo HD1.

But I wonder, if they are just there, because the sharpening
and contrast is so high ?
Maybe, if there is a manual setting, where you could
control smoothness of the image,they jaggies
would disappear, cause there are then no more sharp
edges anymore ?
So is there a manual setting possible with the Aiptek camera ?


Regards, Stefan.

Does anybody have one to test out the settings, and the component output? I would be interested in what happens when the sharpness is turned down on an resolution chart, at what point does it sacrifice resolutions. If only it had 25p for PAL markets.

So you think it is an artifact of the used CMOS sensor with its internal
RGB colorfilter ?
Or what do you mean by Bayer ?
Thanks.

The one on Steve´s digicam board says, that the component
output works very wellon his HDTV set.

As it has only analogue YUV componet outputs but not HDMI,
surely the HD2 is better in this way.

Also the Aiptek can not shoot still pictures while
recording HD movies...also a minus versus the HD2.

Bayer:

Assuming it is an Bayer sensor, and not complimentary or something. In Bayer every square block of four pixels has red, blue, and two green, the green forms diagonal stripes, inter-weaved by stripes of blue and red. This gives better predictability for interpolation of Bayer images into other formats (the missing colors at each pixel can be reasonably predicted with an good debayering routine). Worse debayering routines will lead to more color misinterpretation, lower resolution, flickering, stair casing, sounds familiar from past experience. I think one advantage of complementary color schemes (if I can say that on an professional site) is that pixels get an wider exposure in more cases, thus reducing noise from dark pixels. Noise from dark pixels is when an pixel is not receiving much light from the image but produces noise that shows up in the image. So an purer red object will make red pixels bright and the noise is not so noticeable, but blue pixels will receive very little light and contribute blue noise to the interpolation. There is also usually some overlap in the color bands of the bater pixels to, but not as much as complimentary color pixels. In interpolation these dark pixels also contribute error. In nature however we are lucky that there is an lot of complimentary color, except for the odd bright thing we like to look at. Also in nature, brightness levels tend to vary an lot more than color proportions, which means the next pixel should usually be similar tot he present pixel unless the brightness has changed, or changed because of an detail, which what debayer interpolation routines use to make bayer work.

Forgot, component, does it work live while the camera is recording?

What do you exactly mean ?
If during recording the video will be outputed through its
YUV output ?

I don´t know yet...

Does the Aiptek have all the nice manual setings available for the HD1/2?

We are still waiting for an answer from this guy
at the other forum
who already owns this cam.

But so far there is confirmation directly from the Aiptek support
team, that the cam can use 8GB SDHC chip cards ! ;)


P.S: Where is in this forum the edit function ?
My space key sometimes does not work and I need to edit
sometimes my postings... Why is editing not enabled in this forum?

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.
admin of www.overunity.com

Edit is usually next to the quote button at the bottom of posts, there is then presented an advance edit button, where you can edit the title.

The forum says you can delete, but delete has not been enabled (edit with a series of "." to get rid of text).

Stefan, yes that is what I meant.

Component = YUV, not FBAS.

Yes, the live picture isrouted to YUV outputnot just during recording
but also without it, just panning the camera around.

P.S: It seems I can not edit my postings.
At the left down there it says:

Posting Rules

You may post new threads
You may post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
vB code is On
Smilies are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off


Maybe I need more permission to edit my postings ?

P.S. No, there is also no
EDIT button for me...
That is,why I am asking...

Thanks for any help.

Forgive me, I had trouble noticing the edit option when they moved it a year or two ago (or was that another board). Doesn't look like you are having time out problems (where you can only edit for an day or so after posting) looks like an administration problem, email the admins and let them know.

New information has turned up on that SD thread. Component reverts to SD resolution when filming HD, battery is unreally 30 minutes, some stuff on focus. Still great camera for the price compared to the Sanyo and anything else above the camera up to the AVCHD cameras, but needs an much bigger battery option (4 hours would be good). As was pointed out though, the Canon cameras are next more expensive cameras to buy (and probably the Panasonic 3 chip Mini DV cameras).


Bit rate:

But it is interesting that the 5mb/s mode is available for 720p30 (but no 25p) which is probably roughly equivalent to the Sanyo's 9mb/s Mpeg4 performance (noise). It would be good to have this available for the SD mode, which is around 2Mb/s. It would be better to have an 9mb/s+ top end mode to.


AVCHD comparison?

I understand that AVCHD cameras currently suffer in their early h264 codecs, I would be interested in how this camera would compare to 15mb/s footage? I understand the next generation of Panasonic codec is much better. I think I will be reluctant recommending an camera unless I know it has ambarella inside, maybe they should have an "Ambarella H264" sticker.

Now for ambarella at 18-36mb/s speed. Actually, I wonder if we will ever see an professional 10bit 4:4:4 720p/1080p 50-100mb/s cameras.

Has anyone done any non-auto, out of the box settings footage with this thing yet? I'm curious to see what it's capable of.

On closer inspection of the outside clips.
 

I take this back. While the Internal shoots are pretty impressive compared to low light HD1 footage, and shape is kept well on objects, noise is not so prominent, and very little macro blocking. I zoomed in on the outside footage, and found, with the increased amount of detail to compress I presume, more blocking etc. Grass must be hard to compress, and a lot is seen, like the Sanyo, maybe different. I would say it is very good for an consumer that does not mind seeing blocks on their screen, but for the user that does not want to see them on the screen, outside footage is another thing. The size of the blocks mean that they are bigger then SD picture pixels, I forget the measurements, but maybe even the pixels of an average TV. With an good picture, and detail, and HD image can be down sampled to SD and have an better picture, and pixel accuracy than many Standard Definition cameras in the consumer range. But as is, outside this doesn't appear to be the case, with 9mb/s H264, I think it would be. Altogether, I can see what an good job the H264 is doing, it just doesn't look like it has enough bandwidth for the shots in question.

My player is working better since I downloaded the K-codec pack, or the neoplayer pack from cineform.

AV in?
 

I couldn't find a manual for the GO HD but the manual for the next SD camera in the product line shows an A/V INPUT. Does anyone know anything about this?

I have two HD1a's and I love them and to me, in light of the cost and convenience, I think the Aiptek is not too shabby.

No input
 

I found the manual and the access for the av in on the SD cam is used for the HD out on the HD model.

Yes, maybe a bit, but for the price, it is what it is, and that is still good. Unfortunately ti just falls off what a professional would like, because of the diagonal problems, and blockiness in the outside/moving shots. I am impressed.

The problem with the HD1 was, in light of cost and appearance, it also was too shabby to me personally, to buy.

Unusable...
 

Hi All,
I got the Z300 HD cam as it called in Germany ( in USA: Go-HD)
yeasterday and I tried to shoot a rock concert in 1280x720p.

The camera is so bad, all the audio was totally distorted,
although the concert was not very loud...

Also there is no manual mode.
The cam is always in automatic mode and tries to adjust the focus all
the time,
especially, when the light like in a rock concert is changing all the time.
So the 3 x zoom never worked and it is always out of focus.

Then I tried the "flower"-macro mode, which has no zoom,
but a contant fixed 1.5 zoom factor, which was a bit better,
but as I was far away from the stage, I got no zooming capabilities then.
But there was still the autofocus at work sometimes and
the image was blurred in this case too...

So also inside in a room where there is not so much light,
I also was not able to get a focus on some paper hanging on the wall.


So all in all, the camera is not useable.

Does anyone still have stored the firmware update, that was on the German Aiptek site and can post this to megaupload.com or rapidshare.de or simular upload sites ?
Maybe that could have fixed some issues ?

But if that does not fix anything, I am bringing back the camera and
try to get my money back...

I've downloaded some sample clips from this camera and it's actually quite nice. I might purchase it.

Firmware version at 1.400 !
 

Hi All,
before I brought the camera back I contacted the German
Aiptek support and got an email from them with the
newest Firmware version 1.400.
Before I only had version 1.100.

Well, okay, the focussing seemed to be better then,
but still no manual mode.
Also the audio distortion problem is still there, if you want to record
louder music.
Also the 3x optical zoom is very bad, cause the lenses are
not very light sensitive, so you get a very dark picture,
if you are already in a low light room, so this is only
good, if you are outside where there are good light conditions..

So all in all I was not satisfied with this camera and brought it back.

Now I will try the Sanyo HD2 camera next.

Regards, Stefan.

I noticed the audio sounded like crap also, but lets face it, all cameras with built in mics sound horrible.

Costco is selling them on their website for $229 which still makes it an impressive deal!