Has anyone on this board used the Fisher FVD-C1. I'm considering one for my trip to Asia next month, but it's been hard to find reviews.

From the website: http://www.fisherav.com/FVD-C1.htm

I know that this camcorder records onto a SD card in MPEG4 format, which is a bit lossy. However it has a 3.2 megapixel digital camera and flash built in, so that seems nice.

I know where to get one for $500, so it seems like a good deal. Anyone have any input?

Scott Wilson

I know that this camcorder records onto a SD card in MPEG4 format, which is a bit lossy.

The FVD-C1 shoots for 1 hour on a 1GB card while a MiniDV cams shoots for 1 hour on a 13GB tape. There is going to be quite a quality decrease with Fisher compared to any MiniDV. Its not really a camcorder and probably a less than average digital still camera. It reminds me more of a digital camera with a decent movie mode. There are plenty of digital cameras that have 640x480 30fps movie modes.

Personally, I'd stick with MiniDV camcorders in that price range.

hmm, that's quite an interesting fact. 13 times the data on a miniDV tape.

I also considered the Panasonic AV-100 Dsnap. It records MPEG2 on a memory card. However now it seems that even that video would be losing quite a bit of quality.

I want something really small and portable. Something I can take with me 24/7 without lugging it around my neck. Looks like until technology progresses I'll have to lug for a while...

Scott Wilson

MiniDV and compact.. No problem!

Check out the Canon Optura 300 (around $700) and many others.

Here is a review of the Optura 300 with pics: Its tiny!

http://www.dvspot.com/reviews/canon/optura300-review/index.shtml

Find even more here!

http://www.dvspot.com/features/

The new Sony DCR-HC40 is definitely compact and affordable!

http://www.dvspot.com/reviews/sony/hc40-review/index.shtml

Thanks for the info!

However I'm searching for something pocketable without any discomfort, something that could fit into blue jeans. Also I think there is something really cool about solid state electronics (no moving parts). Another handy feature of this camera is how it has a 3.2 megapixel still camera with a flash.

The greatest thing about something this small is that you can have it with you while travelling and not even think about it until you want some video or stills. So many times I have experienced something that I wish I could have captured, yet my camcorder sat at home gathering dust.

Scott Wilson

I see what you're saying.

Basically you want a micro digital camera but with video quality like a full size camcorder. I was going to recommend the Sony DSC-T1 as its a micro 5 megapixel digital camera with a 640x480 30fps video mode but it seems they use less compression as you only get about 6 minutes HQ video on a 512MB Memory Stick.

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/sony/dsc_t1-review/index.shtml

I've actually contemplated the Sony for the same reasons you mentioned about lost moments due to cam size. I love my D-SLR but its definitely not a spur-of-the-moment cam..

Let us know what you end up going with.

Tommy,

I also considered that camera, I love the design how it has an integrated lens cover and the size of a deck of cards. Also the LCD is HUGE! However one major drawback is the lense. If you look at the lens on that Fisher FVD-C1 it seems quite large. The camera seems to be built around it instead of the other way around. And as most of us know, lens quality can have a major effect on picture quality.

I think I'm going to try the Fisher, just seems like a good all around gizmo with tons of features. And the price is just right.

I'll post a review with some samples when I get it.

Scott Wilson

Before buying the Fisher, you may want to take a look at a recently established site for Sv-AV100 users. There are some clips posted of video taken with the SV-AV100 that are not bad. Not good by dvinfo standards, of course, but acceptable for home video in the context of taken on the spot with a tiny cam:www.jackbrown.us/camera. (P.S. I looked at the Fisher months ago at a Sears store; I actually like the way it feels in your hand better than the Panasonic, but I think the Panasonic output may end up giving you more options in the end...)

Patricia,

Thanks for that link!

I have thoroughly researched both the AV100 and FVD-C1. And price wise I think the FVD-C1 comes out on top. As of 03/28/04 I can find the AV100 for no lower than $700 new, however the FVD-C1 can be had for $450 new. Since half of what I want is to take decent digital photos, the FVD-C1 has 3.2 megapixels with a flash and the AV100 has 2 megapixels with no flash. Like you I also like the form factor of the FVD-C1. Also if you read this pdf you'll see how much effort Fisher put into this little thing. It has so many features I can't even remember most of em.

http://www.sears.com/download/misc/fisher.pdf

Think I'll try the Fisher FVD-C1, and if the video is so horrible I cannot stand it, then I'll sell it and get something else.

Scott Wilson

Great. I am always interested in smaller format cams, so please let us know how it works out. (Yes, I saw the Fisher brochure when it first came out. That's why I searched all over town to get my hands on one.) Can't beat the price on the Fisher (I think this is actually a Sanyo cam, BTW) right now.

Yeah, Sanyo owns the "Fisher" name, and has for quite some time. Thankfully this isn't the original Fisher company, from what I remember they had some poor quality control.

Scott Wilson

I'm very interested in how this cam works out for you Scott. I can definitely see advantages of having a cam at all times as I have a 2 yr. old daughter and twin boys arriving anyday.

Does it offer any form of image stabilization?

Tommy,

The unit has no image stabilization due to size constraints, however it comes with software that is supposed to provide a post production version of image stabilization. Who knows how well the software works, I'll test it and let you know.

Scott Wilson

I also found this page of stills from the DMX-C1 which seems to be the exact same cam (Japanese equiavlent).

http://www.okimoto.ne.jp/muray/Review/Dmxc1/Page.html

Would be nice to have an example of video footage or a decent review (not epinions or TechTV).

Looks really good in black (not so sure on red).

Black
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20040212/c1k.jpg

Red
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20040212/c1r.jpg

I just located a review of the Japanese Sanyo that includes both video and stills to download/review. The link below is translated to English.

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?tt=url&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fav%2Fdocs%2F20031029%2Fzooma131.htm&lp=ja_en

I bidded on one tonight from eBay and won for a measly $425. So that's a bit better than $900 at Sears. I also ordered an X-Drive to offload my memory card to.

When I recieve it, I'll try to post a review and some clips for download in SHQ mode.

That Japanese review is very interesting. The stills look quite amazing for such a multifunction device. The SHQ video sample looked alright, focusing seemed to take some time. So we'll see what happens.

Scott Wilson

<<<I also considered the Panasonic AV-100 Dsnap. It records MPEG2 on a memory card. However now it seems that even that video would be losing quite a bit of quality.-->>>

the way to look at it is that the dsnap records at ~6mb/s, vs. ~9mb/s max data rate for dvd... it's a simple cut 'n paste to burn dsnap mpeg2 onto dvd.

the fvd-c1 maximum 375Kbp/s mpeg4 data rate is a lame joke when it comes to dvd... you'd have to recompress it to make it dvd legal... yuck :-)

you might be able to get away with putting mpeg4 on a dvd data disc, and seeing if it'll play back on your dvd player... the new dvd players will play back darn near everything these days.

the other thing to look at is that a trip to asia could be the trip of a lifetime for some people... why bring back garbage mpeg4 internet video for something that important? of course, if it's a business trip that you do all the time, no problem.

i have the av100, there are always issues and compromises regardless of price, but one thing you can be sure of is that the mpeg2 recorder end of it is actually superior to the 1/6th inch ccd pickup... as you might expect, there is a noticeable difference when i plug the xl1s signal into the av100 recorder input.

it's pretty hard to wrong for $425(!), but just for drill, you might also want to check out this review:

http://www.pcmag.com/print_article/0,1761,a=119717,00.asp

Yeah, I changed my mind about video quality. Seems price and dual function ability won me over with the fisher. There is no other device on the market that takes decent video with stereo sound, 3.2 megapixel pictures with a flash, stereo audio clips, and is small enough to be easily pocketable, all for less than $500.

Also from what I hear, the AV100 is a nightmare to upload clips, using some sort of weird software to transport the clips to your computer. Then you have to convert or rename the clips just to use them. The fisher just shows up as a drive right after it's plugged in. I'll wait for the second gen AV100.

Scott Wilson

the still photo capability of the fisher appears to be clearly superior to the av100... plus you get the flash!! i have not done any stills on the av100, i got it just for video.

i did manage to finally find some real-world specs on the fisher camera: http://www.fisherav.com/specs/CameraCorder_brochure.pdf

they claim a max data rate of 3mb/s, not the 375kbp/s i posted earlier :-0 i was unable to edit my post to correct it.

you are sure right about the av100 software! fortunately you do not need it... i use the x-drive pro to copy the data over to the pc, it appears as just another hard drive under windows explorer.

i posted some of my editing experiences with the av100 to the forum at: http://www.jackbrown.us/camera/index.php ...maybe some of that will help if you ever do any editing with the fisher camera video files.

Dan,

I figured the data rate was better than 375, I just didn't know the exact figure.

I ordered a 40gb Seagate Momentus hard drive for the X-Drive Pro, so I should have plenty of storage for my trip.

Thanks for the forum link, I'll give it a look.

Scott Wilson

For anyone interested, here is another link of sample videos. The page is in Japanese, so just click on the images. I'm very impressed by the quality of this footage. Can't wait to get mine in the mail.

http://www.sanyo-dsc.com/dsc/sample/c1.html

Scott Wilson

hi scott,

thanks for the link... i really liked the stills on that page!

i downloaded the largest-sized windmill video, but could only open it up in quicktime... premiere 6.5 did not understand it, neither did avicodec: http://avicodec.duby.info/ ...how would you transcode it into mpeg2 for dvd?

not including the quicktime stuff, i have 23 video codecs loaded on my machine, so i'm kinda bummed that i can't handle whatever mpeg4 the fisher is using, lol... the microsoft mpeg4 codecs that i have are of course different.

the data rate that quicktime listed for that file was 381kb/s, and it looked good... the japanese lake video tommy linked to had a data rate of 310kb/s, and it was listed as "tv-shq" quality(??).

i would really like to see a video file that was shot at the 3mb/s that fisher claims the camera is capable of.

maybe what we need to do is to adapt the camera front end off of the fisher to the mpeg2 recorder on the panasonic :-) the best of both worlds!

fyi, i posted some raw mpg's off of the panasonic av100, here is the link info: http://www.jackbrown.us/camera/viewtopic.php?t=54

The files should play fine with the current version of Quicktime, worked on my machine anyway.

I'm so angry at UPS right now. Apparantly they delivered my package without a signature yesterday and then when I got home it was gone. So who knows how long I'm gonna have to litigate with UPS to get money to order another one.

I'm making a statement right now... I will NEVER use UPS again!
They have screwed up almost half of everything I have ever shipped or had shipped with them. FedEX from now on!

Scott Wilson

i was also able to open the fisher mpeg4 up with quicktime, but that was it... nothing else worked.

sorry to hear about the package dilemma! that stinks.

I finally recieved my FVD-C1 today and in the time I've had to play with it, I'm very satisfied. The build quality is top notch, feels like I could throw it against a wall and it would still work fine.

The interface is pure genius. Every function can be accessed with your thumb (if you are right handed). The menus are simple and to the point. By far the easiest device menus I have ever used!

Stills are very nice, especially for a multifunction device.

The video quality is pretty good, about what I expected, not DV obviously. I'll post a link to sample videos and pics once I have time to upload some.

The sound quality is quite horrible. Like other reviewers, I found that it captures the zoom motor noise. However this is not a real issue for me since I hardly use zoom. I sent an email to Sanyo Customer Support asking about another sound issue I cannot understand.

quoted below:

___________________________________________________

I have owned this unit for a few days now and overall I'm quite satisfied.

One annoyance I have had however is a random but constant hissing sound when playing back footage. Your brochure stated "CD-Quality Stereo Sound (AAC Audio)", and this is nothing like CD quality.

When I was shopping for this cameracorder I downloaded some sample videos and the same hissing sound was in these samples. I thought maybe the unit they had was defective, yet now it seems they were all manufactured like this. Are there any plans to have a firmware upgrade in the future, maybe tweak the sound codec or whatever to not capture a hiss?

Thanks for any information you can provide!

____________________________________________________

I'll post Sanyos reply.

It comes with a nifty docking station, remote control, carrying case, and some extensive software. Something I haven't tried yet is the panoramic stitching software that is included, need a tripod first, which surprisingly this small thing actually has a mounting thread on the bottom.

So that's it for now, I'll post more results soon.

Scott Wilson

glad to hear that the fisher camera arrived safely.

somebody on the av100 forum found this mpeg player that works great with your fisher camera mpeg4 files... much better playback than quicktime offers:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Funny, I had that one already installed, but had never tried it for the mp4 files. Seems more flexible with no nag screen like quicktime.

Thanks!

Scott Wilson

As one who produces backpacking videos, I've also been intrigued by small camcorders. The Panasonic AV100 seems to be the best quality by my research so far. It has a MPEG2 fine mode that is considered DVD quality. Now the catch is that you use an SD card to capture and the largest available currently is a 1GB card holding about 20 minutes worth. This may or may not be a problem as some are also carrying (in my case, shipping in a box for pickup at a PO) an X-drive or other types of digital wallet storage drives. The X-drive apparently has receptacles for many types of memory cards so no PC required. Just dump your footage and continue shooting.
What this reminds me of are the old days of film shooting for me. With Super 8 films we used 3 minute rolls of film. Same for 16mm cameras. Meaning that we'd compose our shots carefully. Nowadays with tape, we roll the camera even before we're locked down on a tripod. Who cares?
So I'd encourage you to check out the AV100. It's priced as low as $600. Cards are about $180 for the 1/2 GB or $400 for the 1 GB. Hey, you only need one or two cards!