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

[Wayne Morellini]

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.

[Wayne Morellini]

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.

[Alexander Wrana]

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

[Wayne Morellini]

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

[Alexander Wrana]

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

I didn't find footage in that thread...

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
-----------------

[Joey Atilano]

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

[Alexander Wrana]

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.

[Joey Atilano]

Thanks I will do that when I get home.

[Wayne Morellini]

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.

[Alexander Wrana]

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

[Wayne Morellini]

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

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

[Wayne Morellini]

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.

[George Ellis]

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

VLC .8.6b works here too

Pretty good for under $300.

[George Ellis]

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.

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

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.