Aiptek A-HD Camcorder Review:

Aiptek A-HD Camcorder is your 720p HD Camcorder, Digital Camera. Aiptek A-HD Camcorder is a Personal Media Player/Recorder! Captures true to life, vibrant colors and astonishing High Definition images like youve never seen, right in the palm of your hand. The Aiptek A-HD Camcorder comprises 720P (1280×720 resolution / 16:9 aspect ratio) at 30 frames per second using advanced H.264 technology. The Aiptek A-HD Camcorder also functions as a 5 Mega Pixel digital camera with a CMOS sensor and your Personal Media Player / Recorder, allowing you to record from your TV/VCR/DVD Player! Replaying your video and images is a snap as the Aiptek A-HD Camcorder offers virtually unlimited choices and compatibility. You can choose to view instantly by playing them back on the Aiptek A-HD Camcorder 270-degree swivel-reversible 2.4″ TFT color LCD display or connect the Aiptek A-HD Camcorder directly to your HDTV, HD Monitor, Standard TV or PC. Once in a lifetime moments, Family events, outings, or just goofing around can now be captured, replayed and relived in a whole new way. Aiptek makes your life in HD, possible.

Aiptek A-HD Camcorder User Said:

I picked this Aiptek A-HD Camcorder up over the weekend at my local Best Buy. It was on special for $149.99 which also bundled a small tripod, 1GB Kingston SD Card and a carrying case. Overall this is a pretty good value for the extra $15 - $20.

The Aiptek A-HD Camcorder itself comes packaged with a lense-cover, wrist-strap, composite and component video cables, USB cable, instruction booklet and CD-ROM. One note about the CD-ROM for Windows users, you might want to at least install the Windwows Media Player codec that allows you to play the output files in Media Player, as it will only play in Quicktime if you don’t. The rest of the software is pretty basic and, in my eyes, pretty worthless.

The device is relatively well put togetether for this price-point with a few exceptions. The plastic is fairly lightweight and cheap feeling. The main issue I have is that the battery doesn’t seem to fit snugly into the battery compartment.

The on-screen interface is fairly basic but easy to navigate using the 5-way, thumb-operated joystick. Other buttons are limited to a dedicated camera key (used to exit any menu or to take a still photograph when in video mode), mode button (used to switch to playback mode), menu button, and the trigger-activated record button. There is also a slide next to the lense for the macro function to make close-up shots clear.

The Aiptek A-HD Camcorder LCD display is actually quite nice. The colors and well-represented, and the display is fairly bright and easy to see in direct sunlight. The display rotates and can be flipped flat against the body of the camcorder.

The quality of the video is a mixed bag. Video can be recorded in HD, SD or Web-quaity settings. In either case, video taken in well-lit environments works amazingly well for the price of the unit. Video is smooth, color well balanced and contains minimum artifacts and other digital distortion. In anything but well-lit environments though, the results drop off dramatically.

The sound quality of the built-in microphone is, as other reviewers have noted, sub-par. I am working around this by recording seperately using a decent microphone and mixing the audio in post-production.

Speaking of post-production, my main gripe with this camera is that records video files to .MOV format, making it a nightmare for Windows users. If you have a Mac computer, you’ll be all good. However, .MOV files are a pain to work with in a Windows environment. I use Adobe Premiere to edit my video, and while it does load these files, it takes forever to “conform” the videos to the project and subsequently causes frequent crashes. If you convert the files before editing, you will not only lose more time but more quality as well. If I needed more motivation to upgrade to a Mac, I think I’ve found it.

All in all, the Aiptek A-HD camcorder met my expectations of being and affordable, easy to use, HD camcorder.
—– By J. Presto

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