Take a left into cheap HD

From the makers of the PENCAM! Comes a super inexpensive true HD video camera! sounds too good to be true, eh? Well, it’s not a total scam, but it’s not George Lucas cinematography either…

Features

The Aiptek A-HD cam is cheapo handicam that shoots in true HD resolution (1280x720, or 720P.) in a day when $400 digital video cameras are only filming at EDTV (720x480/480P) or lower, one must wonder why such an “advanced” camera is in the discount section of your local electronics superstore.

Okay, maybe it’s not such a surprise…

It stores its video and pictures on industry standard SD cards, claiming support up to 32GB SDHC cards. It has an integrated LCD viewfinder/display unit that is pretty bright and crisp, though it masks the fuzzy details that lurk inside the movies you shoot.

Because this camera is “HD”, it includes a series of TV output jacks, one features HD component video, the other standard RCA style “video out” with stereo audio. You connect this cam to an HDTV or HD monitor using the combination of stereo audio & component video jacks and can watch your movies without a PC or DVD player right from the cam.

The movies are recorded in Apple’s Quicktime video format, (H.264 video, AAC audio) which is a godsend for Mac users, but requires Windows users install video codecs provided on the CD, or download an open-source Quicktime/MP4 codec pack (like k-lite)

After doing so, both Windows & Mac users alike will be able to watch their movies, edit them in their favorite software (i.e. Nero), and burn them to DVD or other such places.

The camera is primarily a digital video cam, but it also shoots still pictures in 3MP resolution. Though the camera says it takes up to 8MP stills, it lies in that it uses “interpolation”. The cam features a very powerful built-in flash to take stills, and although most video cams have still shots as an afterthought, this camera is quite adept at shooting high quality stills. The images are each recorded at 4:3 ratios, but your average photo editor can crop the pictures.

The camera features a USB interface that exports a storage-device profile to your computer, consisting of the internal memory, and the external card (if inserted) and all the pictures and movies you’ve taken. This means that the camera, aside from maybe video codecs, requires no special drivers to be installed to use.

The Videos

Well, as much as we’d love to deny it – a DV cam is used for shooting VIDEOS. This DV cam features some pretty run-of-the-mill quality video for a cheapo-depot camera, although the video quality isn’t horrendous, it IS visibly compressed (especially at HD quality,) even if it does feature higher resolution than an ordinary DV camera.

The long and short of this is, HD videos ARE indeed HD size, but the quality really only meets HD in the loosest sense of the word.

Indoors, the camera is pretty good at not getting all fuzzy with noise, though the built in video compression might have something to do with that. Colors are reproduced well, but fine detail is a hit-or-miss.

The camera doesn’t feature automatic focus. There’s a switch on the side, near the eye, that toggles “macro” (30cm-2m) and distance (2m ) shooting. This can be annoying when “in between”, and the fact that the cam is out of focus isn’t immediately obvious on the LCD preview screen.

Both are the result of the camera’s cheap components and the built-in video compression algorithms.

The audio pickup on the unit isn’t spectacular. The mic is a bit insensitive at the things the camera is pointing AT, and seems much better at picking up the person HOLDING the cam instead.

The camera advertises on the packaging you can “upload direct to YouTube” and they’re not kidding – the cam’s “web” resolution videos are immediately uploadable to YouTube, and other social networking websites expecting an MPEG4 video. Just copy the file off the card/cam, and upload to YouTube.

Since the cam is so cheap, taking it to all sorts of crazy places you might wanna shoot a video to upload to YouTube isn’t a bad idea… in fact, if YouTube deserved its own official camera, I’d actually suggest this thing.

The D1 video mode (720x480P/EDTV) shoots about the same quality as a regular digital tape DV cam, though technically higher quality because it’s not interlaced. This mode is good for videos that’ll be committed to DVD, though the videos have that unmistakable “handicam” look to them.

Finally, HD (1280x720P/HDTV), or “the reason you probably bought this thing” shoots widescreen, 16:9 video, though the problems with fine-detail (in the video) being “hit or miss” become glaringly obvious when you’re watching your HD videos on your HDTV…

Audio

The microphone has a nasty habit of being really able to capture (clearly) what the holder is saying, versus the subject of each video. This is a mixed blessing.

The camera also features an “audio recording mode”, which records WAV audio files.

If you’re the kind of person who likes playing with your computer video editing suite, and want to record your audio tracks/commentary separately from your videos, and don’t mind using the mic on this camera, it’s a good enough idea, I guess.

I’ve never used that feature myself.

Summary

Although the video is compressed, this is still an HD camera, and the quality of the videos you shoot are definitely higher than your run of the mill EDTV/SDTV cam.

The mic isn’t spectacular.

The Quicktime format of the videos makes working with them on a PC a bit annoying, but programs (like the one included, or Nero burning Rom) work with them well enough, that being said it’s Vista compatible, and Mac users needn’t do anything to use the videos.

The cam is great for people who wanna get into uploading lots of stupid crap on YouTube, since the videos it shoots are immediately compatible with their site.

I wouldn’t go filming my next life changing memory with this cam, but as for everything else, I can now film it in HD.

For less than $200.

And that counts for something.