Aiptek Go-HD 720p / 5MP hybrid

[dp70]

Aiptek has released a little hybrid camera for $299 list called the Go-HD which is just now showing up at retailers. It captures 5 MP stills plus 30fps 720p and 480p in H.264 MPEG-4 to SD cards. Looks like a Canon TX1 knockoff. Has anybody got one yet?



Specs:

• 1280 x 720 H.264 Video @30fps
• 3x Optical Zoom w/ Auto Focus
• LED Lights
• 8GB SD Card Slot Expansion
• 2 Li-Ion Batteries Included
• 2.4" Swivel-Reversible LCD
• Night Shot
• HDTV Component Output
• Remote Control Included
• 5 Mega Pixel Digital Camera
• 2-inch Macro Zoom
• Red Eye Reduction
• Easy Charging via AC or USB

[Vikingmd]

I just ordered one from circuitcity.com with the AAA 10% off coupon it will arrive tomorrow.

[GodobeHD]

With only 4.55mbps its video is probably no match for TX1's 33mbps lousy HD video, and it doesn't have OIS, good lens and other features. Good enough for some home video posted on Youtube though.

[Vikingmd]

Originally Posted by GodobeHD

With only 4.55mbps its video is probably no match for TX1's 33mbps lousy HD video, and it doesn't have OIS, good lens and other features. Good enough for some home video posted on Youtube though.

Possibly but the compression codec is completely different.

[dp70]

Sample video from another site. Looks only marginally worse than the TX1 video despite using 1/7 of the bandwidth (though both are pretty bad).

[Brian Conrad]

The footage reminds me of footage from my first HD camera the JVC HD1 but without the edge enhancement. And the HD1 cost over 10 times as much. I've been looking at some nice footage shot with the Sanyo Xacti but noting it is mostly all out of Europe and is 25 fps. I wonder how much the slower frame rate helps and looking at the success of the HV20 why companies just all don't include 24 fps. In fact the majority of all HDTV shows ARE 24 fps. Yes they would have to add some extra telecine stuff to output component but that has to be pretty cheap anymore.

[Brian Conrad]

I recoded the footage to MPEG-2 using Nero 7 and now I think that the motion artifacts I was seeing before had to do with the Quicktime decoder on Windows. The recoded file played smoothly without the motion artifacts I was noticing (the cars moving forward and back). That gives me a better impression of this inexpensive camera.

[viaChgo]

anyone know if this camera would work with a Mac/iMovie?

[bikeny]

it looked a little shaky in the video, how would this work on a bicycle (road)
is there a tripod mount? the video is stored on a sd card, 8 gb is about 8 hours on a non hd recorder, how many on this?
Nice and small. if i could not use it as a bike camera i would try using it as car cam.

[miglo]

Great camera if you're like me and like to lug it up the slopes to film your buds snowboarding down. Quality is *not* bad.

[Brian Conrad]

Originally Posted by bikeny

it looked a little shaky in the video, how would this work on a bicycle (road)
is there a tripod mount? the video is stored on a sd card, 8 gb is about 8 hours on a non hd recorder, how many on this?
Nice and small. if i could not use it as a bike camera i would try using it as car cam.

The Aiptek website gives the recording time per SD card size. 8 GB is 240 minutes but the battery will only last for 30 minutes.

[dnakamura]

I just received the AipTek Go-HD from Costco ($250, free shipping and free theater docking station). I'm comparing it to my Sanyo Xacti HD1a and I am hooked by the AipTek. The real drawback on the HD1a is the low light performance which is very noticable. On the AipTek, low light is not a problem - I've shot some very low light shots that would have been abysmal on the HD1a, but the AipTek impressed me. The AipTek also has a video light for shooting in complete darkness - works well for up close shots.

This is not a prosumer camera (I've also got a Canon G2 - 'prosumer 4mp' camera), but it's great for carrying around all the time in a pocket (like the Sanyo HD1a). It definitely has a cheap feel to it - very lightweight and plastic. There's very little in the way of manual settings - everything is auto. I've got an 8gb SDHC card that is working just fine it so I can take a lot of video - 3-4hrs as doc'd. For battery life, I have a 56min video shot with 1 charged battery and 1 'battery bar' left when I turned it back on for some snapshots.

good:
low light video
sharp panoramic video (HD1a tended to be blurry when filming panoramic mountain scenes)
video light in addition to flash
remote with all options (record video, take picture, zoom, and navigate all menus)
Macro mode is ok.
Easier to open LCD than HD1a
Tripod mount is right below the lens which is good for photo stitching.

bad:
zooming is loud - noticable motor noise
audio is mono
cheap feel
menu system is sort of "hey, look it's fisher price for HD cameras"; maybe this is a plus?
photo/video review (takes a couple of button click to go back and view recently taken footage)
Battery goes down while it sync SD card (battery charge is via USB port - either USB to PC or USB to supplied AC adapter) - package comes with 2 batteries - these batteries are small!
No sequential action snapshot mode
Can't lock focus and no manual focus
Grip is awkward and difficult to hold and press buttons - my hand is not that big - stretches my palm out too much. (Not as nice as HD1a feel).
DateTime setting keeps getting reset, I *think* when I exchange batteries - how bad is that!
No Lens cover - just a cheap looking flat piece of glass.

My big question: how in the world does a camera like the Aiptek Go-HD with a small lens produce such awesome low-light video / photo performance? My HD1a, Canon G2, and Sony DC-40 have larger lenses but none come close to great low light performance.

[Robert Clark]

Originally Posted by Mark Fontana

Sample video from another site. Looks only marginally worse than the TX1 video despite using 1/7 of the bandwidth (though both are pretty bad).

That footage really is *not bad* for the price. How tough is it to get the footage in a disc format that a PS3 or HD-DVD could play?

[Brian Conrad]

Since Nero 7 imported the footage okay and re-rendered it in other formats you could use it to do a Blu-Ray disk. Ulead has the inexpensive HD-DVD solution but you will have to massage the file more before you bring it into Visual Studio 11 Plus or Movie Factory 6 Plus as it does not handle the format correctly.

[Robert Clark]

Cool....thanks.

[mmccking]

Anybody know if the h.264 video play on the Xbox 360 with the Spring update without transcoding or re-encoding?

[funkmasterta]

Originally Posted by Mark Fontana

Sample video from another site. Looks only marginally worse than the TX1 video despite using 1/7 of the bandwidth (though both are pretty bad).

I can't seem to find the download link from the MegaUpload site?

Nevermind, there's a CAPTCHA thing. doh!

[Brian Conrad]

I got mine the other day and though it can't compare with my Sony HC1 it is still a pretty good little camera for the price. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the component out is only 720p so if you were thinking it would play back on a 1080i set it won't. However my playback is generally done through a converted file on the AVeL Linkplayer. One thing I was curious about if one could encode movies and TV shows, put them on the memory card and play them back over the component output. Unfortunately I haven't created a file that is compatible yet.

[kculp]

If the video sample everyone is playing from this camera looks cheap and chopped it is the CODEC, not the camera. There are some links to video samples over at the steves-digicam.com forum under the threads there so I won't post it here.

This is an astonishing video camera for THE PRICE at 720p. I ordered one! Also, it supports 8 GB SDHC cards from SANDISK and TRANSCEND (only ones tested or verbalized on the messages from users).

If you want the codec to play the video get it here:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/...Codec_Pack.htm

I've been flipping the file extension name from *.mov to *.avi and playing it fine in WMP. The compression for the H.264 codec is such that these are "lite" HD files in terms of per second bytes (sorry don't know the lingo) so it is fairly easy to edit the files without too much CPU horsepower.

Again, I am really impressed. Can't say that I shoot a lot of video so take this with a grain of salt. But, the reason I don't shoot a lot of video is dragging it through the airport or taking up too much space and I hope this solves the issue on size/weight. The 8GB will hold 4 hours of video. It also shoots 5 megapixel stills, so this is going to be one heck of a camera if it lives up to the hype.

[dasmenneke]

does it compare to the sanyo HD1 or Panasonic SDR 150 ?
I've only seen short video fragments from all of them and they 're to short to compare imho, any owners of both ???

[rickforrest]

Originally Posted by kculp

If the video sample everyone is playing from this camera looks cheap and chopped it is the CODEC, not the camera.

WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE. I tried all the codecs mentioned, including the k-lite ones.

The ones that WORKED, for me, are here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1SHBMGB3

I don't have to change the extensions of the files. Instead, the installation in the above link will associate Windows Media Player with .MOV files. That's just part of the install, though. It obviously updates the codecs because now the sample files play beautifully.

On the strength of the sample files, I bought an Aiptek. I won't get it for a week, though.

IMPORTANT point about the above link. The zip file is kinda screwy. For many files it reported that the file already existed. I just chose whatever was newer. Then I ran setup.exe. Works GREAT.

Playback is now like butter on my 2 year old laptop (which has a 1920x1200 screen). Playback also looks great on my other 2 yr old laptop, which is 1024x768 and a crappy celeron with slow hard drive. Which just shows how great the codec is.

[kculp]

Thanks RickForrest. Do you know if this messes up iTunes? I'll give it a shot, changing file extensions*.avi was kind of a pain. Tried out this codec and the *.mov file doesn't come into Adobe Premiere Elements 3 - the *avi file extension change does tho.

[rickforrest]

Originally Posted by kculp

Thanks RickForrest. Do you know if this messes up iTunes? I'll give it a shot, changing file extensions*.avi was kind of a pain.

Sorry. I don't know. I can check tomorrow - my wife is using my 1920x1200 laptop and the other one is put away (pain to haul it out).

[kculp]

I tried the codec, it looks like it screws up importing into Premiere Elements 3. If you don't use it as your editor it might not matter. But, in order for it to import video you do need to change the extension to *.avi . The codec you posted doesn't mess up iTunes that I can tell.

[ib8]

bought it from Costco online two weeks ago and at first was very impressed with the quality of the video capture.

but less than two weeks of infrequent use and the camera developed three problems:

1) freezes once in a while when connected to a TV for playback. Has to be reset by removing / reinserting the battery.

2) started randomly loosing date/time. All of a sudden (two days in a row) the camera looses correct date/time setting and resets to some date in 2006 ...

3) started to randomly record without audio. Yesterday I shot several dozen short clips and was surprised to find out that about a dozen clips in the middle of the sequence got recorded without audio.

It's going back to Costco for sure ... Too bad, because I really like the form-factor and in general it's pretty amazing how good the video is when there is enough light and not too much motion.

Has anyone experienced any of the problems I describe above?

[ib8]

Originally Posted by Brian Conrad

I got mine the other day and though it can't compare with my Sony HC1 it is still a pretty good little camera for the price. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the component out is only 720p so if you were thinking it would play back on a 1080i set it won't. However my playback is generally done through a converted file on the AVeL Linkplayer. One thing I was curious about if one could encode movies and TV shows, put them on the memory card and play them back over the component output. Unfortunately I haven't created a file that is compatible yet.

Brian,

What do you mean "... play back on a 1080i set it won't."

It plays back at 720p just fine on a 1080i set, as long as the TV is capable of detecting 720p through its component video input.

I hooked it up to a 2 year old Maxent LCD set and it instantly showed that 720p signal was detected through its component input and judging by video quality, it was clearly displaying at 720p. This TV model displays at 720p and 1080i, in addition to standard definition signals.

[dnakamura]

I've got the AipTek Go-HD and the Sanyo Xacti HD1a. For low-light video, the AipTek definitely walks all over the Sanyo. (See my review above about a week ago on this thread.)

Regarding playback on a 1080i HDTV.... I have an HD monitor that handles 1080i but not 720p. I can't view the HD playback from this camera on my HDTV. (Not that I expect it too, 1080i is "worse" than 720p - I understand that.)

I also purchased from Costco but I'm going to keep mine. I'll likely be auctioning up my HD1a soon. The HD1a has a lot of cool features but the low light video is abysmal. I'll also be auctioning off my Sony HC40 which is too big a camcorder to carry around anymore. I love that I can carry the Go-HD anywhere with me and take video / photos of my 2 sons as they grow.

[rickforrest]

Originally Posted by rickforrest

Sorry. I don't know. I can check tomorrow - my wife is using my 1920x1200 laptop and the other one is put away (pain to haul it out).

iTunes works fine, but see the other post about it screwing up Premiere.

I don't use Premiere, so no probs for me.

[Brian Conrad]

My HD set is 7 years old and only does 1080i but if you have a set that can handle both 720p and 1080i then obviously it will work. But not all sets will do that.

Definitely the advantage of this camera is the form factor as I can carry it with me anywhere in my pocket which is something I couldn't do with my HC1 . At this point in the game I'm not going to be too picky about the shortcomings I find.

[xsherlock]

I have an Euro version of this Aiptek, and I'm quite satisfied for the price. It works fine I just find a strange wobbling video efect some a second into every recording.

The major problem I'm having is how to edit those files? Does anyone knows of the software that will easily import those files and let them edit?
I know I could transcode them to some other format, but is that the only solution?

What is your workflow for the Aiptek files?

reg
Maciej