Aiptek Action HD GVS 1080P High Definition Camcorder with 5x Optical Zoom (Silver) by Aiptek, Inc.
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Digital camera reviews of Aiptek Action HD GVS 1080P High Definition Camcorder with 5x Optical Zoom (Silver)
Digital camera Review: A fun toy.
Summary: 4 Stars
Fun toy. The more I use it, the more I appreciate it. It has some major limitations, such as image noise (speckles in the images), and the image stabilization is not anywhere near what is needed to make a real movie. The .mov files it generates are 10 Mbit/sec whereas higher end cameras with better image quality usually use 24 Mbit/sec.
The manual and supplied software say to use the Quicktime player to watch your videos. That is a bad idea on a PC. Quicktime cannot do this camera justice. Quicktime on any of my PC's makes the videos extremely jumpy, from what I can tell removing frames during playback making everything look like bad stop motion animation.
I just installed Windows 7 RTM bits to a new PC (a gutless celeron box with Nvidia 7100/630i chipset) and it has a Windows media player that knows how to play the .mov files that this camera generates. The videos are actually surprisingly smooth and lifelike. I am guessing Windows media player is using hardware acceleration as part of the playback.
Just talking in front of the camera, on a tiny little desktop tripod, with good lighting.... the image made my jaw drop. It looks spectacular. You could see the hair inside my nose, and everything looked really organic and real. The colors are really vivid.
When looking at each frame of my talking self in the Quicktime video player, there is a lot of noise in the image. Too much noise to use this camera for professional work.
The image stabilization is strange. I aimed the camera at my desk with the image stabilization on at high zoom, and off with high zoom. When it is "on" the image is less twitchy looking, however the bottom part of the image seems to wiggle more than the top, like the whole image is made out of rubber. It is a noticable improvement over having the image stabilization off. Also, it only works in 720p/60hz and WVGA/60hz modes, not in 1080p mode.
There is a really grating audible whine this camera puts on the audio track. The aiptek home page contains instructions on downloading new firmware which gets rid of this horrible squeal. They require you to supply an SD card between 512MB and 4GB (ie: not SDHC or mini cards etc) to put the firmware onto. There were errors in the instructions for triggering your GVS camera to install the firmware: they said to press the "snapshot" button, but there isn't one, there is a "shutter" button according to the manual, and you have to press this shutter button ALL the way in and rather hard for a double-click which isn't mentioned on the instructions.
Someone on amazon had a list (I don't remember who) that included this camera and suggested the Rode VideoMic Directional Shotgun Mic w/Mount with the Rode DeadCat Windshield for VideoMic, NTG-1 and NTG-2 Microphones as a way to generate great audio with this camera. That mike and fuzzy thing costs as much as the camera... and they are really quite large.
I got a Sima SL-20LX Ultra Bright Video Light (Silver) with this that is kind of cool. It shines a very bright light that not quite coming from the same spot as the camera lens, resulting in visible shadows at the edges of everything - shadows that are very distracting. It made me run out and buy books on video lighting techniques because this $30 toy lamp isn't going to cut it.
I got the Transcend 16 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card TS16GSDHC6 with this camera. The SD card is a really tight fit for the slot. It took about 30 insert/remove cycles of the SD card to "loosen" something up so that the card slides in and out. You have to push hard to get it to go in, and then you have to push hard to get the camera to eject the card....
Digital camera Review: Decent picture, non-existent stabilization
Summary: 3 Stars
I've owned this for about 4 months and have used it for about 3GB total of video.
Pros:
- Easy to carry, easy to use
- High resolution, clear & detailed videos (as long as you hold it completely still)
Con:
- Image stabilization is just about non-exsitent. I can't tell much (if any) difference between having it on & off. This defeats the purpose of having a small hand-held video camera.
Becasue of the poor stabilization, many of the videos I've shot are almost un-watchable. I find myself reaching for my older Panasonic PV-GS14 instead of this.
Digital camera Review: Camcorder with good still image
Summary: 3 Stars
I was looking for one gadget which can be used for both digital camera and camcorder. This works good for both purpose. One thing is that the camera switch needs to be pressed a bit hard. It has 5x optical zoom. It doesn't have HDMI output so the HD quality of video might not be seen on regular HD TV.Digital camera Review: Silver GVS with a few additions
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased the silver GVS back in May 2009 so this review in more of a comparison of the two cameras. Both camera's are essentially identical minus a few points. However, I know the Silver GVS available from Target shares some of the features with this model that my old Silver model does not...
Anyway, key differences...
* Cosmetics - Aside from the black casing, there are a couple other minor changes. Some of the logos have changes slightly (HD/1080 rather than ActionHD/1080). The rear I/O cover has also been improved so it's easier to pop open. Aside from that, the camera's identical to the silver model.
* Flash - As can be seen in the photos, the flash is horizontally mounted rather than vertical. This provides a slightly better photo and makes it more difficult to cover the flash with a finger. I've also noticed more consistant white-balances (my older GVS had a blue hue in "flashed" photos) (the Target model also has the horizontal flash)
* Microphones - People have confirmed the GVS has two microphones, but the majority of them do not record in stereo. I have confirmed this model DOES record in stereo and not simply encode 1-channel as the old models do. (the Target model shows Stereo in the photos, but the actual model DOES not have stereo written on it or record in stereo)
* LCD - I have noticed the LCD on the black (and Target model) have a much lower viewing angle than my older model. However, when viewed at the correct angle, the screen is much brighter, even on the lowest brightness setting. So, win some lose some...
* AV-IN - I hate to say it, but this model doesn't have AV-IN. I plan to send a message to Amazon regarding the product description, but I have tested this and found no form of audio/video input.
All in all, the camera is identical. Probably the only real notable addition is stereo. But aside from that, the camera is the same. I'd honestly suggest trying to get the previous model unless you REALLY need stereo or really want a black version of this camera. The better LCD and price difference makes it a better choice in my opinion.
--EDIT--
While comparing these cameras, I realized my newest one (this black one) had this awful high-pitched squeal in the recordings. It appears the LCD makes some noise and is being picked up by the mics. I figured I'd try to upgrade my firmware to the latest version (28xx to 2901 I believe). To my surprise the noise being emitted from the LCD seems to be much lower and there's very little being recorded now. So, for this and probably any other Action HD GVS, get the latest firmware from Aiptek!
Digital camera Review: Nope!!
Summary: 2 Stars
Had it for one week and sent it back. I advise anyone who purchases the Aiptek Action HD GVS (the GVS by the way is a joke) to record in a silent room with the lens cap on and then listen to the recording. It took me a while to notice, but all my recordings had a noticeable high pitched tone. The view finder door (which houses the internal mic) emits this hum. If you do a search online, you will find others have the same problem. Sorry, but for a price tag almost over 200 dollars, this was a deal killer.