VideoSecu Outdoor Day Night Bullet Security Camera Color CCD Wide Angle Weatherproof 24 IR Infrared

I already purchased and have a VideoSecu 1/3'' Sony Effio CCD dome camera with 700 tv lines which I have been using for a year now. I bought this camera mainly for the inside of my house to keep an eye on my dogs while away. I can honestly say for a 420 line 1/4" camera this actually is better then the dome camera that I have that costs more. Colors and lines seem more crisp. Hard to believe, but its true. I'm still wondering if maybe the dome camera I have just isn't as good or if something was wrong with it out of the box. It works and looks great, but the quality is less when video is compared side by side with both cameras.

The camera itself is small which is perfect in my opinion. It's solid casing is great and it's easy to hook up. The audio cable that comes in the package works pretty good too.

Since I have a 4 channel DVR I am already planning on buying 2 more of these. Very happy I chose this camera after looking at so many others.

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VideoSecu 2 Pack 100 Feet Camera Video Power Extension Cables with 2 of 12V DC 500mA Power Supplies

Good value but make sure to support it well as I made a mistake and the BNC ends were overly strained, causing them to fail. (looked fine but broken wire inside) I had to repair.

price was great compared to local stores, delivery was fast I would definitely use this vendor again

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NEW Version Ultra-thin Quad-band Watch Mobile Phone FM/MP3/MP4 2M Camera

This is the first time I have considered or used a watch phone.

I want to start out by saying the support behind this phone is far above average. I say this because my phone in fact broke down on me.

The people selling this out of Newport News, gave me the option of refunding or replacing and it won't cost me a dime. I am opting to replace and here's why.

-When the phone worked, it was great. It took a bit to figure it out because the user manual that comes with it is a little vague. A quick email with some direct questions cleared up all my questions and I started using all the functions.

-The first function is the phone itself. I used a Motorola H720 Bluetooth device with it because I hate constantly wearing a bluetooth device in my ear. The advantage this paticular ear piece has is it is instantly activated as soon as you open the mic boom. I like that, I can feel the buzz of a phone call on my wrist, look at my wrist to see who is calling, pull out my BT device, open the boom, hit the button and talk all in seconds.

-Most of the time, (at least 95% of the time), the reception was very clear. When it is not it was hard for me to say if it was the phone or AT&T. When the reception was not so good, you could still communicate with some light static. I've had Samsung phones that gave me far more heartache than that.

-Here is an advantage you don't normally think about. You can set the phone to a vibrate mode, it is sitting directly on your wrist. Your not going to miss a call because you couldn't feel or even hear the vibration, you will feel it every single time because it is directly on your skin. There is rarely a need to activate the ring tone. You will not miss phone calls and not disturb anyone by a irritating ring tone. That is the biggest advantage in my opinion.

-The camcorder; It works and it is easy to operate. I can't think of any practical use for that but that is just me. It is entertainment at the very least.

-The video player can be used to play stuff from You-Tube and other media sources, one thing about that is, you must download a program (free) to convert the video from almost any source to play it on your watch. You can download a movie if you so desired. You have to do that with your computer.

-The cameria; pretty much the same as the phone. It's easy to operate and the picture viewer is easy to use. If you can't view the picture, there are tons of free programs to convert the picture to a JPEG format which the phone uses.

-The link to the computer; It's easy! The cable that hooks into your power adaptor can be connected directly into a USB port into your computer. The watch will do several things but the two I myself have used it for was a mass storage device and to use the computer to provide power to the phone. I do not know if you can receive phone calls while hooked into the computer.

-The other way you can transfer data between the phone and computer is use the mini-sd card with an SD adapter (you have to buy one). That also means you can use more than 2GB of data but I never had the need to do so. It is far easier just to use the cable provided with the watch.

-The touch screen; I am not a fan of the touchscreen. This one feels more ruggard than other touch screens I have used in the past. Myself, I can use my fingers to punch in numbers and I missed a number maybe 1 out of 20 times. It was easier than I thought to use. If you hate touch screens, than this phone vs others has a keypad that you can use your fingers to operate. That as I see it can prolong the useful life of the phone. As the touchscreen wears out, you can use the keypad to accomplish making a phone call. If you buy a touchscreen only watch phone, I wouldn't think it would last very long. I am no expert on the lifetime of watch cell phones.

-So who wouldn't like this phone or couldn't get good use out of it? If you have small wrists, sorry the phone will go all over the place on you. I don't think you can go down to Walmart and get a smaller wristband for it but I could be wrong. If your eyes are bad and glasses don't help, forget it. You won't see a thing. If you have normal vision or vision that is corrected to normal, you should have no problem.

-If you are hard of hearing, forget trying to use the loudspeaker mode. Without a bluetooth device, you'll never really hear anything and you'll want to "hurt something" out of fustration.

-Remember, the advantage of this phone is to use a bluetooth and never depend on having to pull out a phone. All can be done in a quiet, polite mode. If you go to a lot of meetings, or work for the Army like I do, this has it's advantages. You can feel the buzz during a meeting look at your watch politely and make a decision if the phone call is important enough for you to leave the meeting or disrupt it. I just like the the fact that I don't have to pull out the phone to see who is calling. A quick flick of my wrist reveals that and just as quick I can pull out my Bluetooth, put it in my ear, and be talking before the answer mode picks up.

Anyways, if you are looking at this phone, I think it is the best one out there. It is also a unlocked, quad-band phone. If you don't know what that means, "here goes". That means, if you are in Korea, Japan, China or other places in Asia you can buy a sim-card and use this. If you are in Germany, or almost anywhere in Europe, buy a sim-card and you are talking. If you are in Iraq, this phone will work the same rules apply. Get it? It can be used almost anywhere.

The bottom line for those that skipped directly down is: "I like it and think it is worth the cost". Look around and I think you will find, this one is superior to the others that are out there.

Michael W. McFall

UPDATE 6/17/10:

I have my replacement phone. I really love it.

As far as the phone part and watch part goes, it works flawlessly. As far as the other features go, I am still learning it as I go.

One feature I really like is the fact I can put a picture on the phone's wallpaper and still have the time on it. Another feature that surprised me is that you can use the phone as a webcam. Think of how useful that can be using "skype" at the airport when you pull out your laptop and want to talk to your loved one. I really appreciate that feature and that changes the webcam feature from entertainment only to something I can really use.

The bottom line is this: The watch phone lives up to it's name and purpose. The advantage of a watch phone is, you never have to pull out your phone to see who is calling. A quick flick of your wrist and it's done. The second big advantage is you do not need to hear this phone. You can put it on vibrate and feel it every single time as it sits directly on your skin. Think of the advantages...

Warning: If you buy this, then get a bluetooth that connects fast if your not going to keep it in your ear. I have the Motorola H720. I can put it out of my pocket flip the boom and it is connected, "just like that". I love it!!! The bluetooth that comes with the watchphone really doesn't work in the way I just described. It is a stereo headset. I haven't played with it enough to determine how I want to use it.

The only thing I would change from when I first wrote this review is, the phone is far more reliable than I expected. When the first one broke I had my doubts, but this one really works and lives up to my expectations.

When they come out with an updated version of this, I plan to be checking it out.

As the fourth user of this product in the whole world (based on the total number of reviews published), let me start by saying how odd I feel being the first kid on my block when it comes to owning a real Dick Tracy watch. Having a cool gadget on my person is very atypical for me. I'm a classic late adopter (cheapskate). But I've always liked the idea of a gadget that plays MP3s, tells time and makes calls. The camera, voice recorder, calculator etc. clinched the sale. Does anyone recall the watch OS MS was developing years back? That was exciting. Anyway, the reaction I've been getting to this thing is "wow, that's neat!" versus "man, you're such a loser!"

Basic observations along 4 lines: cost/value, form/fit, convenience and usability.

Cost/value: I paid nearly $200 on Amazon. That's what happens when you get excited and reach for your credit card. I later saw it for sale for $110. Is it what I wanted? No, not really. I wanted a watch phone that would allow me to leave leave the house with empty pockets. Unfortunately, the logistics of bluetooth, combined with severe battery life issues, relegates this to the "phone backup" and "gee-whiz" bucket. Is there a lot of value here? Yup. This gadget truly works as a worldwide phone, takes pictures and plays MP3s... for as long as the battery holds out. Despite several flaws, I would buy this product again at the price I paid.

Form/fit: I have small wrists, and the rubberized watch band is no problem (gets a little sweaty). You can shut off the sci-fi blue backlight on the keypad, allowing the socially astute among us to pretend nothing weird is going on and that they're just into tacky sports watches. As expected, the keyboard was designed for a chipmunk. But by growing my thumbnail a bit long, I am able to navigate it with considerable difficulty. The only change I would suggest is to the up-down-right-left keys that flank the selct button; I would widen the "up" key a little it's narrow almost to the point of being unusable. Beyond this, there are no serious ergonomics issues. As other reviews have pointed out, the watch must be paired with a bluetooth headset. I splurged and bought the Plantronics stereo one truly a thing of beauty. And happily, the watch ships with a chintzy little bluetooth earpiece which I will use as a spare.

Convenience: miniscule battery life kills this product. Ideally, you wouldn't have to charge your phone away from home. Here, you get a total of 6 hours life from both batteries carrying the USB charger is a necessity. Power-off is not exactly elegant: the watch announces: "Low Battery Shutting Down!" and 3 seconds later you're looking at a dead watch. Oddly, a fully charged spare battery is little help; it may show full power but only last 2 hours. Apart from the awful battery situation, day-to-day use of the device isn't bad. I miss calls while fumbling to put on my bluetooth headset, but that's my issue to work out.

Usability: I wish there were a "vibrate" mode instead of a noisy little midi when a call comes in. My shirt sleeve sometimes initates a phone call on its own a one-touch keyboard lock feature would be nice.I wanted the ability to control what comes up when I press one of the up-down-right-left buttons. I wanted to use my bluetooth headset for FM radio. I wanted a slideshow option for photos (the touch screen comes close to this). And I wanted some basic MP3 player functions, like "random". But in light of the camera and everything else, some of these are nits. The most unhappy thing is the text input SW they chose: typing in any langauge is painful (I am a chinese linguist and sad to say, pinyin input is a nightmare and from a chinese manufacturer!) A standard SMS message will have you switching from English caps to English lower case to number input to symbol input...and every time you change, your will scroll endlessly through french, german, italian, arabic etc.

One final comment: my refusal to read any sort of printed product documentation is vindicated here. The manual is totally useless the information is wrong, missing or misleading to a laughable extent. I very nearly destroyed the watch by following the instructions for removing the battery. I was also unhappy that there is no mention of customer support anywhere at all in the product. If something went functionally wrong with the product today, I still would have absolutely no idea how to get in touch with the manufacturer.

But we're hardy souls, breaking new ground. And for all these cool features, the price is right so I hope this review doesn't come across as too harsh. I say again: I like what I bought, and it exceeded my price-performance expectations. Yes, it is handicapped in a couple of areas. But overall, my sincere kudos to the product manager in charge of this thing. It's a game-changing product, primarily due to the low price tag, but also in large part to the long list of technologies stuffed into it. Congratulations on a very reasonable contender in this fascinating product category. If you like the idea of a general all-in-one device, and aren't too hung up on reliability and usability, go for it!

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This is one of my first reviews but the product sure deserves a review so here goes:

I tried it out for quite some time now trying to get the most out of the battery life since that is the only drawback the phone has. So i prepared a few numbers for you guys so you can decide based on those numbers.

Standby (no bluetooth): ~ 2 days and more

Standby (bluetooth): ~ 2 days MAX (more like 1 1/2 day)

Full battery music playtime (BT): ~ only about 2 1/2 hours

Full battery talk-time (BT): ~ about 2 hours as well

With numbers like that you can imagine that you can only use the phone for about a day if you really use it (as mp3 player in a train...for talking to your friends...using it like a mobile phone really).

So even though you get 2 batteries you would have to charge them BOTH every night so you don't have to fear that your phone dies after half a day and you wont be able to reach anybody.

The phone is great dont get me wrong there it's just the battery life that kills the fun kinda. Maybe you can use/buy a batterypack for USB to enhance the battery life.

Hope the review helped. Drop a comment if you wanna know more

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The video player runs as smooth as a dvd. Can entertain my kids with cartoons I download. GREAT!

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In two words, Battery Life. Every thing else is good. Battery life stinks. Also would be nice to have computer software to manage phone list and access to rest of phone's features. Still get people crowding around me to look at it in college. Its neat, guess we have to wait for new battery technology to come along for this to be a great idea.

Movie Edit Pro 17 Plus

• MAGIX Movie Edit Pro 17 Plus is the fastest version of Movie Edit Pro yet,
• With improved preview performance, loading times, and optimized PC performance
• The world's first consumer 3D editor for stereoscopic 3D cameras, or two cameras used in conjunction to create 3D effects in an anaglyph view
• 99 tracks, MultiCam editing, travel route animation, and much more; more than 1000 special effects, cinematic transitions and templates included
• Supports all common video sources including HDV and AVCHD camcorders;
• And integrated synthesizers
• Multi-channel surround sound with Dolby Digital 5.1 Creator, Audio Mastering Suite to enhance your audio, beat recognition tools,

I haven't used this software long, but I come from Sony Vegas and once you learn the typical ins and outs of video editing software, you can get around any software. I primarily got MEP 17HD because it works with the file format of my new Kodak Zi8that being .mov files, not to mention it handles the HD resolutions of those files. Sony Vegas has problems doing so. Granted, I'm on an older version of Vegas. But I'm on a current version of Sound Forge from Sony and it too can't open .mov files. And if you need to work with MP4 files in either app, it's going to cost you money for the plugin. Not so with Movie Edit Pro! Mpeg4 and mpeg2 plugs activate FREE in MEP. That's pretty substantial considering Vegas is hundreds and MEP is NOT.

Early on, I love what I see. It's very impressive how much is packed into this softwarevery impressive. The range of file support is excellentall of them as far as I can see. Even VOB files [VCR to DVD in combo burners], which I've had to re-encode third party to work with onced pulled off the dvd, are supported in MEP. File supportexcellent. Excellent amount of effects and transistions. Tons more than I've had and many are unique. The audio side is excellent too, automatically recognizing all of my thrid party plugins from Waves and Sony, which are DX. It handles VST no problem as well. Nice mixer too. Nice layout as well. Everything is pretty typical in terms of how you use it. There are some differences between software, but it's not all too hard to figure out how titles are handled, or how transition are handled, or how effects are tweaked and automated. A little trying, a little manual reading, and if you know video editing software, you're moving right along.

Things you MUST do after installing the software, [which can take a while so be patient]-

Under the help menu, update the software. There's quite a line up of updates to bring in. Not that I noticed problems right out of the box, but update the software. Manditory.

Go into settings and tweak settings that you need to help things run smoothly for your PC. You can adjust the preview window resolution, as well as cache options for smooth playback.

I have the minimum required pc recommendedactually less on my laptop, at the moment. It hurts. Have a newer dual core at least, if you're gonna do extensive editing and make longer movies. Managing vieo files is a bear on processing power. Don't expect smooth sailing on a marginal pc.

All things considered, this software looks and handles fantasic. Even video screen capture is a huge plus for me. The only thing I don't plan on using is 3D, but THAT'S in there too! For short bucks you can be right up there with the expensive programs. In fact, take the savings and invest in a new pc if your movie making needs are serious. Even if you're just a hobbyist and have a HD pocket cam and you want some real horse power to make pro results, this software fits the bill. Magixyou have a new fan!! Thank you!

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I have a high end Sony video camera that does HD 24mbps/dolby 5.1 and boy oh boy does that test almost EVERY product ive tested over the past 3 weeks !! I tested them all, Corel, Pinnacle, Nero, Cyberlink, Vegas/DVD architect etc and when burning to bluray there are always issues let alone hideous learning curves. I single out Sony Vegas DVD Architect as the most difficult software to learn and use. Sony used to have a program called Click to Disk that worked well, but the new versions are but a shadow of the former program.

All I wanted was 1080i 24mbps Video/dolby 5.1 and slideshows (with random transitions) with a Bluray menu.

I could not believe that no one has the problems solved I saw everything from stuttery video/audio sych issues to crashing without notice (and Im using a quad core i7 with 8GB RAM)

That is until I tested Movie Edit Pro 17 Plus HD.

It is simply the ONLY product that works and is straight forward to use Well done and HIGHLY recomended !!!

it is also the best program for random transitions between pics on a slideshow :)

Only one issue when you are working with Dolby 5.1 surround you MUST reveal all the audio channels or it will be encoded as stereo (this should have been HIGHLIGHTED in the manual also this is relevant for smart copy option where the files are meant to be untouched) Magix needs to make this MUCH clearer in the manual)

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This is a real solid and robust program. That being said it will take some time and a lot of reading to really get the benefits. I have used a few other basic programs that were easy to get going with but without all the features of 17 plus.

Not sure this is really for beginners as it is not intuitive.

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Magix is a company whose software I've purchased for years. For a fraction of the cost of better known brands, I get topflight programs that would normally cost me four to five times more if I'd gone with the usual suspects as far as multimedia platforms.

One of Magix's hallmarks is their video editing suites. Movie Edit Pro 17 HD has raised the bar so high, it's into the stratosphere. For everything you get in MEP 17, you'd be paying at least a grand or more as this is a professional movie creation program featuring a mindboggling array of special features. It's so complete, it would last a decade. Besides Dolby Digital 5.1, 3-D abilities are part of the package. Magix even includes nifty glasses.

While the abilities and functions are dense, Movie Edit Pro 17 is easy to use as long as you follow the instructions. There are plenty of tutorials as well as very innovative video instructions that are part of the customary help file. Sometimes it's best to have a visual demonstration and Magix shrewdly provides that.

I've been able to do everything from preserve deteriorating videotapes to put together dazzling music videos, all within the same program. Movie Edit Pro has the capacity to export in every format imaginable. Even Blu-ray is covered. It's like Magix set about to create the ultimate professional movie software and made no concessions for home users aside from ease of use. Magix thought of everything when they incepted Movie Edit Pro 17. I can't imagine what 18 would include, if they ever get around to offering it as they've come up with a sweeping winner.

The display screens are rich and vivid. The multitudes of functions are astounding. You can professionally mix audio, removing hissing and cleaning signals. I've owned this for months and am still discovering the full range of capacities in Magix's Movie Edit Pro 17.

Yet, I have to come back to the price. It's so low, it's almost obscene, but you won't hear me complaining. Magix consistently offers top of the line products that are an amazing bargain. There's great pride in their wares, evidenced by extensive and well written instructions as well as bountiful updates.

I've used every video editing suite imaginable from a variety of manufacturers. None of them hold a candle to the strength, power and affordability of Magix's latest homerun: Movie Edit Pro 17 HD. It's as good as it gets, so please get it if you need to make great video on your computer.

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I bought this because it's the only video editing software I could find that would let you adjust each color (red, green, blue) individually. It's a bit clumsy interface wise, but there are an unbelievable number of options in this software. My biggest grip is that it takes FOREVER to render a video. I've got a phenom x4 processor and 4 gb of ram but it takes more than an HOUR to render a 10 minute (YES an HOUR for TEN MINUTES). So 4 stars instead of 5.

AVerMedia HomeFree Avplus - Watch Live TV on iPad/laptop

• Streaming within LAN area: Real time broadcast HD digital TV with original quality
• Support digital TV & AV-in device, serve two users simultaneously
• Built-in IR Blaster & Receiver to remotely control an AV-in device, such as a Set-top box, from iPad/ PC/ NB. Support IR learning
• wireless TV : Enjoy TV everywhere on your local network
• TV tuner-free: Watch TV on your iPad, notebook, or PC without installing any TV tuner

I've had this thing for around a week now and it seems to work pretty good with the included software.

I live in a remote area without a lot of really strong tv signals, and have tried other similar products and invarably found that the tuners in them just do not have as good of tuners as what they build into televisions. So I'm usually very dissapointed in them. I initally t ried to use this with Windows Media Center and was again dissapointed. Yesterday I was fiddeling around with it again and retried the included software. It takes a little fiddeling around to understand the included software, but once you figure it out it works great, and you can save recorded programs in different formats to be compatable with different programs. I find this handy to be able to use the recorded programs with the Windows 7 "Play To" feature. Why the included software increases the signal sensitivity more than the driver for WMC I do not know. Maybe someone from AverMedia can explain this.



One thing that would be nice would be the ability to add channels after the inital scan as I need to rotate my antenna to different positions to receive different channels. Yes I know this is also a problem for WMC, and modern televisions, and that is why I did not deduct a point for it. It would be nice though if the people who made tv's and set top boxes had to live out in the boondocks for a long enough time to realize that not every tv station is in the same direction from their house.





I love this thing even more now as I normally use TitanTv to see what's on TV and found that it's easy to find a program, view the details, click record, and your done. At the price I'm seriously considering purchasing a second one.

For a few days about a week ago the price here droped to 48 dollars and some change so I picked up a second one. Now when I want to record 2 programs that overlap I can do one from one computer and the other from another. Bottom line is that the price here goes up and down so if your trying to save a penny or 2 be patient.

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The device works as promised. It's convenient to use ipad as a mobile tv or record anything to a laptop. The design doesn't look good.

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Is a great product, I'm very happy with the product , I recomended this for transmit video,S/video and Sat television for your iPad or windows laptop,is fast and easy install.

Thanks

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I purchased one and found it amazing. One to two more screens are added into my home with Homefree AVPLUS. My wife no longer argued with me when I would like to watch live NFL while she would like to see movies on HBO. Easy and quick to setup for both hardware and software, fancy and interesting to watch TV on iPad. Also the price is pretty much affordable. Should be a good Christmas gift also for my family and friends.

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I purchased the AVerMedia HomeFree AVPlus with the intent of watching my satellite over my home network via my Logitech Google TV Revue. I found out after much searching upon arrival that AVerMedia does NOT support Android in any form or fashion. To read their website one would think that this box can allow you to watch satellite or over the air television on any platform. This is not the case.

I was extremely disappointed because other than not working with my Google TV, this really is an amazing product. It has built in filters and combs to further enhance over the air signals, taking the 720 channels a little closer to 1080. The program for viewing on a PC is fairly intuitive and easy to use. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to watch satellite on any of the TV's in my house. They are all connected to my media server via a 1x8 HDMI powered signal repeater from monoprice, so the PC running windows 7 never "forgets" that there is a "monitor" plugged into the HDMI port, because its a powered repeater.

All in all I would recommend this product to anyone, provided they aren't running Android, not just because its the only thing on the market like it but because it just truly is a great product. However it did not work for what I wanted it for so I had to return it. I'm going to try the AVerMedia PC card as a last effort to be able to watch satellite over my network through Google Tv, which is the only reason for 3 stars instead of 5.

Samsung DVD-C350 DVD Player (Black)

• Super-scan playback
• Advanced 14-bit video DAC
• EZView Letter Box Eliminator
• Multiple playback formats DVD, DVD±R, DVD±RW, CD, CD-R/RW, MP3, WMA, JPEG
• Progressive scan output

This newly developed Samsung DVD is an unbelievably great DVD for only $35.00 including taxes and delivery. I was looking for the newest DVD players at a good price. My problem was there was not one review on this DVD player.

Great upconverting picture, sound, fast loading, reads and plays really bad discs that would skip or freeze on my old dvd/vcr player. Plays burned DVDs with no problems. Very easy to set up and hook up.

I bought this as a replacement for a refurbished Toshiba DVD player that only lasted 15 mos. I have used this DVD player for 1 day. The only problem is an incredibly small remote which is hard to read if you need reading glasses and no hdmi port.

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I bought this cheap DVD player for the bed-room.

In the living room we have a big HDTV, with an HDMI DVD player.... and lots of fancy shmancy stuff.

But in the bed room for my old standard def TV, I just wanted a cheap DVD player, and didnt care about HD or Blue-Ray.

I looked at a bunch on Amazon for under $50, and decided on this one.

So far so good!

I didnt care about Component Cables, or HDMI. I just wanted an old fashioned AV-out or Coaxial-out DVD player.

This unit is sleek looking, simple, light, and came with a small simple remote control. I set it up in literally 2 minutes, and was watching DVD's in bed!

I give it 5 stars.(So long as it doesnt break!)...(if it does I'll be sure to come change this review.)

So if your looking for a cheap, Non-HD, non-fancy DVD player, this is it.

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I rarely ever give anything one star.... but this one deserves it. From day 1 it was really slow to boot up, and after watching just a couple of movies, it would start skipping. I've never had to clean a DVD player so much! Even after cleaning sometimes it wouldn't work properly! I only wish I returned it the moment I got it. It's the biggest piece of crap I have ever owned.

Buyer Bewaretake another $10 and buy something worthy... I guess the old saying is trueyou get what you pay for!

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It started out fine, simple but seemed to work okay. In less than 3 weeks though every DVD I tried to play (retail DVDs, DVD-Rs & DVD-RWs) started skipping and distorting kinda of like when your cable or dish is acting up. possibly the worst electronic device I bought since ... well I honestly can't think of anything that was worse than this item. Buy at your own risk. I have a $40 DVD player I bought at Wal-Mart a year ago that is used an average of 4 hours daily that works great.

We purchased this Samsung DVD player and were very dissatisfied. First off, the remote control is TINY! It's about the same size as a small, travel-sized USB mouse for your laptop. Not a huge deal to me because I have good eyes and nimble fingers. But the player also experienced a lot of problems with invalid format errors. We have several DVDs we've burned ourselves and this player was unable to play many of them. Plus, even with our pristine, unscratched DVDs that were purchased from reliable retailers, the player would skip a lot. Rarely did we make it through an entire movie without the player skipping at least once or twice. We ended up returning it and exchanging it for a PIONEER DV-220V-K (which works great by the way).

Samsung YP-T7JX 512 MB Digital Audio Player with FM Tuner & Recorder

• Lightweight, multi-format digital audio player with 1.2-inch color LCD
• 512 MB flash memory holds 8 hours of MP3 and 16 hours of WMA audio
• Compatible with MP3, WMA, and PlaysForSure secure WMA
• Integrated voice recorder; FM tuner (with record function); 8 EQ presets; line-in recording
• Internal rechargeable battery with up to 10 hours of life

A good friend of mine who is quite intelligent and geeky but non the less a total luddite relented to the digital age a bit and picked up a laptop for school. He is a lover of music and has literally thousands of CDs scattered around his apartment, so for his birthday I went shopping for an .mp3 player simple enough for him to use. The Samsung YEPP YP-T7X fit the bill nicely.

DESIGN/FUNCTIONALITY

Every bit of the YP-T7X design is well thought out; the case alone, rectangle of matt silver and sky blue about a fourth larger then a Zippo lighter with an equal weight, is wonderfully crafted. The buttons are well laid out, though the play/pause needs to be larger.

A squat, 5-way joystick set below a gorgeous 1.2"x1.2" 65,000-color screen serves as a simple, effective and easily recognized interface, and performs well at the task with no lag and a comforting amount of resistance.

And the screen...what an excellent surprise in such a small device. The menu system takes full advantage of the available 65,000-colors with a series of moving, monotone images that clearly distinguish the various options, making navigation quick and simple. There is a photo viewing option at well, though with the small screen size this is a novelty at best. Disappointing is the fact that the device doesn't support ID3-tagged album art, which would have been an excellent and impressive use of the screen.

A small, retracting loop sits at the top of the case, and the kit comes with a plastic lanyard so that it may be worn around the neck (which I thought was silly, but might be fun for kids). The headphone jack is recessed along the top, left side and the line-in and USB ports are protected by an attached rubber flap that actually manages to stay firmly closed while also being quite easy to open. That alone is a small miracle.

SOUND QUALITY

There are two things you need to do before you listen to this .mp3 player. The first is to throw out the included earbuds. These horrid little pieces of flimsy plastic produce the kind of sound you would expect from earbuds sold behind the counter of a 7-11. They are simply that bad.

The next task is to make sure that the WOW effects are turned on; when off, the sound isn't quite as rich (though after testing, we suspect that you get about an hour less playback time with it on). With a decent of earbuds you will get a clean, rich sound that has only the tiniest amount of hiss at the highest end of the volume setting. And while the volume max is plenty for earbuds, standard headphones may fall a little short with only 10mW output per channel.

FM RADIO

Washington D.C. is notoriously bad for radio signals, but the YP-T7X preformed wonderfully. Stations came in clean and crisp, and procedure for finding and locking in up to 20 radio presets was easy. In fact, I was able to set up all aspects of the device without once cracking open the manual; all the options are presented well and in a simple, easy to navigate structure.

BATTERY LIFE

The posted 10 hour battery life is also disappointing, and my friend claims he gets anywhere from 8-10 hours of actual use with a full charge and the WOW effect turned on.

FEATURES

The YP-T7X comes with an excellent range of features and settings, ranging from the ability to play a wide array of files (MP3, WMA, protected WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and ASF) to the preset EQ settings (Normal, Classic, Jazz, and Rock, as well as the ability to create your own) to the ability to set timed FM recordings.

In addition, there is a list of sound enhancements you can activate to bolster the equalizer, including the afore mentioned WOW effect, TruBass (a bass "augmenter," which fully admit I don't understand, but it sounds good), SRS (surround-sound), and a bass-booster. All of these effects are unique and distinctive, which is surprising for such a small device and much more then some of the larger, hard-drive models have to offer.

You also have a line-in jack that allows direct recording of any device with a headphone jack at a bitrate of up to 192kbs, which is good enough for me but proved just a tad to imperfect for my friend's well-trained ears.

Buy Samsung YP-T7JX 512 MB Digital Audio Player with FM Tuner & Recorder Now

I got this for christmas. The first time I listened to it I was blown away. It may not have all the high tech video like others ..If that is what you need or want then go spend 300.00 ++ dollars ..Buy this for mowing the lawn,walking or to just get away from the noises of life. You can't beat the price.

Read Best Reviews of Samsung YP-T7JX 512 MB Digital Audio Player with FM Tuner & Recorder Here

Okay, so it's not an iPod, but I didn't want one anyway. I admit some of the attraction for me in this was the color (I'm a girl, after all) but the TFT screen rocks, the sound quality is terrific, and the size is perfect for sticking into the change pocket of your jeans.

Synching it through Windows Media Player is really easy, although I can't get the date to synchronize correctly. Some of the controls are less than intuitive and I did have to RTFM to figure out how to do some things like add songs to Favorites.

The Photo display is a nice little feature if you want to carry photos with you. You can also use it as a storage device, although since it's only 512Mb you might be better off just using a USB flash drive for portable storage.

Recharging and synching is done via USB/mini-USB, and since so many devices already use the cable, it's convenient to just swap it in and out with phone, headset, etc.

The included ear buds are great; they can't handle more than, say, 30 out of 40 volume, but neither can my ears, so we're all good there.

My one issue is that the jog button occasionally sticks, so we'll see how that pans out over time.

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If your looking for clear high resolution sound then this is it. This player has 3d sound options that make the music sound the way it should it comes alive. Scrap the ear plugs that come with it and get a pair of the shure brand plugs there expensive but really make this unit sound like your there. The color screan is great with great clairity and color quality. The unit is nice and small you can put it any were and not even know its on you. The only down side of it I dont like is the 10 hours of play back on a single charge. Over all I am very happy with it and was blown away with the sound Qualiy with the shure ear plugs. I would buy this unit again.

I like the small size and ease of use. A good value over other MP3 players. The color screen is amazing in its clarity. I like that it holds a good number of pictures plus plenty of songs.

Toshiba SD-5980 Progressive Scan DVD Player with HDMI Output

• Upconverts DVD signals to either high-definition 720p or 1080i
• HDMI direct digital AV output and progressive-scan ColorStream component-video outputs for ultimate DVD and JPEG image quality
• MP3/WMA CD playback; 9-in-2 card reader supports nearly every known type of flash media
• Offers 3:2 pulldown, black-level expansion, power picture zoom
• Optical and coaxial digital-audio outputs pass Dolby Digital and DTS surround (to compatible AV receiver and speakers)

I now have either owned or own 8 different DVD players and am very familiar with idiosynracies of each. This is the second Toshiba that I have owned and partially decided to purchase this one because I had a very good experience with another much older Toshiba that is still running strong.

-Decision Making Process:

I bought this for the HDMI Up-Conversion after just having purchased a Panasonic 42" HDTV Plasma (Awesome TV). I had heard the HDMI hook-up was stellar and wanted to find out. The decision was between an LG, Toshiba and Saumsung. Although the Toshiba was priced $30 less at Best Buy, I initially opted for the LG due to its good looks and slim profile. Bad move on my part. The LG was not compatible with my TV (There are disclaimers saying this can happen. I tried every kind of hook-up (component, composite and HDMI) and none of them would show me a picture. After reading some poor reviews of Samsung and having another Saumsung DVD player die on me previously, I decided to go with the Toshiba. It's not a great looking player, but not horrible either. I'm glad I did!

Positives:

First of all, the positves way outweight the negatives.

1) Stellar picture with HDMI output. I'm using the freebie HDMI cable that came with the player and the picture looks significantly better than my other player with Component (a solid Panasonic DVD recorder).

2) Free HDMI cable. These things are expensive and even if it's not the greatest quality cable, it's good enough to reap the benefits of HDMI outputs and notice a difference.

3) Great sound. The sound might even be a slight improvement over my Panasonic, which I love.

4) Card reader is an very nice extra that Samsung does not have. Looking at pictures in "HD" with HDMI is awesome!

5) When you press "Display" it will display the time surpassed and the total time of the movie so you have an idea of how much longer you have to go in the movie. Too many DVD players do not let you know how much longer you have before the movie is over.

Negatives:

1) It's a little complicated. Like most players, you need to read the manual to make sure your audio outputs are correct so you will be able to hear your audio in Digital. This is standard on most players I have dealt with.

2) Pay close attention with which mode of HDMI you are in (there is an HDMI button on the remote that toggles between 420p, 750p and 1080i. I was trying to play DVD+R's that I had burned and finalized from my computer and the picture kept flashing on and off. The sound was fine, but the flashing was unbearable. I thought it was because they were burned DVD's and it wouldn't read them, but I didn't have that problem on either of my other 3 current DVD players. As it turns out, the shows I was watching are not able to be viewed in either the 420P or 750P mode and can only be viewed in the 1080i mode. Once I switched to 1080i, those DVD's worked great.

3) When I was using the card reader, I had the picture in 1080i and it blinked on an off again. Once I switched it to 420p, it worked perfectly.

4) The player itself is not really that attractive and the display is downright ghetto. I'm not sure what Toshiba was thinking when they designed this thing. Perhaps they really wanted to keep the price down, but the display literally only shows you the minutes that have surpassed on the DVD you are playing in archaic looking number. For example, if you are 31 minutes and 29 seconds in, the display will read simply "31." The chapter is not listed nor are the seconds nor can you change it to display anything else.

In summary, I strongly recommend this player to anyone that is looking for an upgraded picture via HDMI cable. The HDMI up-conversion IS for real. THe picture is great and so is the sound. Having an digital card reader is cool and the player overall is fairly likable. If you have the patience to work through some of its quirks and don't mind the so-so looks and absolutely horrible display, you should make this one a purchase.

Buy Toshiba SD-5980 Progressive Scan DVD Player with HDMI Output Now

I have always trusted Toshiba products after consistantly good performance. Last year, I purchased their Upconvert SD-5970 model and that changed my mind. That model was just a complete disaster (hardly read disks, skipped, shut down/couldn't even turn it on at times-even by pressing the power button on the unit itself, froze up constantly, remote control did not respond at all or took 5 seconds to respond, disks wouldn't eject, etc.). You name it, it went wrong. I tried several replacements of the same unit and all of them had the same issues. Seems a lot of people had similar issues with that model from user reviews on the net.

The bad thing was, I ended up losing my receipt and had to put up with it when it went from bad to worse over the following months. I became a bit soured on Toshiba for releasing such a bad product.

About a month ago, I saw the SD-5980 advertised (The follow up to that model) and some positive word that most/all of the issues that people had with the 5970 were corrected now. I was hesitant at giving it a try. But long behold, after picking one up, they actually seem to be corrected.

I have had the 5980 for a little over a month and have not had 1 problem with it. It's really been like night and day between the two models and I really am pleased with the performance so far.

Picture quality seems about the same as the previous version, but it actually works now all the time. What a concept. Not a techie by any means, but the picture looks great and will get me by until HD-DVD comes out. I really have only tried previous Toshiba and Samsung upconvert models to compare picture quality on, so there may be something better out there and I have not seen it. I imagine it's probably on par with most of the other upconvert models available, though especially in this low price range of $149.00.

The build of the unit is extremely slim, again, and you still get the HDMI cord included with the unit so that saves you money right there. I also have not had any overheating problems with the unit after playing it during long periods, so that is better than the previous model, as well.

Reading various disks has gone smoothly so far, and this includes burned DVD's/DVD R's, so that seems fine, as well.

Remote control works flawlessly now and you will not throw it the way you did the 5970 model when that one did nothing. Very responsive and nicely laid out. Another nice improvement.

Really, even after a month, I am still amazed I can turn this on and get it to work flawlessly every time I use it, after having such a nightmare with the 5970 all the time. That model was that bad.

The 5980 model so far has been excellant and my faith has been restored in Toshiba players once again. Nice job on the unit and a very nice price for those in the market for these upconvert models. For price point, quality, and reliability/features, I gave it a 5.

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I was curious as to the quality difference the HDMI and brand name gives me in a DVD player, so I decided to hook up 2 DVD players, one cheap one and one expensive one, and see if I could tell the difference.

For this I used a Portland brand DVD player (cost roughly $39.99 at a large dept. store) and a Toshiba SD-5980 (cost roughly $135 here). I hooked them both up to my Sony Grand WEGA KDF-42WE655 42" HD LCD Projection TV. I connected the Portland via Monster S-Video cable, and the Toshiba via the provided HDMI cable. The DVD I used for this experiment was the BMW short films DVD available from the USA bmw site (also found in online format at bmwfilms.com)

And to be honest, it was tough. I thought *maybe* the Toshiba HDMI player was a little better picture quality, but wasn't sure. I also thought I may be subconsciously biased due to knowing which one cost 3x more, so I repeated the experiment in a blind test for my wife (I made her leave the room when I was loading up the DVD player and setting it up to a short film). And she picked the Portland as a better picture. Neither of us could tell the difference in the sound quality.

Maybe using a $200 third party HDMI cable would have made a difference, but I wasn't about spend that kind of money on a cable!

As neither of could tell the difference, we returned the 5980 and use the cheapo for all of our DVD needs.

There may be other differences between the two in terms of features, but as we don't use alot of advanced features, we didn't test that.

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You would think that for an expensive player, they would spend a little effort making sure the thing was easy to use. First, to even get it to play using the HDMI cable, you initially have to hook it up to your display using component cables, go into the DVD menu, adjust its output to HDMI, and then hook up the HDMI connection. Otherwise you just get a blank screen. It took me hours to figure out because the manual didn't say anything about it. Second, the tray that holds the DVDs is horrid the sides have no cutout, so it is tricky to take the disks out. And the HDMI output is always stretched to widescreen which is terrible because many of my DVDs are 4:3 TV series. It's hooked up using component cables right now (which look as good as HDMI anyway).

The player also has the neat feature of pausing or even crashing at the most exciting parts of movies. I'm sure it took some brilliant engineering on Toshiba's part to pull off.

Took less than a min for me to connect this DVD to my

HDMI compatible TV (Toshiba 52HM95) and it worked like

a charm. The picture quality is lot better compared

to a normal progressive scan DVD.

Inititally I bought a Panasonic S77S (after reading some awesome

reviews but unfortunately the HDMI did not work with my

TV, so I had to return it).

Another plus with this DVD is that it comes with a HDMI cable

so you don't have to spend 50+ dollars for the cable.

Panasonic DMR-E55K Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player , Black

• Records DVD-R, DVD-RAM for best of both worlds; plays DVD-Video, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW, and MP3 CD
• Up to 16 hours on a double-sided 9.4 GB DVD-RAM disc; up to 8 hours on a single-sided 4.7 GB DVD-RAM or DVD-R
• Offers one-touch record, TimeSlip, chasing playback (watching a recording in progress from the beginning), on-disc video editing
• Progressive-scan video output for seamless, flicker-free picture on high-definition and HD-ready televisions
• Measures 16.9 x 3.125 x 11.2 inches (W x H x D)

Normally I don't write reviews about electronics, I'm not an electronics expert nor have I used lots of DVD recorders. I'm making an exception with this piece of equipment. I did my research (reading reviews like this one) before purchasing this machine. I'd been waiting until the price of a quality machine came down to a price I felt was reasonable. This machine has been a jewel. I needed to archive a considerable collection of VHS tapes for my personal use (over 200 tapes, most of which were in excess of 1.5 hours each.) So far I have completed over 100 transfers and made only one frisbee, not bad. The quality of the transfers is all I could have hoped for, in fact it's exceptional. For anyone who wants to move a collection from VHS technology to DVD technology I will make 3 suggestions. First, purchase the SIMA GoDVD! unit. It enhances and cleans up weak signals, you'll thank me for this suggestion. Second, get a good VHS cleaner and use it regularly. Last, don't shoot yourself in the foot using the cables that come with these units. Go out and purchase monster cables or their equivalent. Using the skinny little things that come with the unit will keep you from getting the best possible information transfer. If you're watching your dvds on the new generation of television you WILL notice the difference.

Last but not least, normally I don't believe in extended warranty contracts. With this unit I made an exception. I bought an 3rd party contract since I learned that Panasonic will keep your unit for months if you utilize their contract. The lasers in these things are pricey and in my opinion worth spending a little money on insurance. Oh, one last thing, be very careful that you DO NOT move your recorder with a DVD disc in the tray. The repair technician I spoke to regarding the contract said that this is the #1 way to screw up a DVD recorder.

As to the quality of the user interface. My wife, one of the truly great technophobes of the 21st Century was able to use this machine with a minimum of coaching. It's really pretty easy to use, but like everything it takes a little reading and time to get the hang of it.

I'm posting this review as a way to thank those of you who have posted reviews that have helped me make good purchases. What a great way for us to help each other, very empowering.

Buy Panasonic DMR-E55K Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player , Black Now

I can't comment on the longevity of this product, as I've only had it for a few days. But I can comment on the features and ease of use which are excellent. Contrary to the reviewer who said it is extremely hard to set up, I say the opposite. For the rest of us who can easily work a microwave or an electric shaver without incident, this thing is as easy as you'd want. Here's the 'exceedingly' difficult set up routine:

1. Plug in all the cables (make sure you get them in the right holes...)

2. Turn it on. You'll get a menu asking you what language you speak. Then let it go for a while and it'll set the channels and time for you.

3. Whew..we made it past that. Now to program something to record: Press the 'funtions' button and go to the 'timer recording' mode.

4. Choose the channel, ENTER, start time, ENTER, end time, ENTER, record mode, ENTER. You're done. Wow. Hard.

5. To watch a recorded program, press the navigator button and choose a recording. ENTER.

6. To watch from the beginning while you are still recording, press the Time Slip button. Then control it as a regular recording, or press stop to go back to live TV. Easy.

For the price this seems to be a great unit. The picture quality is great and it works as advertised. I don't really see the necessity of the 'feature' of being able to use double sided DVDRam discs, because you have to flip them over anyway, so it doesn't really let you record twice as long without intervention.

One more note : It says on the box that it supports DVDAudio discs, (music CDs specially split into 5.1 channels). But it specifically says in the book that they will play on this unit on only 2 channels. That doesn't really seem like support for the standard.

Overall, it is a great replacement for my piece of junk VCR and is indeed easy to use. Can't go wrong here.

Read Best Reviews of Panasonic DMR-E55K Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/Player , Black Here

I needed a unit that would both record high quality video at the two hour setting as well as decent quality at the four to six hour setting. Saw the five star rating here and knew this was the one.

I am very pleased with this unit. I am recording from a DirecTV signal and it seems as if I am watching the actual broadcast. I highly recommend this Panasonic recorder.

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Bought this for my wife and in 4 days shes taped 12 movies flawlessly. The video and sound qualities are excellent. The output to the TV through the cable throughput is better than my Yamaha home theatre reciever system costing $800. The ram disks work the same as the r/w standard. I had no problems setting up the machine. I would recommend this unit to anyone with a vcr or old vhs tapes of the family. It does a great job cleaning up old tapes for archives.

This unit does everything I want it to...recording off cable tv as well as transfering my dusty and decrepit vhs collection to dvd with surprisingly good results.One of the easiest hookups I've ever experienced,super easy remote control operation and programming. You won't find a better unit for the price or a more user friendly recorder....Love It!!!

TiVo AN0100 Wireless N Network Adapter (Gray)

• Less waiting: download HD movies and TV to your TiVo DVR faster
• Quicker multi-room viewing: Transfer recordings from one TiVo DVR to another with greater efficiency
• Faster TiVoToGo: Load shows onto portable devices sooner with quicker transfers to your computer
• Speedier access to VOD: Get more rapid, reliable and efficient performance of streaming movies, web videos and music

This works a lot better than the prior USB version, I can now stream HD Netflix movies on my TiVo HD for example whereas before I had trouble doing that because the USB version wifi adapter was so slow!

This doesn't plug into the USB on your TiVo but rather the ethernet port. It also requires AC power as well.

My only complaint is that this is too expensive.

If you plan to watch streaming content such as Netflix with your TiVo, I would recommend this device. However, if you only need it for the standard TiVo updates and network connectivity, the much cheaper USB version really works just fine. Even for scheduled downloads the USB version works fine because it does that in the background so the speed doesn't matter in that case.

Buy TiVo AN0100 Wireless N Network Adapter (Gray) Now

When you understand what this thing really does, it becomes clear that it's an amazing device. Yes, you need to plug it into power, but that's only because it has a built-in microprocessor and internal web-based setup guide and those capabilities require power. This isn't a "dumb," USB-based adapter. It's much more powerful, and it serves as a stand-alone ethernet bridge.

As I mentioned, the basic idea is that this device is nothing more than a wireless-to-ethernet bridge. By enabling it and hooking it to your TiVo's ethernet port, your TiVo simply thinks it's hooked to a hard-wired ethernet connection. The beauty is that it requires no changes to your TiVo configuration. The adapter is detected automatically.

Ok, so it's a wireless-to-ethernet bridge, like many others available. What makes this one different? First, it's FAST, and it gets great reception, and it also works in the 5 GHz band, which is less crowded than the typical 2.4 Ghz band. If you have an N-standard wireless router (or dual-band router) such as the Linksys WRT610, you can fully utilize the power of this adapter. I've tried it using both old-fashioned WEP encryption, as well as the WPA2-AES mode (which is the Draft-N standard encryption protocol). I EASILY get 25 Mbit/sec data rates from across the house and through walls from my Linksys 5 Ghz N router.

Simply put, if you set this up properly and don't get full-speed streaming via Netflix through your TiVo HD, it's due to excessive Netflix server loading (or limits to your home internet service) and not a speed bottleneck in this adapter. Or, your adapter may simply be too far from your router, but I find this adapter to work very well at longer distances.

As a side note, if you hook this adapter to any PC or laptop via the ethernet port, you can use it as your N wireless connection to your router and to the internet. That is, if you have a machine that needs a wireless connection, and you don't have or don't want to put a wireless adapter in it, this device works great as a general-purpose wireless-to-ethernet bridge. You simply connect it to your remote PC's ethernet port and set it up. Thus, it's a convenient way to get a N connection to your N wireless router from a PC or laptop that doesn't have wireless but does have an ethernet port. I love this thing, and it's well worth the money.

One final note for techies... if you use "channel bonding" on your router, that is, joining two channels together to achieve 40 Mhz bandwidth instead of the typical 20 Mhz, this devices takes advantage of that too!

Read Best Reviews of TiVo AN0100 Wireless N Network Adapter (Gray) Here

TiVo's new wireless N adapter is an interesting concept. It is a wireless adapter, however, it appears on your network as a wired adapter. Setting up the device is also unusual. You have 2 options. If your router supports it, you can connect via single push of a button, otherwise, you need to connect the adapter to a PC via the LAN port and access the set up through the 192.168.10.1 address we are all familiar with. Using option 2 is not difficult, and once in the browser you have 2 options, automatically scan for a network or manual setup. Because I do not broadcastt SSID, I utilized manual setup. It supports WPA2 security as well so no issues there. Now, where the issues come in. If, for whatever reason, the adapter loses connectivity with your router, and you live in an area, where others are broadcasting their SSIDs, the adapter wll try to connect to one of those instead of te network selected as part of the original setup. This is also the case for the TiVo G Adapters. Unfortunately unlike the Old TiVo adapters, you cannot simply go into settings and re-attach to your network. With this device (N Adapter) you need to unplug it from your TiVo box, back into your PC and run setup again to register it on your network. This is a pain, from a convnience perspective, and could pose challenging to those not technically inclined. The performance of the adapter is excellent when working as designed. I am still tinkering to determine how to prevent the above events described from occurring.

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I've had TiVo ever since it came out. After using a Sony Series 1 TiVo with lifetime service for years, I was convinced to upgrade when the TiVo Series 2 with the ability to network them wirelessly came out. I first networked those with the Linksys Wireless B USB adapters that were originally supported and excitedly upgraded those to the TiVo AG0100 Wireless G USB Network Adapter for TiVo Series 2 and Series 3 DVRs adapters when they came out, becoming very pleased with the speed increase.

There were several reasons I chose to upgrade to TiVo TCD746320 Premiere DVR (Black) in November 2010, not the least of which was the fact the new TiVo model supports the Wireless N standard. As anyone who has networked multiple TiVos in their home will agree, the faster the better for transferring shows between TiVos or even to a PC.

I ordered the TiVO AN0100 Wireless N Network Adapters before I even had the new TiVo Premieres in hand, as there was no question that I would network them with the new adapters.

When I set the adapters up on my new TiVos, I quickly found that TiVo seriously downgraded the new adapters. Yes, they are faster, enjoying Wireless N speeds. However, where the previous wireless adapters for TiVo were easy to set up and manage, the new AN0100 adapter is not quite as simple on either count.

The old adapters simply plugged into the TiVo USB port, and then you plugged in your wireless network's SSID and password in the network setup screen. This new Wireless N adapter, however, plugs into the Ethernet port on the back of your TiVo. If your wireless router supports Wifi protected setup, it `usually' isn't so difficult to connect it to your wireless network using that method, but I have to say that it doesn't always connect the first time using the Wifi protected setup. Since I got the Wireless N adapters for TiVo, I've connected them to three different Linksys routers and a Belkin router (long story, don't ask..) The Wifi protected setup is finicky with the TiVo AN0100 Wireless N Adapter no matter which router I used. Conversely, I had no trouble using Wifi protected setup with other network adapters.

If you cannot use the Wifi protected setup method for any reason, you must connect the TiVo AN0100 Adapter to a PC using the USB cable to configure it for your wireless network, then move it to your TiVo.

On to the management issue. With the old adapters, you could easily go to the network setup area of your TiVo menu and change the networking information for your wireless network, check wireless signal strength, and more. This is not possible with the TiVo AN0100. There is NO visibility to these settings and information through the TiVo menus, leaving you essentially blind when it comes to how your AN0100 Adapter is doing and whether it is connected to your network.

And just try to move your TiVo Wireless N Adapter to a new Wireless network as I've needed to. To do this, you must first reconfigure the wireless networking settings on the AN0100 adapter and then reconfigured the Ethernet settings in the TiVo menu as well (especially true if you change subnets with the new wireless router).

Given my issues with the setup and management of the TiVo AN0100 Wireless N Network Adapter, I was torn between rating it with three stars or four. Yes, the setup is tricky and it chafes that I can't easily check the status of the wireless adapter, but once connected it does work. I wish I could give it three and a half stars, but as Amazon only allows whole stars, I will round up to a four.

Really, if you want to network your TiVo with the Wireless N standard, you are pretty much stuck as this is the only option. I hope the next model that comes out will have a better interface for configuration and management, but until then I will have to suck it up and live with this one.

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In the year 2011, a wireless device really shouldn't be this difficult to set up. My router doesn't have a WPS button, so I had to do a manual setup by plugging it into my home computer -apparently TiVo doesn't have software built in to talk to the adapter. While theoretically the adapter should be compatible with my WPA2 security settings, I couldn't get it to recognize my connection. I called TiVo tech support, and they admitted that the adapter doesn't always work with WPA or WPA2 security, and suggested I downgrade my security settings to make my router compatible with the adapter.

I had to downgrade my router security to WEP hex (not ASCII, because the adapter isn't compatible with that setting). Only then was I able to get the adapter to work, and then I had to change all the other wireless devices in the house to connect to the new WEP settings on my router.

Now that it is finally set up, the adapter does seem to work well with my TiVo Premiere. I haven't tried any streaming movies yet, but so far the response time is comparable to when I had a wired internet connection.

I was just really surprised that my new Tivo Premiere doesn't have software built in to make the setup process easier -the steps really should have been 1) plug in adapter, 2) enter password into Tivo, 3) enjoy working adapter.

Also not sure why I have never had an issue getting various devices to work with my WPA2 security (various computers, Wii, iPod Touch, etc.), but the TiVo adapter can't recognize it. Pretty lame. Now I have an unintelligible set of four hex passwords to remember instead of just one. Whiskey Tango, TiVo.

Sony Portable Stereo Sound System with Digital AM/FM Tuner, Mega Bass, CD Player, Synchronized Dubb

• Combining old & new technology, this is the perfect portable sound system. Whether you're playing CD CD-R CD-RW discs, listening to cassettes, enjoying your favorite stations on the digital AM/FM stereo tuner, dubbing music on blank cassettes, this compact sound system does it all. Plus it features large, easy-to-use buttons, large easy to read LCD display and a Mega Bass sound enhancer.
• Just The Right Size = Compact design fits in to any room. The correct output power and the unique wide convex speakers design allows the sound to be dispersed over a wider area for a fuller sound stage, therefore filling any room with a perfect sound level combined with the Mega Bass enhancer which produces full rich, deep, bass tones, this sound system will satisfy any music lover. Portability = Lightweight & Battery power option with a large carry handle lets you take this system anywhere.
• Sleep Timer puts you to sleep peacefully while playing your favorite tunes from the radio, CD player or tape cassette. 6 different lengths of play time are 120, 90, 60, 30, 20 or 10 minutes of listening pleasure to relax you to sleep. Sleep Timer is an excellent feature for children to listen to a bedtime story or for babies listening to lullabies. Sleep like never before when you fall asleep to the sounds you love.
• Remote Control lets you control the programming and music from the Radio, CD Player or Tape Cassette; all from the comfort of your couch, bed, dinner table, your favorite chair or anywhere in the room that is convenient for you. Recommended for elderly or handicapped (Great for lazy people).
• Features: Digital AM/FM Stereo Tuner / Mega Bass sound enhancer / CD-R/RW Playback Compatibility / Stereo Record/Playback Cassette Deck / Synchronized CD/Cassette Dubbing / Large Control Buttons and LCD Digital Display / 30 Programmable Preset Stations / Sleep Timer / CD Play Modes: Program, Shuffle, Repeat, 20 Track RMS Programming / Battery power option for portability / 4" wide dispersion angled speakers / Higher watts output than most portable units / Remote control / Headphone jack

I have had this little boom box for about 5 years. I don't remember if the audio was always terrible or if it became that way over time. I'm looking for a replacement now because playing it any louder than a whisper causes it to crackle and distort.

Buy Sony Portable Stereo Sound System with Digital AM/FM Tuner, Mega Bass, CD Player, Synchronized Dubb Now

This stereo has all the features I was looking for. Small easy to use remote and no bright lights to disturb sleep. Sounds great and didn't cost that much.

4) COBRA CXR-925 2 Two Way Radio Walkie Talkies 35 Mile

I have had these for a few weeks and use them daily. They work as advertised although, as has been widely reported, the range is no where near what is advertised. They do reach across our small town and I have taken them with me to the store and been able to chat with home base. That is maybe a mile with houses and hills in between. Have not had them in the woods yet. They are light weight, small and easy to carry and use. We have put them throughout the house so we can conveniently contact one another in and around the home. (With five kids and a large house, it saves on the lungs or feet.) The "play back" feature is especially nice because my hearing is not great which also brings up my chief complaint (besides the range issue) which is the volume. They are not easy to hear (hence four rather than five stars) and my hearing is bad anyway so the playback feature is very nice. Given the good price on these, I think they are a very good value and recommend.

This turned out to be a decent bundle for family excursions. Purchased for a cruise and found reception to be okay. Reasonably compact compared to other popular radios. The replay feature is what pushes this review from 3 to 4 stars.

Buy 4) COBRA CXR-925 2 Two Way Radio Walkie Talkies 35 Mile Now

I bought over a dozen of these for the staff at our school because the price was low and I'll admit: I don't know a whole lot about two-way radio. Well, most of them stop working almost immediately. Some began to transmit even when the person did not intend to transmit anything. I had the pleasure of listening to one teacher teach his class for 15 minutes before we finally found out whose radio it was. This is a joke! Avoid these at all cost! I gave two stars because the seller did ship them to me pretty quickly.

Read Best Reviews of 4) COBRA CXR-925 2 Two Way Radio Walkie Talkies 35 Mile Here

If you want a two way radio that reaches further than motorola's two way radios, this is it. I'm not saying you can go across town with it, but I've been trying to get connected within a 10 block distance, downtown, lota of building, and all the radios I've bought simply didn't work. This is the only one untill now, that delivered what I wanted. That's why I'll buy other 8 pairs of it.

Want 4) COBRA CXR-925 2 Two Way Radio Walkie Talkies 35 Mile Discount?

The features are great but not worth much if you can only use them in your own house! Very disappointed!

Olympus 142015 - DS-2400 Digital Voice Recorder

I have used Olympus products for years in my transcription service business. They have been very reliable and user friendly. I am disappointed as they keep discontinuing machines and having new models and with this one specifically they changed the software entirely and got rid of some features that the person using the machine now has to do in a manual fashion. The 2300 machine's program would allow the program to be set to automatically upload the recorded files and also automatically delete them from the handheld unit. Both of these features are not available on this new software. I wonder if Olympus is trying to promote their more expensive units now listed under "professional dictation" (several hundred dollars more expensive) in order to have these features as well as promoting voice recognition. In the face of obsolescence this will soon not be an issue.

I've been using the olympus recorders for the better part of a decade now it's always in my pocket, it's a work horse I use it every bit of 10 times a day. My only complaint is that there is no auto advance to the next message it requires you to manually forward to the next message, you also have to do the same thing when recording a new message, or it will continue recording under the same record.

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Irock 64MB COMBO VOICE RECORDER/MP3 ( 150VM )

This device has incredible reception capability. Put it in a large room with lots of people, and it picks up from across the room with ease. It stores many hours of interviewing. Is easy to transfer to laptop and listen there. Within the laptop, you can adjust where you want to start listening.

I found the features like bookmarks to be confusing, and can actually make it hard to find recordings. If you want to listen to a recording with the device, no fun as you cannot start in the middle or fast forward (but again, can when transferred to the laptop or PC). Software for this is solid.

I am a consultant who continually interviews and do not want to have to take too detailed of notes. This device is excellent for those who want high quality recordings. It would be easy to put in shirt pocket and record that way too.

For MP3, while it takes them, why bother.

It does have a speaker that works fairly well if 2 or more people wanted to listen to.

I really love my Irock combo voice recorder and MP3 player. The software is straightforward and easy to use. The features I love the most are: 1) its tiny size fits in any pocket and you can carry it everywhere it's about the size of a pack of gum; 2) the voice recorder the sound quality is pretty good and I use it frequently. On the downside the erase function is a bit awkward to use. But this is a minor flaw in an overall excellent little gadget.

Buy Irock 64MB COMBO VOICE RECORDER/MP3 ( 150VM ) Now

Nice little device with clear recording and heaps of recording time some other things to be aware of though...

1. The recording level seems to be fairly low unless you are speaking facing the microphone, you may need to download, convert to MP3 and amplify using a third party tool such as MP3Gain. This would be what I'd consider the main drawback of the device and lowered its rating from 5 to 4 stars.

2. Its very hungry on the battery usage, even with the backlight turned off a single AAA battery doesn't seem to last more than about 2 hours recording time. Worth getting rechargeables. Forget about playing MP3s with it you'll drain the batteries quicksmart.

In contrast to earlier reviews I don't find the controls hard to use at all I guess its just personal preference. Also I've found that holding down the < and > buttons allows fast forwarding, much like a tape recorder...

Read Best Reviews of Irock 64MB COMBO VOICE RECORDER/MP3 ( 150VM ) Here

Irock 150VM is overall a good voice recorder -compact size and decent recoder quality (much better than my now retired SONY recorder that uses small cassettes).

But here are the things that I don't like:

1. Be aware if you are going to use rechargable batteries: It is VERY HARD to put the rechargable battery (size AAA)into the battery chamber (only at a very very narrow angle.) The rechargable battery is just a little bit longer than the non-rechargable one -but this makes HUGE difference because of the size of the battery chamber. This is obvously a design flaw. Even now I know how to do it, sometimes it still takes me more than 5 times to be successful which makes me feel very frustrated. It can be very bad, say, when you need to change the battery during recording an interview.

2. The design of control buttons is not convenient -the buttons are on both sides, and if you hold the recorder with only one hand, it's easy to press the wrong buttons on the other side.

Want Irock 64MB COMBO VOICE RECORDER/MP3 ( 150VM ) Discount?

I had and used this little piece of plastic for a few months and put it in a drawer for another three. When it came out for the next use and a fresh battery installed, it was completely dead. Don't waste your time or money.

Panasonic HDC-SD60K SD Based Hi-Def Camcorder with 35X Intelligent Zoom (Black)

This is a replacement for my 10 year old Panasonic camcorder so the first thing I noticed is this thing is SMALL, but they are all pretty small compared to my old camcorder. Without going into too much detail I'll just note the things I found much better than I expected and the couple things I am a little disappointed in. I don't have experience with any other new camcorders so I can't say this one is better or worse than any of the other new models.

Pleasantly surprised:

The image stabilization feature is very very good.

The video picture quality is impressive.

The battery lasts longer than it is suppose to (manual says 50 minutes but I get double that).

The software that comes with it is certainly good enough for me and is easy to use. It allows you to arrange your clips into a video and write it to a standard DVD in standard definition, to a standard DVD in high definition or to a blu-ray disc. You can delete portions of clips, add transitions between clips, add text to a clip (first clip only) and build a menu screen.

Things that are a bit of a disappointment:

The automatic white balance isn't the greatest. Within a single lighting environment and a single shot the auto white balance will vary from a little too yellow, to a little too blue to just right. I've given up on auto white balance and now use manual white balance. Manual mode is a bit of a hassle but worth it to avoid the white balance swings the automatic setting produces.

The wind cut filter can't be turned off in auto mode. This isn't a big deal to me now that I use manual mode (because of my white balance complaint) but if I did want to use auto mode there are times you need to have the wind cut filter off or the sound will get totally messed up (like when an audience is clapping along to a song).

Low light recording is fairly noisy. It isn't horrible. I decided it is acceptable for my use but my 10 year old camcorder did better in low light.

Everything else about the camcorder is about what I expected. It's easy to use, nice zoom range, still camera mode can't compete with a real still camera but that shouldn't come as a big surprise. Overall a very nice camcorder for the money. Is it the best camcorder for the money? I have no idea, but I can say I'm happy with it and it is capable of producing very nice video with just a little effort as long a there is sufficient light.

UPDATE one month later: I've had the camcorder for over a month and have shot 10+ hours of video with it. I'm still impressed with this little camcorder. It can produce some beautiful video. I'd give it 5 stars if the white balance worked a little better. I still stand by my original comments.

One software feature I discovered and like a lot is the ability to capture a still photo from the video. I'm sure all video software has this feature but it is new to me. With the still capture feature you can get a 3.6 inch x 6.4 inch 300dpi jpg from the video. The software allows you to look at the video frame by frame so you can capture a still picture at just the right moment. This is very nice for making small snapshot photos, particularly of fast action subjects. One maddening thing about most still cameras is shutter lag (the delay from the time you push the button to the time the picture is taken). Many times great shots are missed because of that delay but by capturing still images from the video you can always get the shot at just the right moment! It's a fun feature.

UPDATE #2 2 months later: I've shot over 20 hours of video with this camcorder now and I'm still very happy with it. I purchased a sandisk 16GB card (holds about 2 hours of video) and I'm keeping an eye out for a Vw-VBK360 extra battery for use on vacations. The Vw-VBK180 battery that comes with the camera lasts at least 100 minutes of actual use yet is only suppose to last 50 minutes. I don't know why I'm getting so much time out of it! I do shut off the camera between shots (by closing the viewing door) but doesn't everybody? Seems like a natural thing to do.

I still use manual mode for white balance. I'm much happier with the results using manual white balance rather than automatic white balance. The auto white balance in my old camcorder as well as the white balance in my daughter's little Flip camcorder works fine but not in this new camcorder. It's my only real complaint.

I did a little test to compare my old camcorder with the new camcorder in low light conditions. The new camcorder produces a fairly noisy video in relatively low light but my old camcorder produces a pretty nice video under the same low light conditions. I'm not talking very dark living room, in the evening, lit with 2 floor lamps. But I found a flaw in my test! What I discovered is both camcorders produce fairly good video in STANDARD DEFINITION (note: the new camcorder only records in HD but the software provided with the camcorder allows you to convert it to standard definition). It is only in HIGH DEFINITION that the video from the new camcorder is noisy. Since my old camcorder only records in standard definition it wasn't fair for me to compare my old camcorder standard definition video with my new camcorder high definition video. So for what it's worth, my new and old camcorders produce about the same quality standard definition video in low light conditions. Maybe you have to step up to a more expensive camcorder to get low noise, high definition video.

I've got to say, even though low light standard definition video looks better than low light high definition video, once you've viewed high definition video in normal lighting conditions you'll never want to go back to standard definition ever again. The difference is remarkable!

UPDATE #3 3 months later: I continue to use this camcorder a lot and am still very happy with it. There are a few things I'd change if I could but nothing too serious. Manual focus is painful but I've only used that once. Getting to the backlight compensation mode is quite painful and I wish there was a button on the camcorder that put the camcorder in backlight mode like my old camcorder has but again, not the end of the world.

I just responded to a very good question in the COMMENTS SECTION about manually setting the white balance that I didn't mention earlier that is very important: When you manually set the white balance the setting DOES stay at whatever you set it at when you turn off the camcorder. In other words, the white balance setting you select "sticks", which is a very good thing! If I had to manually reset the white balance setting every time I shut the camcorder off I would not have kept this camcorder. Fortunately that is not the case. You can set the white balance to whatever you need and you only need to change the setting when your lighting conditions change.

UPDATE #4 4 months later: I've only used the camcorder a couple of hours this past month and don't have anything new to add. This will be my last update to my review unless I discover something noteworthy. All, in all, it's a very nice camcorder!

Addendum to update #4 On 11/5/10 I broke my camcorder. It was entirely my fault. I hit the outer edge/end of the LCD screen quite hard on a hard object and the screen is now blank. The camcorder still works but the LCD screen is history. Can't blame the camcorder though. To give you an idea of what I really think of the HDC-SD60K, I'm replacing my broken HDC-SD60K with a new HDC-SD60K. I just ordered it from Amazon (again) and was pleasantly surprised to learn the price has dropped 25% from what I paid a little over 4 months ago! It's a nice camcorder and I thought is was a good buy when I bought it 4 months ago but at it's current price it's a no-brainer!

Kudos to Amazon! I ordered another HDC-SD60K camcorder (to replace the one I broke on 11/5) on Saturday 11/6 and it was delivered Friday 11/12 and that was using the super saver free shipping option!!!

I thought I'd see if the automatic white balance works any better in my new HDC-SD60K camcorder compared to what I'd experience in my old HDC-SD60K. You never know, maybe my old one was defective or maybe Panasonic tweaked the HDC-SD60K in the past 4 months to improve the way the auto white balance works. So I shot some video in IA mode, inside and out. Nope. No different than my original HDC-SD60. The picture changes tint within a single shot when panning or zooming as the camcorder continually adjusts the automatic white balance filter based on what is in the image at any particular moment. Oh well, I've gotten use to manual mode anyway and the results are far better.

UPDATE #5 6 months later: I just purchased a Pioneer BDR-206 blu-ray burner for my computer (from Amazon of course!) and can now report the software that comes with this camcorder works nicely burning blu-ray discs. Going with blu-ray also makes life a little easier. I take quite a bit of video and I wasn't keeping up with burning DVDs of all the video I'd taken. Being able to put about 2-1/2 hours of video on a single blu-ray disc sure is a lot easier then making a bunch of HD DVDs!

Over 500 people have found my review helpful! That's great! I see I missed the boat for 3 people though. Sorry. If there is something specific you need to know you're welcome to ask me in the COMMENT section. I certainly am no expert but I'll try to answer any questions I can.

UPDATE #6 8 months later: I'm still using this camcorder a lot! A couple people have discovered a problem with this camcorder that I was unaware of. When recording in a quiet environment the noise the autofocus motor makes is clearly recorded on your video. I tested it myself with my camcorder and it is true. Maybe like me, most people video things where the sounds they record overwhelm the auto-focus motor noise. Except for the test video I made in a quiet environment to confirm the existence of this problem I have not noticed the autofocus motor noise in any of my videos but buyer beware there is a motor noise when the camcorder focuses and it does get recorded!

UPDATE #7 It's now April. I've lost count of the months! Since I mostly use this camcorder to record my daughter who is a member of a fiddle group I decided it'd be interesting to have a second camcorder on a tripod recording at a different angle than what I'm recording with the camcorder I'm handholding. So I did some experimenting with my broken camcorder, the one with the blank lcd screen (see addendum to update #4) and discovered if I connect a tv to the camcorder I can use the tv as a view screen! So I purchased a 7" portable lcd tv from Amazon for $50 and now I can splice together shots from the two camcorders making a pretty interesting video! Granted, the camcorder with the broken lcd screen is not the easiest thing to use, you have to know where to tap the blank lcd screen to set the white balance for example, but it works! Bottom line, I'm still having fun! If you search on YouTube for "Fayette Opera House" and look for the video of Orange Blossom Special you'll find one of my early attempts using two of these hdc-sd60k camcorders and splicing the video together. I just use the software that came with the camcorder. Nothing fancy and fairly easy to do. Anyway, these are nice camcorders, even though they are "last years models" now.

UPDATE #8 A little over a year. Use the camcorder at least once a week recording the fiddle group my daughter is in. I use the camcorder inside, under all kinds of lighting conditions as well as outside. I tried turning the automatic gain control off to see how that affected sound. It is suppose to give a more "natural" sound and if you know how AGC works it makes sense that it could produce better sound, not that I have complaints with the sound with AGC on except I get clipping once in a while usually when an audience is applauding. I've only tried it once and it wasn't good! Need to experiment with that some more. It's remarkable a camcorder in this price range offers this level of sound control. Other than the terrible automatic white balance (I carry a white piece of typing paper wherever I go to set the white balance manually, which works great) I'm still VERY happy with this camcorder after using it a lot for a little over a year. No regrets with this purchase!

UPDATE #9 17 months later. Still use it a lot and it's still going strong. No problems at all (other than the auto white balance, but manual works great). There have been occasions when I wish it had an external microphone jack but other than that, I have no regrets at all! Even the camcorder with the broken LCD screen works great (I use a $50 external LCD screen connected to the camcorder as the view screen) as a tripod only camcorder. Happy!

UPDATE #10 22 months later. Still works great. No problems at all. Over 200 videos on youtube of the fiddler group my daughter is in all taken with this camcorder. Only wish it had a jack for a external mic so I could get the sound directly from the soundboard but for the normal user, taking video of their family, I don't think an external mic is necessary. Still very happy!

UPDATE #11 30 months later!!! Still going strong but now I've gotten a bit fancier. I'm still using both my camcorders but now, when I'm recording the fiddle group my daughter is in I record the sound separately using a Tascam DR-07MKII and I do all my editing in Adobe Premiere Elements 10. The sound for concerts is significantly better with the Tascam and syncing the sound with the video is easy. Elements 10 is awesome! If you want to see a sample search youtube for "Fiddlers ReStrung 2012 Bowl of Bula Holiday Hometown Concert" and you'll see/hear a video using two HDC-SD60K's with sound from the DR-07MKII. Don't get me wrong, the sound recorded from the camcorder is certainly good enough for everyday use but for music a separate recorder is worth the extra effort. As far as the camcorders go, no problems at all in 2-1/2 years of heavier use than a typical person would use a camcorder. I highly recommend Premiere Elements 10 for its ease of use and features too. Very very happy!!!

I hope you found this information useful. I'd like to thank the people who took the time to write camcorder reviews when I was researching them. It's very helpful to get insights from end-users. I'm glad I bought the camcorder that I did and I'm even happier that I decided to upgrade from my standard definition camcorder to an eye-popping high definition camcorder!

I've done a pretty good amount of research on budget hi-def camcorders between $400 and $500 dollars. In my opinion, this is the best camcorder in this price range. I would highly recommend this camcorder to anyone looking to just film family gatherings, vacations, or for filming budget movies. The camcorder has an attractive design, fits in your palm, and is the perfect weight. It takes fantasic video, has a 3 second pre-record function, face tracking, good battery life, a flash & video light, average photos, and dolby digital audio recording. My only complaint is the location of the record button, it is a bit awkward. I was going to go with the Sony cx110 which has mostly the same specs, but decided on this camcorder since it has optical image stabilization (which works flawlessly) instead of an electronic stabilizer. It also has an LED video light and a flash, for photos. It supports SDXC memory cards, which can hold 64GB or more. If you prefer flash memory over using a hard drive, like me, you are better off with this base model and getting a 16/32GB SD card. I bought the 32GB Transcend SDHC card from Amazon and it works perfectly with this product.

Buy Panasonic HDC-SD60K SD Based Hi-Def Camcorder with 35X Intelligent Zoom (Black) Now

I've had this camera for a couple of months now, and I am pleasantly surprised by it. I've never owned an HD camera, and this is my first new camera purchase in about 15 years or so. I've been using my phone camera for most pictures or borrowing my wife or daughter's digital still camera for the occasional need. This camera is many times better than my Droid phone camera mainly because of the versatility. That is, the phone camera isn't great for video, or zoom and slow motion playback or low light situations. I scrubbed Amazon for quite a while before purchasing, reading all the reviews I could find on other cameras looking in this price range down to about 1/2 the price of this camera. Although this one didn't have many reviews, and wasn't cheap, it was well-liked by those who purchased it, and now I know why. It has a bunch of advanced features which I haven't used but I will detail the ones I have used.

The camera fits in my pocket reasonably comfortably, it's slightly larger than my wallet. It's a touch wider than my hand when I hold it but comfortably fits in the palm of my hand. The controls are easy to use once you get used to them. There are 3 modes, playback, video and still. The still pictures are quite impressive. I sold a car on eBay and the pictures were huge and very crisp on my computer. They were amongst the largest pictures on eBay after I posted them, larger than most of the car dealers selling anyway. I believe it's 4.3 megapixel, but not all megapixels are created the same. I think this 4.3 quality is better than a 4 megapixel camera phone.

The video quality is exceptional. Oddly, on playback using my TV this camera seems to have better video quality than most of the HD programming I watch on Dish Network. I'm not sure how that can be possible, but it is better. I can see every hair on my daughter's head and every blade of grass when I watch a playback. During video recording, there is a box that appears around faces, apparently it's recognizing and focusing on those faces.

I've used this camera in several challenging situations and found it to be very good. I've used it low light for example, and it has a built-in light that comes on automatically. We were at a restaurant recently which was dark, and I recorded video for a few seconds and the image was somewhat dark, but the light automatically came on for both the video mode and still picture mode (flashed). The people whom you are recording might find the light annoying (in video mode as it stays on), but as the cameraman the playback image looks great you can turn off the light manually, easily.

The zoom is pretty incredible. I was recently at Brewer's baseball game, from the 1st base line I was able to zoom in on the center fielder to fill the frame, he was about 500-600 ft away from where I was sitting. Zooming out, I turned the camera back on myself and my son for a nice wide angle shot at arms length. During playback on my TV, I could even see the thin stripes on the center fielder's shirt. The stabilization (anti-shake) mode (OIS) allowed me to see the players on playback with no noticeable shaking or movement on my part. With the OIS turned off, I could not hold the camera steady enough for the long range zoom shots. You don't need a tripod to steady the camera but I've used a tripod and it works well with this camera.

The battery life is pretty good about 3 hours of use or so playback and at least an hour or more in record mode reduce. I'm thinking about getting the larger battery as although it might heavier, it would be nice to have the extra battery life and a spare battery.

I also recorded my golf swing using the high-speed record mode. Although I couldn't get the super-slow motion playback that you see on TV golf, but I was able to stop the club head fairly well for my purposes anyway. I could see my driver shaft was bending quite a bit which was a surprise. I was also able to see the club shaft angle fairly well during playback. The controls for playback in slow motion are a little clumsy but not too bad once you get used to it (press the pause button, then hold down the FF or Rewind buttons).

I plan to use the camera for recording my daughter's lacrosse games this school year. I expect from what I've seen that it will work well for that purpose as well.

The biggest complaint that I have is that still pictures have a problem with red-eye when using the flash. Even when the person isn't looking directly at the camera, the center of the eyes are red. It's an annoying problem that I can't seem to fix. Other than that I've been pretty happy with the camera's usability and quality.

Accessories:

The camera comes with a detailed user-manual, a charger, 2 connector cables, and a CD disk containing software for IBM-compatible computers. However, just plugging it into my Mac computer worked fine with without any additional software.

The two cables included: a USB cable for connecting to your computer, and cable to attach to your TV for playback. The cable for playback is one of those 6-connector types (red, green blue, video as well as yellow (video), and red/white audio). Unfortunately, it's only about 5' long. Although the video quality was quite good with the included cable, I went for the additional HDMI mini-cable as I wanted to see the quality difference which frankly is hard for me to tell the difference, but the accessory cable below is much longer (nearly 10' instead of the 5' cable that comes with the camera) therefore I recommend it.

I purchased a cable (Panasonic Mini HDMI Cable, 9.8 Ft) and a memory card (SanDisk Ultra 32GB SDHC Card (SDSDRH-032G-A11) both of which I recommend. The memory card was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but works quite well. There may be be cheaper memory cards available that work as well, not sure.

cable:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001A5LW1U/ref=oss_product

memory card:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00194101O/ref=oss_product)

I would recommend purchasing a case, which I've yet to do, but will add that to the review once I find a good one.

Read Best Reviews of Panasonic HDC-SD60K SD Based Hi-Def Camcorder with 35X Intelligent Zoom (Black) Here

I first purchased the Sony HDR-CX110, in the same price/feature class as this Panasonic. If you are considering each camera, here's what I can tell you. Be forewarned that I have only had today to play with the Panasonic, and I have only used each model in Automatic mode. I will post updates if I discover anything significant:

SONY HDR-CX110:

Wins:

+Size the Sony is much smaller, easily fitting into my cargo/tactical pants pockets;

+Image quality the Sony has much better [on fully auto mode] color and contrast;

+Both an HD and an SD camcorder Can make AVCHD or MPG, in-camera!;

+10mm Threaded Filter compatible The Sony has a manual lens cap, and a filter thread on the outside of this. While you won't be able to protect your filter with the cap, you can at least keep your lens protected;

+Manual Lens Cap User preference, but I like having fewer "automatic" moving parts to break-down.

Looses:

-Image Stabilization not strong enough for my hand held video needs I believe the IS on this model is digital only you can spend a couple hundred $ more for the CX300, which has Optical IS, you might find better IS [out of my price range];

-Artifacts I noticed several blocks in my video test. I don't know if this was from the digital image stabilization trying to figure out how to handle lake water on a windy day, or something else. I did not notice this in the Panasonic, but have only done limited testing.

Panasonic HDC-SD60:

Wins:

+Lighting Panasonic SD60 has built-in video light and still flash these will probably be of limited use, in only close quarters, but there if you need it. In preliminary testing, these both worked fairly well;

+Image Stabilization in this model is optical, and includes two modes regular, for simple hand-held video, and "active" for filming while moving. Both worked well, much better than the Sony, but will not completely eliminate camera shake.

Looses:

-Size While still quite small, this camera is large when compared to the Sony [longer and heavier]. I probably won't be carrying it in my cargo/tactical pants;

-Automatic Scene Mode It takes much too long for the camera to adjust to lighting conditions, and it cannot seem to find the right color temperature for indoor lighting I have not played with manual mode, yet, but many reviewers write that the manual mode is much better;

-No SD mode only writes AVCHD files;

-Automatic Lens Cap User preference, but this seems to be another piece to breakdown;

-No Filter Threads Can this really cost much to implement? I can't install a polarizer, UV or any other filter to enhance my video or to protect the lens.

Conclusion:

I tried the Sony first, because of the ability to change it from an HD to an SD camcorder at the push of a button Writing either AVCHD, or Standard-Def .MPG files, when appropriate. After I discovered that the Sony IS was limited in its ability, I returned the Sony for the Panasonic. The Panasonic's IS is much better, but the Sony does seem to have much better image quality [Automatic modes tested, only!].

Overall, I'd choose the Sony, but only if using a tripod most of the time. I'll keep the Panasonic for hand-held videoing.

Want Panasonic HDC-SD60K SD Based Hi-Def Camcorder with 35X Intelligent Zoom (Black) Discount?

I just tested this camcorder for a full day and was pleasantly surprised. I bought a Canon HFS100 last year and liked the video quality but was disappointed with its stabilization, wind noise, and limited optical zoom. Even though the HDC-SD60K was half the price of the Canon, I really could not tell the difference in video quality between the two cameras on my HD TV. In some respects such as color accuracy, I think the Panasonic was better. I really liked the 25X optical zoom and the excellent stabilization, even at full zoom. The wind noise cancel feature seemed to work well too. For the price, I am amazed by the video quality.