VideoSecu CCTV Outdoor Security Camera IR Infrared Day Night Vision Weatherproof 520TVL High Resolu

I install security camera systems and have used several makes and models of cameras. This camera did Not perform well out of the box. It flashed on and off when in night vision mode and lost detail and resolution. It takes a while for the night vision to kick in as well. Since time was critical in getting security coverage, I didn't bother sending it back and just replaced it all together with Zmodo brands!

I've got about six different cameras on my system, and this one, hands down, is the best. The IR is great, illuminates my whole side yard (about 75x100 feet) like daylight. The daylight colors are better than any other cheap camera I've ever used. I'm going to be replacing a couple of my others with this model for sure.

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USB Voice Recorder 8GB by Brickhouse Security

Worked excellent for three months then suddenly stopped working. When it was working it had good pick up and was very user friendly.

The recording function part works good.However, the key chain part broke off the very first time I put it on my key ring. The key chain part needs to be redesign.

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I bought this usb voice recorder so that I can record voices. The recording function works well, picup is good. packaging is terrible. The key chain stub is just pitiful it is not worth putting it there. This device needs to be repackaged, if key chain is what it is intended to be held, then redesign the damn thing, make it substantial, not so easy to rip off. By they way without a way to hang it to something I halve lost and found this thing twice..

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ser du, dette bord er sendt till USA till en veninde, og jeg bor i Danmark så har ikke fået så megen glæde af bordet, men tror hun har

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me encanta este producto, ya tengo algun tiempo con uno y grabo mucho, ahora lo pedi para un familiar estudiante y se que le sacara provecho

Sharx Security VIPcella-IR SCNC2700P Wired PoE IP network camera with MicroSD DVR and True Day/Nigh

I purchased two of these products because I needed to keep an eye on my home when I went on vacation last summer. The quality of the video is outstanding; better than any other video camera out there that I've seen. I liked the fact that I could actually see people's faces in high quality, rather than a blur. The night vision is superb and I was able to view my rooms as if there were lights on, when in fact, it was dark. Just a note, my rooms were no larger than 12' x 18'. There are demos of this camera on the manufacturer's website. I would recommend anyone who is interested in this product to check them out first.

A few items to note: if a room is very dark and has no white objects in it, the night vision will not work as well. What I did to resolve that was to place a piece of white cardboard (about 10" x 12") on my couch and then it adjusted the lens to brighten the room a bit. Another thing I noticed is if you mount this device on top of a wall unit, the night vision LEDs will actually reflect off the surface and mess with the quality of the night vision. What I did to resolve this issue was to place a black velvet cloth directly underneath the base of the camera, so the IR LEDs did not reflect off the surface and the night vision worked great.

The networking is very easy to setup. I was able to give it a static IP (you can also use DHCP) so I could view it from my smartphone. I was using a Palm Pre 2 at the time and I could not only see live pictures but also stream video to my phone and see it live. It does offer RTSP.

Probably one of the best features of this camera is the alerting. You can setup zones in specific areas of the camera's view, so that if motion is detected, it will trigger an email alert and start sending pictures. I set this up and also had my email account text me, when mail came from this device. It was great I didn't have to babysit the camera all the time and relied on alerts as they happened.

Support was responsive. They do not have a number to call, but they do have an email to contact for support. I always received a response within 24 hours of sending them a question and they were very knowledgeable.

Definitely a great quality product and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Great product. I had one issue with setting up this camera and contacted tech support through email. I received a call very quickly and was offered a replacement camera if my problem could not be solved. We have other cameras from this company (model SCNC260) and have been very satisfied with the results. The setup is very quick.

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BOYA VM-200 Video Condenser Stereo Microphone for Digital SLR Camera/Camcorder

I own both of these microphones and you can't tell the difference in the sound quality. I was looking for a mic for my second camera and this was perfect. So, if you are on a budget, save yourself a bunch of money and get this thing. You won't be able to distinquish between the two.

Olympus Refurbished WS311M Digital Voice Recorder and WMA Music Player

After borrowing a friends recorder, I was so impressed with the recording quality, I decided to purchase one. The price for my refurbished recorder was so much less expensive than a new one, I bought it. I've used it twice and have been very pleased.

I am using this product for college lectures and is useful, practical and most of it works! I would recommend buying this product.

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Sylvania SDVD8732 7-Inch Dual Screen Portable DVD Player with Built In 3.5 Hour Battery Life and US

I bought this dvd system a week before a 7 hour road trip. We had bought a minivan 2 weeks before, but had not yet had a chance to install an overhead tv/dvd system. My husband was initially against getting these, since we plan on installing the overhead tv, but I convinced him by pointing out he and our son will likly be occupying said tv playing video games while the younger girls whine in the back. He quickly agreed with me after that. LOL.

Initially I was looking for 9 inch screens. I was afraid the 7 inch would be too small. I was wrong. The 7 inch screens are more than adequete for my 3 and 6 year old.

The main deciding factors for purchasing this product over the others were the sd/usb capability and the 5 hour battery. This is the only portable system I could find with sd/usb capability. It also happened to be one of the cheapest. Yay! The difficulty in accessing the dvd player wasn't really a concern of mine, because I honestly didn't plan on using it. It's so much easier to insert the sd card preloaded with multiple movies especially in a vehicle. Personally I used 2 4gb card with 4-5 movies per card. To my utter delight, when the first movie was finished, it automatically started the next movie on the card!!! So great for long car rides.

I chose this model with the battery over the cheaper one, because I didn't like the idea that I was going to have to restart the movie every time I got gas or turned off my vehicle. The battery takes care of this and continues to play the movie while pumping, however, it only continues to play the movie on the main screen. Luckily the extra screen that turned off, was in front of my 6 year old and there were no major meltdowns or tantrums. She just leaned over and watched her sisters screen for a few minutes.

The mounting system is a basic velcro type strap mounting. Nothing fancy, but I wasn't needing or expecting it to be. It holds the tv's to the headrest. It would have been a pain to access the dvd player, had I been using the dvd player, but so would inserting a new dvd every hour and a half. Trust me, preload a sd card, I think it can read up to a 16gb, but don't quote me, with as many movies as you can, and don't even mess with the dvd player. No worries about bumps and skipping either.

The picture quality is okay. It's not the best I've ever seen, but it's not bad either. The viewing angles are also good. My son crawled back there and watched with them at one point. The sound output is great. My older daughter wore her headphones most of the time, but my younger one only lasted a few hours with them on. It's a big van though, so I could listen to the radio in the front, while they listened to their movies in the back with very little bleeding between.

All in all, I loved this product. Could it be better, sure, but then it wouldn't be $109. It is an excellent value and well worth the quiet peaceful roadtrip I had. I would definitely recommend.

This review refers to the Sylvania SDVD9104 9-Inch Dual Screen DVD Player with USB/SD Card Reader not the 7 inch version. At the time of this review I have owned these players for a little over a month and these are my initial impressions and a few trial and error tips I figured out.

Pros:

1. Cost for the price you get 2 large screen portable players with the capability to play DVD's as well as the ability to play movies off a SD card or USB stick. (See cons for thoughts on video formats.)

2. Accessories It comes with a remote. This is not listed on the product description (at least when I bought it) and is a big plus for me. Not many other brands offer remotes. It also includes a car and wall adapter, cable adapter for hooking in an RCA jack source, and a carry bag I didn't much care for. (it was clear)

3. Video Quality For a portable DVD player it is pretty good. Shows do not appear grainy to my eyes and are relatively sharp with good color quality. Let's be honest, it's not a 120 Mhz LED backlit flatscreen, but if you were expecting that I would like to invite you to join us back at a place we call reality.

4. Battery This player includes a battery in the master unit that keeps the unit playing even when the car is turned off. I'm not sure how long it lasts but for short stops it's great. Also several prior reviews state the battery does not run the slave unit. This is not true. If they are connected together the battery will power the second screen. The slave unit unfortunately does not have a battery of it's own.

4. Mounting Straps Several reviews state you cannot open the player with the headrest straps on. This is totally false! The straps slide through pegs mounted in the case on the back and do not disrupt accessing the disc door.

Cons:

1. Cord Length The cable between the 2 units is short and if you have a three year old who likes to kick cables this could be a problem with it stretched temptingly between the seats.

2. Video formats The unit comes with an SD slot and usb slot so you can play videos from either of these devices and skip the DVD's. This is a huge plus and one of the few players I found that have it. Unfortunately there are NO included instructions to specify the video formats supported! The following is what I have determined through multiple trial and error attempts and much frustration.

Supported container formats: AVI, MPG, DIVX, ie files ending in .AVI, .mpg, and .divx or .dvx will be recognized by the device.

Unsupported container formats (the device won't even see these files): .mp4, .m4v, .mov, .mkv, .qt, and .wmv

Using these container formats encoding with any of the following codecs works: mpeg-4 (divx/xvid compatible), mpeg-2, and the Divx codec. I am not sure if h.264 works but prior reviews have indicated not and I would be surprised if these units have the horsepower for that.

Also I have found 640x480 resolution works well for video files on this size screen. also I use a bitrate of about 1500.

3. DVD door is tight. The spring on the dvd door is rather strong and tries to push the door open against the latch. As a result it can be a pain to open especially when mounted on a headrest. The solution I found was to squeeze the door closed even more thereby releasing the tension and then the latch slides easily.

Unknowns: I have owned these units for a little over a month and they have held up well to 2 kids under six. How long they will last........I'm not sure.

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I have all of my kids movies in video files, so I wanted something which could read movies off a flash disk. It understands mp4 and avi containers. It hangs when trying to play h264 video. I re-encoded the desired movies into a lower resolution (to save disk) and used mpeg4/xvid video in an mp4 container. Works well with these files on a 16G SD card.

As others have mentioned, using the straps makes accessing the DVD difficult. That is a pretty big issue if you plan to use the DVD drive. (There may be more than one model/revision of this product. My manual clearly shows the straps covering the edges of the door, and there are no "pegs" of which another reviewer speaks of.)

The primary unit has AV out only, the secondary has AV in only. I would have liked to simply use my existing video devices (phones, iPads, PVPs, etc) to supply the video for both and forget the local flash entirely, but for the price I can't complain.

The devices themselves are thick and appear cheaply made. Only time will tell how long they work.

When playing movies from the flash drive, the unit automatically plays the next file. I have a good 24+ hours of video that it plays through on long trips. Really convenient. Of course it is battery powered as well so even during fuel stops the kids are entertained.

Update: How to convert video to use on this device. I use handbrake. It works on Windows, Linux, Mac and its free. I set up a simple profile with the following setup:

Container: MP4. No additional options necessary

Picture: width 480, anamophic "none", cropping automatic

Filters: none should be necessary but with some (older) interlaced DVDs it may be necessary. YMMV

Video: Codec MPEG-4, framerate same as source, constant framerate. I use average bitrate of 1500, but you can play with this for better quality or lower if video stutters.

Audio: AAC(ffmpeg), stereo, 128kbps, "auto" sample rate.

Subtitles and chapter markers are up to you, but I don't want them.

Handbrake will open just about any video source but if you are converting from DVD or Bluray with copy protection, that is a whole other issue entirely. I'll just say "AnyDVD" and leave it at that.

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I bought this system for immediate heavy use. We were going on a roadtrip to Disney, then flying from Germany to the states and back, as well as a lot of driving in between. I didn't want to prematurely review this item, but I feel that the hours of use we have put it through give me a pretty good idea about its overall performance. Let's start with the drawbacks since most people look for those first when considering a new purchase.

Cons:

-Mounting straps are difficult to get on. Not impossible, but not easy. Once you have untangled them and attached them to the units themselves, they are much easier to work with. The initial set-up is a bit more difficult. They do hold the units securely to the headrest, so I can't complain, but they didn't feel as sturdy as I would have liked.

-Second unit has to be plugged in to work. This fact itself isn't a problem for me. But, the way they did it is so weird. The main unit has an internal battery that will only power the main unit. Fine. But, if you want to use both, you plug a car adapter into the main unit, then connect a power cord (and A/V cable) from the main to the second. I think it's also supplying the main unit with power so that the battery isn't drained, but it was quite a hassle figuring out which unit had to go where because of the power cord. (I should note, this was only a problem because our main car adapter port was in use by the GPS, so we needed to use one in the back)

-The cable that connects the 2 units has to be inserted completely to work. Sounds like a no brainer, but the A/V cable sometimes feels like it's all the way in, but may not be. Another reviewer complained about how their second screen would only display "AV IN" and this is why. It happened to us the first time we tried to use it and it just turned out that the cable wasn't all the way in.

-When using a USB stick, the unit takes FOREVER to recognize it. This is my single biggest complaint about the unit. We have to tell it to read the DVD even though there isn't a DVD to read. Then it usually (but not always) notices the USB and lets us select that. When it doesn't, we just repeat this until it does. If you use a SD card, it recognizes those instantly, so you shouldn't have this problem. It's almost annoying enough to fork over money just to get a large SD card that can replace our USB stick. Almost.

Pros:

-Has an internal battery so you don't have to be in the car to use it. And if you do stop for gas, or whatever, the main unit keeps playing! (Those who complain that it turns off and has to restart must not have charged their batteries first) This was a real lifesaver when our van broke down in the middle of nowhere in France! The internal battery does have to be charged by a standard adapter, not a car adapter, but for us that has never been a problem.

-Has 2 screens so kids sitting in different rows of the car can still watch the same movie. They aren't huge screens, but my kids have yet to complain about not being able to see and that's what matters.

-Each screen also has a little fold-out stand so it can stand up on a table if you are not in the car.

-Reads USB and SD cards. I'll be honest, I haven't even tried to put a DVD in it. I did open it to take out the cardboard shipper, but that's it. It's SO convenient to have a USB stick with several movies on it and just let it play without having to change DVDs mid-trip. I'm not normally one who likes to let the kids watch movie marathons, but on long car/plane trips, I can make an exception. The massive downfall to this is that it is VERY difficult to rip DVDs onto the computer! Before I get any comments from "copyright nazi's", I will say that I legally own a copy of every movie I ripped and it still took me an entire day to figure it out! The player reads several formats, but I went with MP4, mostly because it was the only one I could figure out. Oddly enough, I actually had to convert them from MP4 to MP4, so make sure they are NOT H.264 encrypted.

-Comes with a carrying case, earbuds (not what I would call "headphones"), all the cables you will need, and a remote control. We haven't used the earbuds or remote, but we have tested everything else. I really love that it came with a case! It's not fancy at all and doesn't have any padding, but it's the perfect size, has a handle for easy carrying, and it keeps everything together and out of sight of would-be robbers.

Is this unit perfect? No, but I don't believe there is such a thing. Every person expects something different out of a travel DVD player system. This one is a great value for the money and I believe it was worth every penny! Would I buy it again? Absolutely!! If you can live with the cons I mentioned, then you won't be disappointed!

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After reading the reviews, I ordered this knowing I would have to take it out of the harness everytime I wanted to change discs, but got it anyway because of the battery power. I was very pleased when after reading the directions and putting the screen in the harness, the door still opened! I can clearly see if the harness was upside down the door would not open. So...I give this two thumbs up! It was cheap, it has battery power witch most don't, it has a remote, and everything works just as advertised.

Sony DVP-NS710H/B 1080p Upscaling DVD Player, Black

• 1080p near HD resolution Upscaling through HDMI Connection
• BRAVIA Sync
• Exceeds ENERGY STAR standards
• Multi-brand TV remote control
• Precision Cinema Progressive technology

This DVD player does an excellent job of upconverting in my opinion. I also have a far more expensive Oppo DVD player and I would say they are on par.

One 'feature' I dislike about these DVD players is in the manufacturer's quest to make the box look sleek and simple, there are only a couple of buttons: open/close, play and stop (aside from the power button). Why, oh why, do manufacturers not put skip or fast-forward buttons on the box? Is this to force us to buy new remote controls when the kids make them disappear? I just don't like the idea that a piece of equipment become less functional without the sometimes elusive remote control.

Still, it does provide a beautiful picture, very sharp and one I believe almost maximizes the contrast, color and clarity provided by our expensive plasma tv.

A very good value when considering the quality for the price point.

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Bought this to replace a Toshiba player that was nothing but trouble.

Good picture, easy setup, and unlike the Toshiba it plays everything I've tried in it. It takes a good 30 sec to a minute to lock on a disk. But once it does, it plays flawlessly. Even with some rentals that are in less than pristine condition.

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We received this DVD player last week and hooked it up to a new Samsung 550 tv. I am not picky. I put the dvd in and it plays...that makes me fairly happy with the purchase. This player saves your spot after you take out the movie. That may come in handy when my little one has 6 movies that she is watching at once.

The sound is very nice for movies and dvd's. I like that it can hook up to my 1980's Sony stereo system.

The only negative and it is small The power and open/close button are designed to be hidden so the player looks sleek. They are kind of hard to push.

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Added the Sony DVP-NS710H/B Upscaling DVD player to our home entertainment center after acquiring a Sony Bravia LCD HD television. Amazing difference in playing older commercial DVDs, but best improvement on my home-made DVDs with both digital pictures & movies!

You might think (based on the model numbering) that when Sony replaced the DVP-NS700H with the DVP-NS710H, it maintained or improved the key features. Unfortunately, Sony has REMOVED the optical digital audio output that was present in the NS700H. This significantly limits how this player can be used. For example, my surround sound receiver (also made by Sony!) has ONLY an optical digital audio input.

BTW, as of this writing this product is being sold in stores and online but Sony still has not posted its support documentation on their eSupport website.

Make sure whatever you intend to use for Dolby Digital/DTS decoding has a compatible available input (HDMI or coax digital audio). Otherwise, look elsewhere. I say this as someone who has been nearly all-Sony for CE products, but this company is driving me away lately.

Canon VIXIA HF10 Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 16 GB Internal Flash Memory and 12x Op

I had the award-winning HDV (tape-based) HV20 prior to this, and the HF10 is almost indistinguishable in terms of image quality. Given the dramatic difference in image data between an HDV image and an AVC image, that means this is one heck of a camcorder. I have tried out other AVC camcorders and have been really disappointed. Not so here, and I purchased this one. It has 24p and 30p recording, in addition to 60i. (Don't be confused by Canon's nomenclature, it is true 24p, just recorded in interlaced 60i.) The cinema mode has a bit of a wash-out effect on colors. The camcorder is surprisingly small. Power save mode is great, and is virtually instantaneously on when the LCD screen is opened. One warning about AVC in general, if you don't have a fast computer, it will grind it to a halt. I have a quad-core with 4 gig RAM and editing is fine, but I wouldn't want to use an old computer. Sony Vegas works great with the files. Wish the camcorder automatically saved to the SDHC card when the internal storage was full. Otherwise, this is the best thought out camcorder since my DVX-100. Nice to occasionally see consumer products worth their expense.

This is a marvelous camcorder. Rather than repeat what some of the other reviews have mentioned, I thought I'd explain how to import video on the Mac, because it wasn't obvious to me. First, you must have an Intel based Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). You also need iMovie '08, which comes with new Macs. If you're running an older version of Mac OS X (such as Tiger) or have an older version of iMovie, or have a PowerPC based Mac, you won't be able to import video from this camera.

To import video, attach the camcorder to the Mac with the USB cable that's included with the camcorder. Make sure you plug your camcorder into AC power, running from the battery won't work. Set the mode dial on the camera to video playback (the little blue camcorder icon). Turn on the camcorder. Now open the LCD display on the camcorder, and you'll see it's asking you a question: use the joystick to choose "computer" for where you're connecting the USB cable. I spent some time the first time I wanted to import wondering why iMovie couldn't see the camcorder until I finally tried opening the LCD screen and noticed this question. Once you've made this choice, iMovie will detect the camcorder and will be able to import video, and you can do the rest from iMovie.

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This is a fantastic camera but people need to have more realistic expectations of what to expect from AVCHD. It is a highly compressed format so using this camera in low-light conditions is going to produce pretty "grainy" results. In good lighting AVCHD output from this camera can produce some really great looking results in HD but don't kid yourself into thinking you're going to get professional HDTV quality. This is a point-and-shoot.

I love the camera, especially how fast it focuses in good light, so I'm going to concentrate on what some of the other reviewers said to correct some misconceptions.

I use both Macs and PC and I have to tell you that you that PCs suck for AVCHD you will waste a lot of time and pull your hair out. I'm sure PC video software vendors will address this eventually, but seriously folks if you want to do this the easy way get an Intel-based Mac (caveat: only Intel based machines using Leopard support AVCHD) and use either iMovie or Final Cut Express 4. Both of these programs (iMovie 08 and FCE4) just LOVE this camera (and two other Sony AVCHD cameras I've tried as well) and they work like a charm. Video making has never been this easy. FCE4 lets you mix AVHCD, HDV and SD video on the same timeline and save in whatever format you want so it's worth the $200 if you want to do that or have more exacting control over your videos. It is basically a (lightly) stripped-down version of Apple's excellent professional video software (Final Cut Pro) and it is very good. For most home videos iMovie 08 (which comes in iLife 08) will be just fine.

I've had no problem transferring the movies directly from the camera but, as mentioned earlier, you do need to have the camera plugged into the AC to do it. You can avoid plugging the camera into your Mac to transfer the files if you're only recording on SDHC cards, rather than internal memory on the HF10, but it works just fine. For this reason I would recommend buying the HF100 (over the HF10) and getting an extra 16Gb memory card or two. You will save money that way and have more flexibility. I bought the HF10 because I had to have it the next day and, at the time, the HF100s were delayed a bit. Transcend's excellent 16Gb SDHC Class 6 card comes with a nifty little card reader for only $78.98 here on Amazon, you can get two of them for less than the $200 difference in price between the HF10 and HF100 so you'll have 32gb to work with instead of 16gb for less money. I don't mind having the internal memory as a backup but you pay more than it is worth for it.

The video camera is just acting like a USB reader when you connect it to your Mac anyway it is the file layouts that the software recognizes. When read in and converted to Apple Intermediate Codec at 1920x1080 they will balloon in size. If you want to store the raw video in a more compressed way you can simply copy the root directory of the card to another directory and copy it back again later. If you're working with AVCHD you need to buy the biggest hard drives you can afford. 60 minutes of video will use up something like 50Gb of storage on your Mac when converted to 1920x1080. If you just want great looking home video to show on your HDTV, but don't want to go broke on hard drives, Apple offers to import the movies at a slightly lower resolution (960x540) which takes up a LOT less space with very little drop in quality. I have been making home videos and showing them on an Apple TV at that resolution and they look stunning. The quality difference between that resolution and full HD isn't that big of a deal.

If want to try to get truly professional-quality video you should avoid AVCHD cameras and stick to the HDV format concentrating on cameras with larger sensors. But this is great camera for HD home videos at a great price.

The user interface on this camera is slow and clunky. Sony's AVCHD cameras have a better interface (using a touch screen) but you can still watch back the videos (which is the main thing you'll do) and it beats the heck out of a tape camera. I wish they had added a dial or button set for adjust exposure and/or backlighting control on the camera. The joystick works surprisingly well for this however in bright light the screen gets washed out enough that it is hard to tell if your exposure is really that great or not. This is where a viewfinder would really help. But these are minor nits because the camera does a good job at exposure control on its own.

As I said earlier this is a very compact point-and-shoot camera that shoots HD video and for that it's excellent.

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The Canon HF100 is the same as the Canon HF10, except it has no internal memory (the HF10 has 16GB) and the HF100 is $200 cheaper. For $75 I can buy a 16GB SDHC card which works great with the camera;... you do the math.. ~ three 16GB cards for the same price has the HF10 which only has 16GB of memory (but can take external cards also)

Records video at Standard Definition (SD), 720p and 1080p (also takes still shots) This is a must for those that have upgraded to an HD TV and want to watch their home movies in HD.

Here Be Dragons...

If all you want to do is watch your videos directly from the camera, no problem; comes with composite and component cables (will take HDMI sold seperately) However, if you actually want to save your videos, without buying new SDHC cards, then there are a few hiccups. The camera will download to your PC, but only in the format filmed; no filming in HD then downloading in SD. It will capture the HD you filmed in, but the software will not edit the HD format and you will be hard pressed to find a codec that will play the H.264 format nicely.

Here's my problem. I want to film my son's soccer games in 1080p for viewing on my 57" TV, so I film in 1080p. His coach, along with 1/2 the parents, want SD because they still use DVD players, while I can play the HD via my PS3. I tried many video capture/editting software to capture the HD I film in; nothing recognizes my camera. If I film in SD, everything works great, but this defeats my primary reason of wanting HD (so I can view on my 57" TV, thereby justifying to the wife that HD is worth it...) So, here's what I do. I film in HD, 1080p, use the Canon DVD burner that connects directly to the camera (sold seperately $250) to capture 1080p source (by the way, no blue rays reqiured, a 1 hour soccer game fits nicely on 2 standard DVDs; 1 half per disk that can then be played back via my PS3) For the coach, and the rest of the parents, I use a Pinnacle 500-usb Video Capture box (about $50) This little device was intended for turning VHS tapes into DVDs. But just plug into the composite output of the camera, and into the usb of your PC, and your PC DVD burner will make the 1 hour of 1080p video into 1hour of 480p on a normal DVD; plus the Pinnacle software also allows you to edit anf make menus and all the good stuff that the HD software hasn't really caught up with yet.

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While I wanted to like this camera (and use it to replace my Canon HV10), the growing list of annoyances and downright bugs are making me doubt this purchase. I can't find too many faults with the technical aspects of the camera (which all the reviews on the web seem to focus on). But trying to use it gives me a lot of frustrations. Notably:

1) As mentioned in another comment, you cannot extract video over USB without the camera also being plugged in to its AC adapter. Period. Yet you can extract pictures without external power. This makes no sense and is quite a drawback to anyone who wants to pull video off it in a hurry or to a laptop away from an AC outlet.

2) The ability to take still pictures during video recording is greatly hindered by the fact that it will often (always?) not let you take more than one picture until you stop recording and let everything get written out to memory.

3) Many aspects of the interface are maddeningly slow (particularly when displaying picture/video thumbnails). With only a dozen still pictures saved in my camera, switching to "view pictures" mode takes 10+ seconds, and flipping between pictures takes several seconds. Expect to see a lot of "READING MEMORY" messages. I've even had it hang up entirely just when switching between modes, requiring me to pull the battery.

4) The "premium" of built-in memory in the HF10 doesn't seem worth it. The camera treats it and the SD slot as distinct storage areas you have to manually select and switch between. Unless you are going to use the internal memory exclusively, you might be better off with the less complicated HF100 and a big SD card.

This is a nice camera in many technical respects, but in my mind falls flat in the implementation. The interface is littered with various "DO THIS/DON'T DO THIS" messages; too bad they didn't spend the time to eliminate the need for the messages instead.

Pioneer DVR-X162Q Qflix External DVD/CD Writer

Had the product for about a month. It's flawless! Burned movies without a hitch. In this day and age, I'm loaded for bear when a product doesn't perform as advertized. But I highly recommend the Pioneer Qflix! Did alot of homework, as I usually do for electronics. So far so good. Haven't used the Qflix feature. The freakin' movies are TOO expensive and the Qflix DVDs are at a premium price. But who needs it! Nonetheless, it's a great value for under $100.

At first I thought the price of the burner was too much and waited until the price dropped. There is a competing product from Dell and more to come so maybe that's why the price dropped. It looks like a regular disk writer and for the most part it is. I use it like my old dvd writer except this one has dual layer and Qflix features. It gives me an extra burner to make disk copies. I don't use the Qflix mode that much since I've only bought a few titles. I do expect to get a few more for Xmas. I have children visiting who like watching movies over and over. Movies on the pc doesn't hold their interest as well since the monitor is smaller. The movies come from CinemaNow in the special Qflix format. They download in about the same amount of time as other services 1-2 hours. Of course bandwidth speed will affect the time. With or without the Qflix format it is a solid burner.

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THE PRODUCT WAS IN VERY POOR CONDITION, ALL SCRATCHED AND VERY OLD LOOKING.I HAVE USE THIS SAME ITEM FOR SEVERAL YEARS BUT THE ONES I BOUGHT BEFORE WERE IN REAL LIKE NEW CONDITION.

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I have found this external DVD writer to be an excellent add-on to my older laptop. It is easy to use and interfaces quite well for making CDs and DVDs.

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Here's the review, with minor editing.

Look at review of Western Digital Caviar Green in http://www.amazon.com/review/R2HHAJZSXNT4MT

/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R2HHAJZSXNT4MT to see other comment on how badly Amazon packs drives.

I ordered the Pioneer drive in Oct 2009. There was packing material on only 2 sides of the cartom. Drive

box was flush against the other 2 sides of the box as it was against an unprotected corner. Drive was

DOA, not to mention that Amazon shipped the drive via USPS, I've not seen any other vemdor ship

delicate products USPS, even when shipping is free. I'm not about to pay to upgrade shipping, indeed,

Amazon might pack just as badly with other shipping methods.

Well, I got my refund on 25 Nov 2009, so, on 26 Nov 2009, I re-ordered from Amazon, because the price

had dropped further.

I then called Amazon and requested that the drive be better packed.

On 3 Dec 2009, I got the drive, again via USPS, this time it had packing material on 3 sides, gee, that's an

improvement! But 1 side of the drive's box was unprotected and was flush against the side of the packing

box.

I likely will not get a chance to test the drive for a few days, so I do not yet know if drive will

work.

Qflix Ext DVD/cd Writer

Panamax M5300-PM 11 Outlet Clean Power Level 4 - Black

I'm a mid-level audiophile, but I can't tell a difference in the music itself using this line conditioner (as some people notice). However, it's easy to set up, has worked great so far, looks great and I love the warranty (hoping I never need it). You can't turn the entire conditioner off; the unswitched components are always on (I have other line conditioners that turn completely off). The display can be dimmed, but never turned off.

I should have bought this before the power board capacitors in my hdtv blew from a surge. This blends and looks sharp with my other components, and it evidently performs. The display reveals that. My eyes are too old to notice an improvement in the picture, but the teens in the house say it's a better picture.

One commented the display reveals only volts and amps running in the system and wished it had displayed the watts. To calculate watts, you just multiply the two. Volts X amps = watts.

120 volts times 3.2 amps equals 384 watts.

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Just a heads up!

As already stated, Panamax DOES NOT honor warranties for their products purchased through Amazon, EXCEPT when purchased from 'Onecall'. This is an excellent product but I suggest spending an extra $10 and purchasing from one of their authorized retailers, like Best Buy or Crutchfield, so warranty is honored.

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I originally saw this product in Sound Advice for over $500. It is such a great product that truly cleans up the power and signal for your high end entertainment system. I thought with that price I would not purchase it until I saw it on Amazon. Then when I saw the price I purchased it right away. This product does all that it says and makes me feel confident that my equipment is protected at all times. Amazon is the way to purchase electronics when everyone else's prices won't budge.

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This unit is truly high quality and for the price a really great deal. It has ports for everything your entertainment system needs. Provides super clean power to all of your peripherals. I would recommend buying this unit or similar

Models made by Panamax.

Panasonic DVD-RV65 DVD Player

• Built-in Dolby Digital decoder; DTS digital-audio output
• Component-video outputs for superior image quality
• Front-panel jog-shuttle dial
• Chapter preview
• Backlit remote

I had been thinking about buying my first DVD player for the past 6 months. I have had this Panasonic product for a week now and love it! It took about 2 minutes to get all the cables hooked up. My first movie (Bug's Life) was running minutes later. For those of you who have not experienced DVD, you are truly missing out! The video is crystal clear, and the audio is spectacular.

Positives: flawless picture and spectacular sound, easy setup and operation, remote is backlit and well-designed, operation is smooth and quick

Negatives: You pay extra for the Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder but the cables you need to utilize this with a "digital ready" receiver are NOT included (you will need 6 interconnects with RCA terminators for 2 fronts, 2 surrounds, center, and subwoofer)

If you want Dolby Digital (you do!) but your receiver lacks a decoder, this is one of the best on the market (IMHO)!

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After coming from a two year old Philips Magnavox DVD Player that I found great, I decided to move up to this Panasonic model because of it's features, Panasonic's reputation for quality products, and it's price.

This machine has been superb. Pictures are just as crystal clear as the Philips, the additional play speeds are extremely useful, there is no longer any of the freeze-frame I occasionally had with the Philips, and it starts up the movie extremely quickly. The remote is extremely intuitive to use, albeit a little small. The unit itself feels extremely well built. To top all this off, the price of this player is only a few dollars more than the base DVD Player from Panasonic, making it a great deal.

This DVD Player is a great introductory DVD Player or one for someone looking to replace an aging DVD Player for not a lot of money. It's worth it.

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I tried to enter the world of DVD going the cheep route. I got an Oritron that gave me no end of grief. After much frustration, I returned it and purchased the Panasonic. I am ecstatic, and everything works phenomenally. The difference is vast between this and any run of the mill low end DVD player that I have seen.

I don't usually write reviews on items that I buy, but I love this thing. Pay the extra couple of bucks, and get a player of this quality, you won't be disappointed.

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This is my first DVD player and I must say that I am impressed. Picture and sound quality are great, the weak link here is my TV. As usual, I ignored the instruction manual and installed the unit in about 2 minutes. The connections are straightforward, and the front panel controls and the remote are very intuitive. I did finally look at the manual because the on-screen menu and graphics are a little cryptic. All said and done, I only wish I had gotten one sooner. I can't speak for other models, but the Panasonic DVD-RV65 is a great value. My only recommendation, if this is your first DVD player purchase make sure you have plenty of cash on hand; you will need it for a DVD disk buying binge.

. Choosing a player is hard their are many choices, this is my first player and working in electronics I put in the mandatory research. I [had a predetermined amount I wanted to spend] and it must have many output options and decoders would be nice but be solid and do its job well. It has no zoom but my experience has been the more bells & whistles the easier it will break down. This is an older model but its a sleeper, [and} it was built well. Rented MATRIX & put in without cleaning it and it played perfect. I chose this over Pioneer 333 & 525 & 434 & Panasonic 56 & cv51,30,31,115 & Sony 300,400 & 700 :Toshiba 4205,1600,1700,2150,220,2300,5109: Jvc 723,523,545:Samsung n501 &2000n,301 & 901 [....]

Esky Car Black Box,DVR recorder 1080P with 2.5'' TFT LCD,HDMI port, H.264

• Rotatable Lens & Screen
• 120° Wide-Angle Lens
• High-definition video recording (H.264 + 1080P)
• Video and audio transmission via HDMI interface
• 4 x digital zoom in/out function

This is an nice unit, but the 1080i is not HD format its 1440 x 1080 a 4:3 VGA format not HD format 1920 x 1080, the 720i selection is in 16:9 HD format, the 640i selection is VGA 640 x 480 standard TV resolution 4:3, The DVR doesn't take 64 Gig SD cards.

The dirt on the windshield is in focus, so windshield needs to be clean and also it will record reflections from the dash board.

The inside of the windshield where the mounting clamp is to be mounted must be spotlessly clean otherwise the mounting clamp will not stay mounted.

Storage rate in the 720i setting is @ 1.56 meg per minute

Storage rate in the 1080i setting is @ 67 meg per minute

Warranty service is A++

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complete junk, dont waste your time or money.

not really 1080p, no wide screen, no night vision just some crappy led.

Motorola RAZR V3 Unlocked Phone with Camera, and Video Player - U.S. Version with Warranty (Black)

This is my first review ever. This is also the first time I have ever ordered something from Amazon that was not what I expected.

The phone does work. It was also new, as stated. Works fine. This does not appear to be a US version though.

1.) The included manual has a table of contents going up to page 100+... The last page of the manual cuts off at page 80-something. It also says in the back to contact Motorola-Asia for assistance. Not a deal breaker, but this may indicate the level of detail of the seller.

2.) I say this does not appear to be a US version because I have two (2) used U.S. Razr v3's in my briefcase right now and this is just not quite the same. This seems it might be a U.K. version.

My 2 previously purchased US versions do NOT have the extra button above the wheel/pad. This seems to be the only visual distinction...which results in...

No such things as "missed calls" on this phone. It is classified as a Received Call, but either has a "check" or "no check" next to the entry seemingly indicative of it being a missed call or not.

Speed dial assignments (1 though 9) are 4 digit values (1001 through 1009).

Cannot lock Smart Key on phone exterior.

No light illuminated when charging.

"Center" is spelled "Centre"

Installed graphics are not even remotely the same.

Doesn't seem that time will auto-set.

Doesn't even use the same battery part # as my 2 other U.S.-purchased phones.

That is why I do not believe this to be a U.S. Version phone as stated.

I am not very happy about this. I am going to seek to get this resolved. This is why I purchased this from Amazon because I believe they will make this right.

End

I have never written a review before but I think this is important. These phones are NOT new! I purchased two of these phones for my sons. I tried to set up the internet and found that the phone was either used or refurbished and had the previous users information. Both also had parental control blocks on the internet and the previous users passwords were necessary to remove the block. I called my carrier and they told me there was nothing I could do and I should return the phone. I am extremely disappointed!

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A replacement for my original Motorola Razr V3. I guess they don't make them like they used to. Not the same, quality-wise as my original, but it'll do. Paint chip off easily, sure wished I had opted for the silver one, not black.

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Description says "with warranty" read the fine print. i obviously didn't. It died after 45 days and no warranty after thirty days. Sad product. Don't waste your money!

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As per my understanding better if they start the rate between 0-5, so that I can give then 0 instead of 1. Worst support from OEM Shop. I would like to advise everyone never purchase the things from Amazon.com. They are having lots of stupid vendors, those they are selling the things online and Amazon has no control on them. I am really frustrated.

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JVC BR-DV3000U-B Professional DV Recorder

Considering how expensive professional equipment can be over the same thing for consumers, this deck is VERY well priced. I have had mine for over a year. It is quiet. Reliable. Very fast rewind and fastforward.

I sometimes get DVCAM tape in PAL format and it is an easy flick of the switch to capture PAL onto my computer from it. Then switch back to ntsc for the next. The ability to use MiniDV and full size DVCAM tape in the same deck is a big plus too.

With the foot for using it on it's side, it takes up very little desk space too. I highly recommend this deck to pro-am and professional video editors.

love it works fine i received it in a decant time frame it was only missing a remote but other than that its like brand new

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A great solution for any level of capture from dv tape to firewire or compsite video. The capture I have done so far are just perfect. using Vegas with firewire works and gives you great control over the capture from the deck. Just great!!

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TiVo TCD748000 Premiere XL DVR (Black)

• Connects to your cable service and replaces your cable box; monthly subscription required
• Records up to 150 hours of HD programming
• Record your favorite shows and discover new ones with TiVo's new HD interface
• Full HD support, including 1080i and 1080p
• THX Certified for exceptional sound and video quality

This is finally a worthy successor to the Tivo Series 2. While there have been 2 previous HD Tivos before, their relative cost and the lack of available options for lifetime subscription made them unattractive financially compared with the cable company DVR. If you purchase directly from Tivo, there is a (...) lifetime subscription option to those with a previous lifetime subscription. That makes this a worthwhile deal, even if it takes about 30+ months to break even.

If you've not used a Tivo before, I would say it is head and shoulders above Comcast's ugly, ill-conceived interface. If you've used Verizon, it will be a step up, but not nearly so dramatic. If you've used Tivo before, you'll feel right at home. It's basically the 8 year old Tivo interface that's been spiced up here and there, with supporting links to Netflix & Blockbuster for streaming movies.

This Tivo requires an M-Series cable card if you're not recording from an antenna. If you're not sure, call your cable company to see if they support it. Verizon did struggle with this question, although eventually I found someone to confirm the Verizon cable card supports multi-stream. However, the Verizon tech they sent was helpful and had the job complete in about 15 minutes.

Although the Tivo supports resolutions up to 1080P, it is only available at 1080p/24, so if you have a slightly older set that only supports 1080p/60, you'll have to drop back to 1080i. That isn't spelled out anywhere on Tivo's site, although it probably doesn't make much of a difference.

This Tivo networks nicely with older Tivo's allowing you to transfer video between them, although it's not possible to transfer from an HD Tivo to a SD Tivo, although the reverse works nicely. You can also use the Tivo Desktop (a free download) to transfer to your PC. You can even save it to watch later or on your portable (Google "kmttg tivo").

I won't write a review of the Tivo interface. More people have done it better than I could, so Google for reviews. You should know, although the new menus are in high definition, once you get away from the primary menus, it drops back to the old 480/SD menus. The only reason I can tell is the screen on the TV flips a bit until it resyncs with the lower resolution.

This version of the Tivo has a backlit remote, although by default that isn't turned on. It also supports separate volume and muting with an A/V receiver, although it doesn't give you the ability to turn it on with your remote. My A/V receiver did not work with the codes provided, but a chat with Tivo pointed me to a page on their support site where you'll find the new Tivo has a "learning" remote. That did the trick.

If you use Tivo's Chat support, the agents are well-informed and patient.

I've had one brief incident as I messed around with various menus where the HDMI lost sound sync with the TV. A quick resync through the A/V receiver got me back and running in a few seconds. Time will tell if that was a one-time glitch or a problem.

Previous Tivos have worked with Amazon video on demand (which works reasonably well). Now there are additional options to select high-def material, and you also have options to download from Blockbuster and Netflix. Keep in mind there is a charge for this type of on-demand movie, similar to what you'd expect from your cable company. However, this function is integrated beautifully into the overall search function. As an example, let's say you're interested in a program such as "Chuck". As you search for the program, not only will it find the upcoming episodes on TV, but will also present you with the complete episode guide, giving you the options to either record from cable/antenna, or for shows that aren't available you can download them to your Tivo to watch. That's very clever and convenient.

Overall, it's an expensive purchase, but Tivo does their best not to make you feel stupid for buying it.

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I've had a TiVo or two since the Series 1.

Some observations:

1.) Bought one here from Amazon and one from TiVo directly. Buying from Amazon is just so much better than buying from the manufacturer... TiVo shipped theirs via some weird shipping arrangement, whereas Amazon Prime ships it 2-day and tracking is always accurate. I had an upgrade offer from TiVo, but by the time they charge tax, etc. the price was like $429 and Amazon's $499 price on this was offset by their $50 Amazon OnDemand credit so kind of an ok deal to go with Amazon. A no-brainer if you don't have a TiVo upgrade offer.

2.) These units are slick-looking. Sure, some people will complain that they have lost their fancy clock on the front, etc., but the thinner height and black case are great looks great with our 40" LCD sitting on top of it.

3.) Smoothest install ever and that was with Comcast. Comcast in my area (Pittsburgh) drives me nuts in fact, these new TiVos were impulse buys after Comcast screwed us with not being able to "transfer" two of their DVR's with our recordings on them to our new address they said it simply wasn't possible and they would need to collect the boxes and give us new ones. Yep, we lost all of our recordings on their boxes. Idiots. So I was surprised when the installer showed up with the CableCards and we had two of them up-and-running in 15 minutes. Quite a bit different than my first TiVo CableCard installs from yesteryear. But probably a few things in my favor:

A.) When booking the appointment, I stressed I needed the installer to bring M-cards (multistream) instead of S-cards (single stream). I also stressed to them that the installer should actually bring 4 of them, as it is not uncommon to have bad cards floating around in inventory, etc. I stressed that these notes be placed in the work order prominently. Low and behold the installer showed up on-time, with M-cards and 4 of them!

B.) The installer hadn't done many and was more than willing to let me guide the process. I had the boxes set-up and through Guided Setup, latest system software upgrade installed, etc. before the appointment so that all that was needed was popping the M-card in. I also showed him best practice of taking a picture with my iPhone of the CableCard (to capture serial number and such) *before* putting the card in (b/c ejecting the card after inserting it can re-generate new pairing info, etc.) and recording the relevant information that appears on the screen after inserting the card. I can't tell you how many prior CableCard appointments I've had where the installer has jacked things up so badly by popping them out so many times to get information or doublecheck if it was a 0 (zero) or an O (oh). If only Comcast would let customers pick-up the cards and install them themselves... I thought some areas did, but the Pittsburgh market evidently doesn't as I asked several people (on the phone, in person at the service center, etc.).

C.) You have no control over this one, BUT I LUCKED OUT the back-office person the installer called into to activate the CableCards was *COMPETENT*. He didn't even need to repeat one digit of any number and the person on the backend properly entered the information, told us to go to the Info screen and wait til a MSG count went past 3500 and voila all channels, even premium channels, worked perfectly from the start.

It seems Comcast has gotten a lot better with CableCards ever since their newer set-top boxes are required by the FCC to have CableCards in them (permanently mounted, but nonetheless, they are CableCards and work the same way on their system as they would on third-party boxes. Or, I recognize that after years of bad Comcast service, I was finally overdue for a great experience.

4.) ABSOLUTELY NO LOCKUPS or problems here at all in my two weeks I've had them. I don't know why other people are having such issues other than luck of the draw but my experience has been perfect.

5.) I was introduced to iTivo for the Mac which is awesome! Transfers and converts TiVo shows (none copyright flagged content) to a number of formats even imports into iTunes for auto transfer onto your iPhone for on-the-go viewing.

What am I disappointed with? A few things typical TiVo moves:

* Why can't they build wireless into these boxes? Having an external adapter stinks.

* Along those lines, why release your latest boxes and THEN a month or two later plan on making available a Wireless-N adapter for the box. Being stuck with Wireless-G to transfer recordings is lousy. Yes you can use a 3rd-party wireless bridge, etc. and I used to do that kind of stuff, but these days I just want solutions that work well out of the box!

* TiVo did indeed get these boxes out before they are polished. It's kind of lousy that the HD menus are rather topical and when you drop down into deeper menus the old standard-def stuff is still there. The boxes can be a bit laggy when doing things on them. I still hate the fact that flipping through digital channels is slower than old-school TV's and on TiVo there's like 3-5 seconds of gray screen between each channel.

* TiVo is a bit abusive on their subscription model. Basically, their goal is to lock you into a contract which you basically can't escape from. I've paid an early termination fee from them before and wasn't happy about it, but hey, I signed what I signed and knew it from the start...

All in all though, very happy with our purchases of these two and our luck with CableCards this go-around. We'll be close to getting pay-back on the purchase of the equipment after 2-years of not paying $16 per Comcast DVR and have a lot more functionality/flexibility to boot.

I hope the above has been helpful just always know what you are getting into with technology. The reviews from people that had no clue CableCards were needed/used are useless that information is everywhere. If you aren't willing to deal with growing pains associated with emerging technology, just stick to the cable company's boxes you'll get some stability with the trade-off of less functionality.

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This is my fourth TiVo box, and I upgraded only because the hard drive in my Series3 died (for the second time in 3 years), and I didn't want to pay Weaknees $250 for a 1TB replacement drive. TiVo got me with their upgrade offer of $100 off on the Premiere XL, so I got it for "only" $399 and bought it directly from TiVo.

I've had the unit working for about a week now, and I am definitely less than impressed. As others have noted, the UI is very inconsistent, and there are numerous areas where you default back into the old, 480i Series2 or Series3 screens. There is still the inconsistency between Netflix and Amazon pages (which also use the low res screens) and the rest of the UI. Worse, the screen often flashes or turns grey for a moment as the unit switches resolution from 1080i so that it can display the lower res screens. It is still unacceptable for a company that built its reputation on a simple, great looking UI to produce software that looks like this, but I have gotten used to it somewhat. But my wife saw these transitions the other day and remarked "uggh, that looks awful".

My unit has crashed -and I am mean a hard lockup -twice in the 6 days or so it has been powered on. I had to unplug the unit and wait for the lengthy reboot process both times. If TiVo is going to build such flaky software, they need to put a reset button on the front of the unit. It is a total pain to have to deal with these crashes, especially when the system is in the middle of a recording.

From a feature perspective, the system still will not stream from a media server unless you install 3rd party (in my case beta) software. The system still wants to copy over the entire file, although you can start playing it quickly after the copying starts. Given the competition from extender boxes from various companies, this is just unacceptable.

Did I mentioned that the UI is slow? Yes, it is slowwwwww.

TiVo also (at the request of copyright holders I assume) continues to lock down more and more recorded content, so you cannot save it to another computer or media server to play back later. The vast majority of my recordings on this box now prohibit transfer to any other device. I respect copyrights, and it really bugs me that TiVo is treating everyone like a crook.

Overall, I don't know what TiVo has been working on for the last 3-4 years. The software on this box is clearly immature -it is clear no better than beta quality, and with all the crashes it might even be alpha. It is clearly not feature complete. I have hopes that it will improve as TiVo pushes out updates, but my 10 year love affair with TiVo is strained at this point. This system is NOT a worthwhile upgrade from the Series3, and it really makes me question how long TiVo will be around if this is the quality of products they are pushing out the door.

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Per TiVo customer service in an email sent to us today, "As stated, the $99 Premiere (and the $299 Premiere XL, also mentioned) are eligible for $19.99 monthly service only. Unfortunately, our Multi-Service Discount pricing cannot be applied to these boxes." We own a TiVo box with a LifeTime Service Agreement which qualifies us for the Multi-Service Discount per TiVo's published Agreement online. We bought a Premiere and an XL for use with Verizon FIOS based on that Agreement as published on the TiVo website. We would not have bought them if we had not expected to get the MSD pricing. When we requested this pricing, TiVo informed us that our purchases from Amazon were a promotional bundle and not eligible for anything other than the $19.95 monthly service fee each. This is not mentioned (a) in the Amazon presentation of these items or (b) in the Multi-Service Discount Agreement. TiVo quoted us a payment plan document and apparently their feeling is that this document is more important than the published MSD Agreement and overrides it.

So be very careful if you don't buy the box from TiVo, you're going to be paying the $19.95 monthly fee per box whether you have existing MSDs in place or not. In our case, that's an additional service fee of $120 per year per box which we think wasn't advertised adequately and is not stated in the MSD Agreement. We will ask Amazon to update their webpage and TiVo to update their agreement to make this fixed price agreement clear to purchasers. But if you read this before the companies take any corrective actions, at least you'll know that the current pricing is a promotional bundle and it effectively keeps you from getting any kind of other monthly rate except for $19.95.

I have rated this purchase a 1 because of the misleading and expensive situation. We have been TiVo customers since 2001 and like the service. But we are very disappointed in TiVo's actions here. They reflect on the business side of the company very badly, in our opinion. Someone used the words "bait and switch" in another posting. Whether it meets the technical definition is hard for us to know, but it certainly feels like that is what happened here to us.

After reading the negative review related to the need for a CableCard, I had to respond with how the product actually operates. I found the Company's literature to be very straightforward in explaining what was required to operate the unit. The whole process worked really well for me. I had preordered the Premiere XL and it arrived on Monday, upon which I called Verizon for a CableCard. They arrived Tuesday morning and it took 10 minutes to install the card and download all the channel data. Done. Painless and works flawless. Verizon Fios folks currently charge a few bucks a month for the CableCard and did not charge me for the Tech to come over for the install.

The TiVo itself works great, exactly as outlined in the literature. The menus and search features are far easier to use for my family than any of the other company DVR's I've used in the past. I do miss the Verizon on-demand, but being able to access my Netflix online, plus the other options from Amazon and Blockbuster makes up for it. Have already used free software available on the internet to transfer shows on the TiVo to my Mac, PC, and iPhone. Takes awhile to perform the transfer, but it's many GB's of data.

Love the auto-backlit remote and the onscreen menu's are very slick. Great purchase, very happy with the unit so far. When activating with TiVo I did purchase the 3 year warranty, but the cost was offset by the Amazon On-Demand credit received when purchasing from Amazon.

Should note the unit does not have wireless capability, so if you don't have the ability to plug the unit directly into an Ethernet port, make sure you get the wireless-N accessory when purchasing.

[UPDATE]

The Optical audio out port has stopped working. TiVo is replacing my unit and making it easy, but it is a little annoying that a unit less than 30 days old has this type of malfunction. Changing my rating down to 4-stars as a result.

DXG 538B 5MP Digital Camera (Black)

Low Battery Life.

awkward control interface.

Small internal memory.

crappy photos.

Enough said...

LET ME START OUT BY SAYING THIS....WOW....

MY WIFE BOUGHT THIS CAMERA FOR ME FOR XMAS 2006....I SAW IT ONLINE AT KOHL'S....I REALLY WANTED THIS....SO SHE GOT IT WHEN I DIDNT KNOW ABOUT IT....

XMAS DAY, I OPENED THE BOX....WOW WAS THING SMALL....IT IS AS BIG, IF NOT SMALLER, THAN A PACK OF SMOKES....WITH A 2.4IN SCREEN, WHICH IS ALMOST THE SIZE OF THE CAMERA....VERY BRIGHT....EASY TO NAVIGATE ONSCREEN DISPLAY....

JUST THE INTERNAL 32MB MEMORY, WITH THE RIGHT SETTINGS, CAN TAKE UP TO 65 OR 70 PICTURES....TAKES ABOUT A 3 MINUTE VIDEO....

I ADDED A 1GB SD MEMORY CARD, AND WOW....I TRIED THE VIDEO FUNCTION TO SEE HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE FOR THE MEMORY CARD TO RUN OUT....AFTER 25 MINUTES OF CONTINUOUS VIDEO, THE MEMORY CARD WASNT EVEN LOW....

ENDLESS FUNCTIONS....PC WEBCAM, STILL PICTURES, VIDEO, HARD DRIVE(WITH MEMORY CARD)....ITS AN AWESOME CAMERA....

THE PICTURES CAN ACTUALLY BE ADJUSTED ONSCREEN IF YOUR OUTSIDE AND ITS TOO BRIGHT....OR IF ITS INSIDE AND ITS TOO DARK....BUT YOU STILL NEED SOME GOOD LIGHT INSIDE....THE FLASH WORKS GOOD TOO....IT ALSO HAS WHAT THEY CALL MACRO....WHICH IS GOOD FOR CLOSE-UPS....BUT DONT GET TOO CLOSE TO AN ITEM OR IT WILL BE BLURRY....

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, PLEASE EMAIL ME....THANK YOU....

Buy DXG 538B 5MP Digital Camera (Black) Now

DXG 568 5.1MP Compact Digital Camera

NDG stands for "no d@^n good". We got this for $40 less than the list price at a day-after-Thanksgiving sale at our local Office Max store, since our old standy-by broke the day before. Both hubby and I tried it out indoors, outdoors, for still photos, for mini-movies of the kid running around in the snow, etc over the long weekend and very few shots came out right.

This 5.1 mp model is marketed as an inexpensive, high quality, point-and-shoot pocket camera, but it isn't.

Either there was too much flash indoors, no matter what the lighting conditions, or the pics of posed people and Star Wars toys, taken for practice shots, came out blurry, despite repeated re-takes. And there was too much lag time on the shutter, so it was hard to take shots of our cat and kid.

It's small and good looking and does have lots of features-sound & movie mode, internal memory with the option to use a memory card---for the price, and it included a case and the usb cable BUT I did expect to use it it to take decent casual snapshots and I can't. It requires too much work and fiddling to get it right, so it doesn't qualify as a point-and-shoot camera in my opinion.

My older Fuji Finepix 2600 Zoom model with 3 megapixels and a long shutter lag worked far better as a point and shoot camera. At the time we bought it, it cost $300+ and it is much bigger, so it won't comfortably fit in your pocket as the DXG does; I wish my Fuji still worked, but I must have dropped it one too many times in the 4 years we've had it and the battery compartment won't stay shut now and the lens has trouble popping in and out to zoom.

We'll be returning this DXG this weekend and will try to get a better replacement.

We'll be looking at the Samsung 4.0 MP Digimax model that Sears and Amazon sell and will also take a look at few of the Kodak Easy Share models, since we're trying to stay under $150 for this purchase.

Says it's a 5.1 MP camera, I don't believe it for a second. i took a picture of something 1 foot away and it is so blurry you can barely make out what it is a picture of! My camera phone takes better, clearer pictures (and my camera phone takes BAD pics). Plus, it makes stupid anoying noises.

I bought this to replace my HP Photosmart 735 camera that was stolen :-( and the HP, even though it was 3.2 MP took wonderful pics.

i thought $70 for a 5.1 MP digital camera was a good deal, but if i would have known what a PIECE this was I wouldn't have paid $5.00 for it. That's how bad this thing is!

I wish i could get my money back, but since i opened the package i'm stuck with this thing.

i also bought the 4.0 MP version for my daughters BD and i'm not giving it to her, cause it can only be worse than this one, although i don't see how...

i thought maybe it was just the LCD that made the pics look blurry, but no, they look worse when i downloaded them.

this company should be ashamed of themselves for taking people's money. now i dont have a decent camera for christmas and that's $70 I could have used for kids presents.... UGH! i could go on and on, but i think you get the point...

Buy DXG 568 5.1MP Compact Digital Camera Now

Bought the camera for (...)cause it came with a free printer. Glad it came with a printer, because this camera is a piece of junk. I have never had shutter lag this horrible; you click the shutter button and you have to wait well more than 10 seconds before the thing actually takes the picture. The screen is jerky too, reminds me of watching video on a 24.4 baud modem. Horrible piece of equipment. DO NOT BUY THIS. Not even for a junky camera. It is not worth more than $10! Plus, at $10, I still wouldn't buy it. I purchased this for my 3 year old, and I'm even dissapointed for her how crapy it is.

Read Best Reviews of DXG 568 5.1MP Compact Digital Camera Here

It works well enough. The shutter lag is kinda long so don't expect to take too many spontaneous shots. The picture quality is great after you change the settings. And the volume on the noises can be changed. Most the complaints in the other reviews can be remedied if you go into the users manual. The flash is pretty fierce so you probably shouldn't use it as often as you would on other cameras. Not the best digital camera out there but good for the price.

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This camera is not remotely worth the money. Most pictures are blurry, washed out, or dark. The software crashes on WinXP Pro. My old 1.3M Olympus was heavy, slow and a battery drinker but it had great usability, optics and nice pics. This DXG is small, light, and the LCD looks great but what good is all that when it can't take a decent picture?

Samsung BD-P3600 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

• Experience vivid, crystal-clear visuals that are more natural, more realistic and simply stunning with Blu-ray's full 1080p HD resolution
• Stream Blockbuster, Netflix, YouTube & Pandora
• Multi-format playback lets you enjoy Blu-ray Discs, DVD, CD, MP3/WMA, JPEG, AVCHD and more
• DivX support allows you to enjoy downloaded DivX movies on the big screen
• Connect wirelessly for BD-Live content or streaming services using the included USB Wi-Fi dongle

When choosing a blu ray player, the choice can be confusing at times. After months of searching I now believe the best ones are the ones that match your needs most, after price point. Here is my review after a night well spent learning the ins and outs.

Pros-

Wifi-This year Wifi will be all the rage. Set up with my samsung after a slight learning curve took 20 mins tops and once connected it worked flawlessy. I didn't even need to read the manuel. Superb and blazing fast!

Pandora--what a terrific gem of a music program. And its free! The learning curve is super easy and fun. I was able to program it from my mobile phone, and there it is two seconds later. I am a happy camper!

Netflix-Great. super simple! Netflix needs more choices, but that is not Samsung's fault.

wifi dongle!They could have charged for this. They didn't. Great!

cons, if it is one--The player feels flimsy upon first contact so that you almost want to be super gentle with it. As opposed to the sturdier players out there. If that concerns you, i suggest you hold a floor model first and decide for yourself. Also, still no hdmi plugs offered with the majority of players, this one included. Makes no sense at this point. Luckily i have spares.

Overalla solid player, with wonderful audio and visual clarity. My test for blu ray, The Dark Knight. Looked amazing, sound oustanding. Test for upscale, Wall-E. Looked incredible and rich.

Nice job samsung!!!

UPDATE: Not sure what all the griping is about for a select few, but I watched Punisher Warzone on this player, a hard hitting film if there ever was one and this player did not hiccup. Audio and visual clarity were fantastic!! Also just watched quantum of solace. No issues. A little lag in the load time but I suspect that has to do with the dvd not the player. Sounded and looked great!! Be cautious of those few on here who get one bad lemon and decide the whole basket is rotten.

Three and a half month update: Still no problems to report with this player. I have not had one single issue with any movie I have thrown at it and I have now played over 200 films on it. it's a workhorse. It also plays copies of pretty much any DVD you have burned from a computer hard drive. I'll say it again, great product!

This blu ray player has gone done in price remarkably since it first dropped. It's orginal asking price, for those of you coming to it now, was nearly 400.00 dollars. It is now nearly 50 percent less. This is a real steal folks.

Buy Samsung BD-P3600 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player Now

I've never felt so conflicted about a piece of home theater gear in my life. On the one hand, the BD-P3600 offers very good to excellent audio and video performance on DVDs and Blu-ray Discs as well as some great internet streaming features. On the other hand the "PC Streaming" feature is frustratingly hard to use and unreliable to the point that I finally gave up trying to get it to work.

A few die-hard audio/videophiles were worried when Samsung chose not to include the excellent Silicon Optix Reon HQV video processor in this year's line-up of Blu-ray Disc players. The DVD upconversion on last year's BD-P2500 was outstanding and many of us were concerned that its omission from the BD-P3600 would lead to noticeably inferior standard def performance. Turns out there was little to worry about as both the DVD and Blu-ray performance of the BD-P3600 are excellent, comparable to Panasonic's DMP-BD80 and superior to LG's BD370.

Also, with on-board decoding of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio over HDMI/PCM and multi-channel analog outputs, the audio performance and flexibility of the BD-P3600 is also excellent. Throw in the included WiFi dongle, BD-Live support, quick disc loading, Netflix online streaming and Pandora internet radio and you get one full-featured high performance Blu-ray player. That is until you try out Samsung's new PC streaming feature.

With PC streaming, you can access media files (photos, music and Divx videos) directly from a PC with shared folders on the same home network... at least in theory. When we tested this, the "automatic" feature to detect sharable PCs on the network failed entirely and we had to resort to manually providing the IP address of the PC, and even this was not reliable. This process wouldn't be such a pain except that the player does not have a "remember me" function to remember the IP address, share name, userid and password for the next connection, and entering all of this manually using the remote and on-screen graphical keyboard is a time-consuming process. Also, we found that the player hung on multiple occasions while attempting to playback AVIs from the networked PC, and the only way to recover from this was a re-boot (which, of course, forgot all of our network information). Meanwhile, playback of the same content from a USB flash drive connected to the player's front or rear USB port, worked reliably, without all the drama.

As a Blu-ray Disc and DVD player, the BD-P3600 performs very well. It is one of the fastest players to load up both standard DVDs and Blu-ray Discs (faster, in most cases, than even the PS3). Also, the Pandora and Netflix streaming features are very reliable and add quite a bit to the overall flexibility and versatility of the player. But Samsung really should have waited to release the PC streaming feature until it was more robust and more reliable. If you promise not to use this feature, then I'd happily recommend the BD-P3600 as a full-featured high performance Blu-ray and DVD player. But those who do want to take advantage of PC streaming are in for some serious frustration.

A full review is available at Big Picture Big Sound (dot com).

Read Best Reviews of Samsung BD-P3600 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player Here

Wireless access to Netflix was my key criteria when I started looking for my first Blu-ray player. Once I read CNET's statement that this unit was a huge leap ahead, I was sold.

I bought and connected it to my new Samsung UN46B7100, both of which I bought at Best Buy. Connecting it to my wireless network went smoothly. I put in The Matrix on DVD. It looked as good as a DVD could look. That is, it looked good until it froze up. After several attempts, I restarted the player and put in a new Blu-ray disc. Fifteen minutes later it froze. Samsung customer support quickly recommended that I return the player. Best Buy exchanged it.

Unit 2 had the same issue. Best Buy suggested I try a different brand and mentioned that another customer had returned 3 units. I wasn't ready to give up, and I took unit 3 home. It only seemed prudent that I give it a thorough testing. It played DVDs, Blu-rays, and streaming Netflix films for 12 hours. During that time I noticed that the audio was slightly behind the video, which was especially pronounced in concert footage. Customer support had me change various setting to no avail. In hour 13 the player froze up just as the others had. I gave up. I returned the unit and took home an LG B390. I've had it playing for 24 hours and it has performed excellently.

I have 2 suggestions for anyone reading this: thoroughly test any player and be aware that CNET doesn't review units that it buys in stores. Manufacturers send them units for testing, and you can be sure that those units aren't lemons.

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Dirty Harry once asked, "Do you feel lucky, Punk?"

I ordered my Samsung BD-P3600 on Aug 8th. As usual, Amazon.com under committed and over delivered, getting the unit in my hands on Aug 12th, two days earlier than promised. That and their pricing is why I love doing business with these folks. I discarded the product packaging after the Amazon 30 day return period passed, assuming that I would have no need of it ever again. In retrospect, this turned out to be foolishly optimistic, as I now have to purchase a sturdy box and packing material to ship it back for repair.

I selected this top-of-the-line Blu-Ray because of its rich feature menu, which I thought would compliment my new LN52B750 Samsung LCD TV. True to form, everything went together almost effortlessly and worked well together until the forth time I attempted to use the DVD player. That's when the BD-P3600 completely froze up. Now it not only fails to display the Pandora/Netflix splash screen, it also won't respond to any command from the top-mounted touch controls or the remote. Generally when it powers up, the display says "Loading" on the front even though there's no DVD onboard, remaining so until the unit is turned off or unplugged. Other times it fails to recognize that a DVD has been put in the tray, refusing to load it at all. In every case, it fails to play a disc and/or respond to the set-up menu command, displaying nothing on the screen at all.

I called customer service and found myself talking to a very helpful rep. She had me first try to reset the unit by holding down the top mounted fast forward button for 10 seconds. Earlier, I had unplugged the power cord for 30 seconds and then replaced it, powering the unit up again. I also unplugged the HDMI from my receiver and went directly into the TV on the HDMI 3 input with a brand new cable but those, too, failed to correct the problem. Now I have to return it (shipping and insurance costs paid at my own expense in addition to the packaging materials I have to buy) to N.J. for repair and return. She says this will take between 7-14 days, not counting shipping times each way.

Having extensively researched this unit before selecting it, I was aware of the significant number of unhappy BD-P3600 buyers who have posted feedback complaining about the same problem. Despite these numerous red flags posted by angry BD-P3600 buyers on Amazon, C-Net, etc., I assumed naively that A) enough time and B) enough customer complaints had passed since its introduction that Samsung would have addressed this obvious design fault by now (my units date of manufacture was in late June '09). I thought that in this economy, while scrambling for every paying customer, no major consumer electronics manufacturer would be so irresponsible as to fail to correct such a well-documented shortcoming in their top end $300+ product, and particularly after so much negative customer feedback. This proved to be naively optimistic. The issue is clearly still very much a problem with a significant number of these units shipping today, as evidenced by the CSRs comment "I'll bet I can guess exactly what your problem is" as soon as I gave her the model number. How very, very disappointing for a company such as Samsung.

So, are you still considering buying a Samsung BD-P3600 Blu-Ray player instead of a Sony, Panasonic, etc. If you get one that works and stays working, you'll have a kick-a** player. If not, well I'm sure YOU'RE not one to throw away the original packaging prematurely, right?

"Do you feel lucky, Punk?" Well, DO you?

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I differ with the first reviewer and am very satisfied with the player. It does a beautiful job of playing Blu-Ray disks and the image is immaculate as is the audio (the primary reason for buying any player). Netflix stream is great (it also streams in HD where the content is available much nicer than the image on a PC), Pandora internet radio is a bonus.

I had no trouble connecting to my network. It was very easy and by putting my media into a shared (public) folder there was no complicated set up. I agree that this aspect of the player is a work in progress codec support seems spotty some played, some did not. Samsung has always done a great job of supporting their products (I've owned printers, TV's, etc.), so I expect further improvements.

My conclusion is that if what you want is a great Blu-Ray player with good networking and excellent audio then this IS the player. If you primarily want streaming of computer files to your TV, then a PC attached to the TV is a better solution (I have one of those too).