Emerson Portable Radio CD Player with Cassette Recorder (PD6548SL)

• Portable CD player with AM/FM stereo radio and cassette recorder
• AC/DC operation with detachable AC cord included
• Wide-range 3-inch speaker
• Records directly from radio or CD player
• CD-R/RW playback compatible

I bough this radio as a gift. I wanted to get a small radio, CD, and tape player that was easy to use for non-techie's. So far this item seems to have fit all these needs. It works well for radio listening and has a simple and easy to operate CD player. The tuner for the Radio is analog which is not that big of a deal as the multitude of buttons gets confusing for the non technical person. In addition the CD is easy to use and did not have to explain it to the user at all.

Pros: -Easy to Use

-Radio, CD and Tape

-Portable

-OK Sound quality

-Inexpensive

Cons: -Not for a techie or audio file who likes lost of controls and/or heavy bass

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I just bought one of these and I must say for $30 I'm pleasantly surprised!

My children and wife use this when they play in the backyard and it plays loud and clear.

CD's,tapes the radio they all perform well.

So far about 8-10 hours of use using all sources and our first set of batteries is still going strong.

While not high fidelity sound (nor does it pretend to be) it's great for background music that's clear.

While the batteries do last long, you will need 8 C cells. That's a lot for a small stereo. But they also provide 12 volts DC so I guess it does'nt have to strain using less voltage.

We like it!

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I have been happy with the quality of the sound on both radio and playing CDs. I got it specifically to play baby music, so I am not critical about bass or surround sound, etc. We have only used it plugged in so I can't say how well it runs on batteries or comment on battery life. It does what I need it to do and has a nice design, even though it is small enough to go unnoticed in any room.

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I purchased an inexpensive CD player to use on occasion while visiting relatives. The CD player is easy to use. The quality of sound is fair. There is no way to adjust treble or base; therefore, it sounds a bit tinny. The radio reception is nill. I can only receive the signal from a few of the local radio staations & then the clarity is poor. I have not had occasion to use the cassette player. That being said, I primarily intended to use player for CD's so it is okay. I have only used the AC adapter so I cannot comment on battery life. I was dissappointed with the overall quality. I hope durability is better because it gets heavy use.

I wanted to give an update in regard to this product after 7 months of use. My CD player no longer works. The cassette player broke after being used twice. The radio is of no use. This product was a waste of my money. The CD player did play classical music well & was easy to use. I used the CD player for audio books from the library. While CD player was used extensively, it remained stationary & was well taken care of. It will be sorely missed.

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So far so good. I own a preschool and use this daily playing cassettes, CDs for the kids, and listening to the radio on my own time. Everything is working fine. It could be louder because of my needs, but probably fine for anyone not needing to hear it over laughing and silly noises from several "dancing" children. I am pleased, given the price and overall ease of use.

Mount-It! Wall Mounted AV Component Shelving System with 3 Adjustable Tempered Glass Shelves (Black)

• Designed for use with DVD players, HD recorders, cable boxes and other AV equipment
• 3 Included Shelves are constructed out of tempered glass and are height adjustable
• Saves space and neatly organizes your AV Equipment
• Easy and Secure Installation
• Weight Capacity: 17 lbs per shelf

It's okay, measure your system before purchasing I didn't and my receiver doesn't fit otherwise it is a good unit, nice and sturdy. Easy to to mount and get together, I just wish I measured beforehand oh well it holds everything else it needs to

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It's very easy to assemble and I've had my cable box and blue ray and other things on it for months. The only problem is that the rails to run your wires aren't that big. So when you run the power cables and TV cable and HDMI cable and ethernet cable, etc, they won't all fit.

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Great deal on this shelf. Very sturdy. For the price you can't beat this thing. I'm probly going to get another one for another room. Why spend $100+ on one of these?

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good product but the shelf are a little small. everything else is great, it includes everything you will need to mount it on the wall. all you need is a screwdriver and a drill. shelves are secure with av components on top. only issue is that the hdmi cables on my dish receiver and bluray player are right in the middle where the mount is at so the units themselves stick out about half an inch. the reason i gave it four stars is because the cable concealer is pretty much useless since the only way it would work is to have the cables go directly into the wall. but still at 40 dollars you just cant beat this.

Samsung DVD-M201 DVD Player

• Dolby Digital and DTS output
• Coaxial and optical digital-audio outputs
• Component and S-video outputs
• Onscreen display
• CD-R-compatible dual-laser diode pickup

This player, though the price is attractive, and support DD and DTS output.. have to work with a good reciever to bring out the sound that it support, since the player itself have no means of decoding the signals of the DVDs. Therefore buy it if u must as a basic player and nothing more.

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you would think for the price it doesn't skip but it does!

Onkyo TX-SR508 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black)

• 80 Watts per Channel at 8 Ohms, 20 Hz–20 kHz, 0.08%, 2 Channels Driven, FTC
• Audio and 1080p Video Processing via HDMI (4 Inputs and 1 Output)
• 4 DSP Modes for Gaming: Rock, Sports, Action, and RPG (Role Playing Game)
• Powered Zone 2 and Zone 2 Line-Out for Playback of Separate Source in Another Room
• Overlaid On-Screen Display (OSD) via HDMI

The sound from my ten year old Onkyo TX-DS474 was now inferior and I had read very good reviews of the Onkyo SR 507, so decided to pre order the brand new SR 508. It arrived from Amazon on April 29th. I used the built in equalizer to set up the speakers, connected the receiver with brand new HDMI v1.4 cables and connected it to my Dish satellite receiver, my Panasonic BluRay DVD player and my Panasonic HDTV. The sound was excellent. Whereas before we had to turn up the volume too loud to follow dialog on some shows, or else it was not clear, with the SR 508 the sound was so much clearer that we could keep the volume much lower.

After about three days I noticed that although I would assign the input as cab/sat, the receiver indicated ipod (now no ipod dock was connected to the receiver) but the sound still came through from the satellite box. Strange but no problem. Then exactly one week after receiving the receiver, in the middle of watching a show, the picture and sound went blank. No pushing of different buttons on the remote would make it work. My first reaction was a bad HDMI cable, so I changed it. Nothing. I switched to the DVD player, but again blank. So then I hooked up the satellite box and the DVD player directly to the TV by separate HDMI cables, turned on the TV speakers, and the TV works again. Obviously the SR 508 suddenly failed and would not even work as a pass through. I am returning the set to Amazon for a replacement. If the replacement works fine for a reasonable amount of time, I will update this review.

I chose Onkyo partially because of its RIHD feature in conjunction with Panasonic. In my experience that only works so-so. Turning on the BluRay DVD player did switch the receiver directly to DVD. But turning it off does not switch back automatically to cab/sat. Turning off the TV also turns off the Onkyo, but not vice versa. You still have to turn on the Onkyo receiver separately.

One unexpected problem with the receiver is that the zone 2 input works only with an analog signal. On my DS-474, I have set up output B to speakers in my screened in porch to be able to listen to CDs or TV there. The B speakers work with digital. Now all my signal inputs for zone 2 are digital, so it appears that the zone 2 feature is useless. Bummer!

I should specify that I am not at all techie, so there may be work arounds that I don't know!

Update#1: The unit failed Thursday evening, I requested a replacement online from Amazon on Friday noon, it arrived at my house on Saturday at about 2pm. I'm sure everyone would agree that that is outstanding customer service from Amazon. I have now (Sunday) installed the replacement unit and again it appears to be working great. Provided it continues to do so, I will add a second update and change my rating to four stars. I remain disappointed that the zone 2 is not digital, hence not 5 stars.

Update #2: Four days after installing the second receiver, it also failed in the same way. However, at the bottom of the "Troubleshooting" page in the user manual, I found the following comment: "The AV receiver contains a microcomputer for signal processing and control functions. In very rare situations, severe interference, noise from an external source, or static electricity may cause it to lock up. In the unlikely event this happens, unplug the power cord from the wall outlet, wait at least five seconds and then plug it in again."

That worked and it has not locked up again in the last ten days. However, I certainly take issue with the "rare circumstances" and "unlikely event" and I can't imagine any special event that may have caused it. My receiver is in a cabinet with the plug behind it, so unplugging is quite inconvenient. This said, the sound from the receiver is really clear so, if this problem does not recur frequently, I will be happy with the purchase. I'm changing my rating from one star to three stars.

Buy Onkyo TX-SR508 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black) Now

I bought this to replace my Sony receiver I purchased from Amazon 3 years ago (almost to the day). While there was nothing "wrong" with my Sony receiver, I quickly realized once I plugged the Onkyo in, that my surround speakers were not being utilized as they should be.

While I am not an audiophile, I do have some quality speakers, and I do like having a quaility sound while watching movies (and playing Xbox). The sound is so clear and crisp with this receiver. Further, the set up with the 4 HDMI inputs made my stereo cabinet so much cleaner, and I got rid of all of my YRW and RBG wires. I am sure I could have invested another $300 and really got some really high end equipment, but honestly, the Onkyo is worth it. The funny thing is, I spent the same amount on the new Onkyo as I did on the old Sony, and the difference is just amazing.

The on-screen set up is great. It makes customizing the inputs and the equilizer so easy. And the speaker test really lets you know what where you need to place you speakers. What else can I say about this product? Honestly, this is the best purchase I have made in a long time. I think the 4 HDMI inputs alone make this a must-have over any other receiver similarly priced. I almost bought another Sony instead of the Onkyo (mostly because I have never purchased anything other than Sony receivers), but I am glad I made the switch. Now that I have experienced Onkyo, I think I have made a life long switch.

If you have any hesitations about buying this product, please feel free to send me a message, and I will try to answer your question before you buy. And if you have never bought an Onkyo before, try it first, and I am pretty sure you will like it (I would almost guarantee it). If not, return it to Amazon. They are really good with returns. But I doubt you will even want to return it once you get it set up.

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My wife purchased this for me for my B'Day. Her review is on here as well. The receiver stopped working about 1 month and 1 week in to use. Being past 30 days I could not count on Amazons return. Onkyo USA tech support was contacted. Very rude to say the least. The phone is answered as if its someones home and they just rolled over in the bed to take the call. I had to ask if it was the right number. After clarifying that it was just a matter of putting up with the guys condescending tone until a repair request was issued. No information on the return for repair was given other than where to send it. Even though the item is under warranty, the $30 shipping charge comes out of my pocket. The unit arrives at the repair center on June 24. About 2 weeks later we call to check on the repair as we never received any notification it had been received or the status. We are told the part needed is on back order until the end of August!! So apparently the repair center was just going to let us sit in limbo for 2 months and not even notify us of the delay.

Onkyo Customer Relations is contacted. They must look for people what do not like to talk on the phone as this person also sounded bothered that he had to talk. I advised him of the situation and he said he would check on it and if the repair could not be completed in a timely manner they would issue a replacement. 2 weeks later I call the repair center and they still DO NOT have the part. I do not call that a timely manner. Onkyo was contacted again and I requested a replacement since the unit is not in repair for over a month and the part is STILL NOT THERE. Onkyo refused so I gave the guy a descriptive explanation of what I thought of him and Onkyo.

I have contacted Amazon hoping for some type of support since they are an authorized dealer. I would think they would want some say in how this has been handled. I have also filed a claim with the BBB in NJ, which is where Onkyo USA is located.

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I hooked up the new Onkyo in about an hour and it sounded great! The next day it wouldn't work for anything hooked up through the HDMI input/output. I called Onkyo service and was greeted by an unhappy tecnician (well it was a Sunday)who told me to reset the Receiver. I asked how and he told me it's in the manual on page "x". I asked that he tell me to expedite the process and he reluctantly did and it worked. During the next 24 hours it needed resetting 4 times. I then read another review that had a similar problem and in it, it said, to pull the plug out of the wall and re-plug. I did, and it worked for another day and then needed reseting every few hours. Rather than deal with Onkyo service again, I just wrapped it up, back in the box, and returned it to Amazon. With Amazon reliability I can overcome an unrealiable product. btw, I saw the other bad reviews and said to myself "well thats only 4 or 5 out of dozens sold" my bad!

2-MONTH UPDATE: I'm downgrading this from 5 stars to 2 because it's already starting to choke on us. Namely, the sound sometimes cuts out entirely, forcing us to cycle through the inputs (i.e. from DVD to VCR back to DVD) to get it working again. Usually it happens when navigating between a DVD's main menu and playback mode, though sometimes it's random. In any event, this P.O.S. is going back; thank you Amazon for being lenient with your "30-day" return policy!

Original review:

Onkyo receivers kick ass for a few fundamental reasons: their sound quality is at the top of the game (beating boring-sounding Sonys and Yamahas, and only equaled by Pioneer), their specs and features are competitive at every price point, they look good, and they have the best ergonomics. That last point is pretty key to me, especially since receivers can seem like pretty homogeneous and impenetrably complicated products to electronics rookies (there's at least one in most households). Case in point: I like the button layout, menu logic, and intuitive remote. I like how there are direct buttons for every input source on both the front panel AND the remote (meaning you can just press a button marked "DVD" or "Tuner" instead of cycling through them with a little knob). I like how the volume control was apparently designed by humans (crank it up and it reads 10, 11, 12 instead of cryptically counting -35 dB, -34.5 dB, -34 dB). I even like Onkyo's green font, and anyone can appreciate a user's manual that's easy to understand, as well as nice and skinny thanks to Onkyo's decision to put the Spanish/French versions in a separate booklet.

None of this is news to me, having already owned the three-years-ago version of this model, the 2007 TX-SR505. But I had to upgrade because it wasn't until last year's model (TX-SR507) that Onkyo threw in two crucial updates: the ability to decode the new Blu-ray sound standards, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio (which are superior to Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1, the Laserdisc/DVD standards that have been universal since the 90s) and ***REAL*** HDMI ports, instead of that "HDMI Pass-Through" crap that Onkyo had been scamming us with for years (in case you missed it, HDMI Pass-Through required a supplemental coaxial/optical audio connection, which was not only annoying but limiting, since those audio cables lack the bandwidth to handle the aforementioned new sound formats). Anyway, now that these features have trickled down to this "$400" model (heh, subtract about 160 by Amazon standards), the true Blu-ray experience can at last be enjoyed by the masses. Thanks to this new toy, I just experienced high-definition sound for the first time, and let me tell you, it sounds GRATE: clearer dialogue, punchier bass, and just more all-around aural substance. There ain't nothin like uncompressed, lossless, 5.1-channel sound -it's at least as obvious as the difference between CDs and MP3s (same principle at work, too).

As far as comparing the TX-SR508 to the other receivers within Onkyo's overcrowded 8-man lineup, I think this second-from-the-bottom model hits the price/features sweet spot for most non-hardcore-geek folk. It only costs about $40 (in Amazon dollars) above the bottom-end TX-SR308 yet adds all this good stuff:

-80 watts per channel vs. 65

-4 HDMI inputs vs. 3

-2 coaxial audio inputs vs. 1

-front panel composite inputs (the old school kind)

-higher-quality speaker connections (screw-down binding posts vs. cheap wire clips)

-7.1 channels vs. 5.1

-bi-amp capability for front speakers

-Dolby Pro Logic IIz (if you want to add 2 extra ceiling-mounted speakers)

-Audyssey Dynamic EQ & Audyssey Dynamic Volume (levels out the volume extremes)

-WRAT Wide Range Amplifier Technology (whatever that means)

-"All-Discrete Circuitry" (say what?)

-192 KHz/24-Bit Video Digital Audio Converters

-Zone 2 (for powering speakers in another room)

-SIRIUS radio ready

-an auto setup microphone

On the other hand, the next-up model, the TX-SR608, costs a whopping 140 Amazon dollars more to add:

-PC input

-6 HDMI inputs vs. 4

-second subwoofer input

-100 watts vs. 80

-THX certification (I think that just means it's "powerful enough" to drive THX-certified speakers -sounds like a THX branding circle-jerk)

-Faroudja DCDi video upconversion

-analog-to-HDMI conversion (magazines say this doesn't work well)

-3-Stage Inverted Darlington Circuitry (???)

Nice, but not necessary. Likewise, going even farther up the price scale seems to buy superfluous amenities like excess wattage, hookups for 10 speakers (whatever marketers tell you, 5.1 has been the only standard since the 90s and most movies today are still encoded that way), and a few other pieces of non-essential technology.

So basically, in the wide world of audio-video receivers, Onkyo's the best brand and this is the best Onkyo. What more do you need to know?

Vivitar DVR-710 7.0MP 6 in 1 Multi-Functional Camera with 3.0-Inch LCD

I've only had this camera for about a week, and I think it's a great little camera. Compact yet clear video. I haven't used all its functions yet, but I mostly bought it for the video feature to capture the little moments of my children's lives. There is a lag when taking photos. It doesn't do well with fast moving kids. They need to be perfectly still for a few seconds and you need to have a very steady hand to take the photo.

I do like the image stabilization feature, but the downside to that is you can't use zoom in that mode. Bummer. **EDIT** I must have done something wrong when I first tried it, but the zoom does work with the image stabilization on.

Also, I noticed that the battery got really warm after about 15 minutes of continuous use. I don't know if that's normal, but I'll see how that goes when I take a continuous video for over an hour. I bought a 4GB SD memory card to record more than the internal memory allows.

Overall, it's a great product for the price I paid. So compact and easy to take with you anywhere.

The video this shoots is of fair quality, however the photos leave something to be desired. Every picture I take is hazy and the colors muted. My cheap digital camera takes better pictures than this one and it was half the cost.

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I LOVED THIS PRODUCT ITHAD AWESOME VIEW AND CAM EFFECTS I CAPTURED A LOT OF MEMORIES WIT THIS CAMERA -

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It starts out seeming like a great camera for a great price. But for whatever reason the video format that it uses doesn't always work when you're trying to play it on the computer (and maybe even elsewhere). The photos seem fine at first but you end up wanting more in the end. You'll never want to use the mp3 player after trying it once.

Don't even bother with this camera. I'm sure you can either get a better one for the same price or pay a little bit extra and have some peace of mind. It will seem like it's great at first but you will be more than disappointed after some time.

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This freakin crap was a waste of 80 bucks!!! DON'T FREAKIN GET THIS CAMRA THERE ARE BETTER ONES THAT ARE CHEAPER THAN THIS!!! 7mp my but!!!! The camara is just as good as my phone camara. The video really sucks cause there is some sort of yellowish bar that takes up a quarter of my videos for some freakin reason. After about a week of using it, the freakin thing broke. It wasn't show pictures or anything. I kept trying to turn it on but all it showed was the static thing just like how a TV is on an off-air channel. I even called the manufacturer and they told me they will call me back...WHAT THE HECK??? They will never call me back. It's been 2 years...VIVITAR IS A COMPANY THAT HAS BEEN CLOSED DOWN SEVERAL TIMES OR SOMETHING!!! DO NOT TRUST VIVITAR!!! I am going to do everything I can to show people that VIVITAR is no good. It's a great concept, but it isn't ergonomic, it's so flimsy, the camara isn't all that great, the buttons suck, it's slow...JUST DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT BUYING IT. If you guys don't trust me you can even email me or aim me to ask about it, I'll try to post it on youtube to show you guys...

Sony BDP-S5000ES Blu-ray Disc Player

• High-end Blu-ray Disc player with Sony's 14-bit HD video processor plus HD Reality Enhancer and Super Bit Mapping technologies
• Full HD 1080p output for Blu-ray Discs and upconversion of standard DVD video to 1080p
• BD Live capable for accessing bonus content from BD-Live Blu-ray Discs; Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD; 1 GB built-in memory
• Outputs: 1 HDMI,1component,1 S-Video,1 composite,1analog audio 2-channel, 7.1-channel),1digital optical audio,1 digital coaxial audio,1Ethernet,1RS232
• Includes remote control and composite AV cable; measures 17 x 14.37 x 4.92 inches (WxDxH)

This player is the promise of Bluray fully delivered. As before, video is spectacular. Audio is spectacular in every codec as well. DTS master audio (not included in previous sony products except PS3)and Dolby HD are fantastic. The internal decoding and full bandwith 7.1 PCM output is a great plus for all of us that have audiophile equipment that does not include internal decoders for the new formats. This also ensures that users of HDMI version 1.1 equipment don't have to fret about having 1.3 compliant equipment to enjoy the rewards of completely uncompressed 7.1 surround. Works beautifully with my Rotel 1069 preamp through HDMI. However, best of all, the player is finally fast. For those that have owned previous generation bluray players the most annoying thing about the technology was the patience testing load times. That was the bad old days, welcome to the good days, plop in the disc and go. In my expirience, even with the fast load feature set to off it is at least twice as fast (if not faster) as my departed BDPS2000ES. The menus and additional features work seamlessly and instantly, no more "processing time" hastle. I'm using it with an Elite pro110 plasma and can attest that its video fidelity is reference quality, it simply doesn't get better than this, for any price. Build quality is impressive, the player feels like its built from a ton of bricks and its completely silent in operation, the fan is inaudible (at least I have never heard it). The internet connection is excellent, just plug and go. In fact, this player has essentially zero negatives from any performance standpoint, NONE. Its not a particularly attractive piece of gear, simply a box with a tray in the front, but that is fine. Which, of course, leads to the only negative, its price. For those that want the very best in videophile equipment, the price is justified simply because its performance is, for the time being, second to none in all parameters, better yet, it demonstrates that the technology has finally reached fruition. This player is the first evidence that bluray is now a mature technology with no performance or functional compromises. Hopefully all its funtional advantages will trickle down to more affordable players soon. BTW, anyone that dismisses this player as an expensive alternative to a PS3, has not used it, or at least has not used with gear that will plainly show the significant differences in audio and video performance. Very highly recommended.

One more thing...... The picture of the player is inaccurate that is the BDPS2000ES, Cheers!

Buy Sony BDP-S5000ES Blu-ray Disc Player Now

I just got my BDP-S5000es yesterday. I had been using Sony's original BDP-S1 in our home theater and have enjoyed its picture and audio quality for the past 2 years. I have auditioned other Blu-ray players including the Pioneer Elite series, but never really saw or heard any clear cut reason to spend $$$$ to upgrade until now.

The BDP-s5000es is an enormous improvement in both video and audio quality of any of the units that I have tried.

First, the picture. Stunning is the only way I can describe it. I am veiwing Blu ray movies through a 1080p projector on a 120" screen. If there are any problems with the image in terms of color, saturation or clarity, you'll see it with the picture that large. It is flawless. The few scenes I have been able to play so far all have better contrast, greater depth and more intensity than my previous player. In short, it looks as good as film to my eyes.

The sound is equally as impressive. Up until now, I have been using the audio processor in my Krell preamp to decode the 5.1 and 7.1 soundtracks with results that were far superior to the analog output of my older player. The downside was that I couldn't decode the Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD signals that many of the discs now have. The BDP-s5000es has and outstanding built in decoder for these HD formats and an equally impressive analog output stage that allows for the most realistic recorded audio presentation I have ever heard. The difference isn't subtle, but it is difficult to describe. An example of what I am talking about is in the the James Bond movie "Casino Royale". In one scene, James and Vesper walk out onto a terrace after losing a poker game to his rival. In the Dolby Digital soundtrack, the sounds of the city are all there in the background clear, clean and pristine a well recorded sountrack. However, when I played same scene using the Dolby TrueHD soundtrack through the analog outputs of the 5000es, it sounded like correction it felt like the walls of my room disappeared and I was outdoors. It was startling. It didn't sound like a great recording, it made me feel like I was there. The subtle spatial and sensory information that is lacking from many recordings was all there to be heard and felt.

As for the setup, it was very quick and easy. There was one small quirk that I noticed. Because I am using the players decoder and analog outputs, I needed to go into the audio setup of the Sony to adjust speaker levels and positions. The setup process went quickly enough as I was able to match all of the speaker levels up or down in 1/2dB increments except for the subwoofer. I needed to boost the output to the sub by 1.5dB but the Sony would only allow me to turn it down, not increase the level. I had to start over using the sub's output as the reference level and match the other speakers to it. Not a big problem, but a bit strange.

The network connection went without a hitch. I plugged in the cable and it immediately checked to see if there was an update for the firmware. This is an important reason to consider Sony when making a purchase. As I mentioned, I have the original Sony Blu Ray player and after 2 1/2 years, they are still offering software improvements which allow it to work flawlessly with the latest BD titles. I have updated that machine at least 7 times (from v1.1 to v4.2), all for free, and each time the machine works faster and better. There are not many companies out there that continue to support their products with free upgrades and for such a long period of time. Most just want you to buy the newest model rather than improve your current one.

Also, I saw a previous review about the loading time and thought I'd respond. There is a setting in the setup menu that decreases the time to boot up and load a disc dramatically by leaving the machine in kind of a standby mode. I didn't time it, but I'd say the few discs I've tried to play so far loaded in under 10 seconds with this mode turned on. The downside is that the unit uses more power to do this because it keeps the fan and processor running even when the power switch is off. My guess is that the previous reviewer has not turned that feature on (the default setting for this feature is "off").

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I can share that for my situation the video enhancement of the BDP-S5000s was very real. My raw video material was from a Canon XH-A1s used to shoot an orchestral performance. Adobe Premiere, Adobe Encore, Verbatum blank DVD discs, and a new LG burner were used to make a 1080p/24 Blu-Ray DVD. When my resulting DVD wouldn't play on my Sony BDP-S300 player, I went to a Sony Store to compare new players.

What I cared about foremost was image quality. The short answer is that players absolutely are not the same. However before I get specific I hope you will please indulge me in a little background theory. Blu-ray encoders compresses video by approximately 50x, which the players then need to uncompress (decode). Encoding at a studio can be slow and methodic, however decoding in a DVD player needs to happen in real time, which invites compromises. If the player has a powerful processor as does the 5000s, a beautiful video stream more free of artifacts will result when you play a DVD.

Compared to the 5000s, the lesser DVD players I tried at the store sacrificed some image quality when the picture moved; i.e., they would pixelate to various degrees. For example a person's face would become slightly blotchy for a fraction of a second and then resolve itself. With the lesser players this would happen even on slowly moving images, and I would expect the problem to be more pronounced with fast moving scenes such as with sports. A related shortcoming is that the lesser players had some noise in their images. For example a dark suit that appeared smooth when the person sat still would become grainy when the person moved slowly. Neither of these defects were apparent on the 5000s.

These shortcomings of the lesser players would probably never be noticed by a casual viewer who rightly thinks that any Blu-ray just looks pretty fabulous no matter what. Nonetheless, there is a curse in knowing what to look for, because it is easy to see, and certainly doesn't require a "golden eye". Whether or not they are objectionable is up to the individual. I'll remark that I have no reason to suspect the other video (and audio) claims to not be accurate. In summary, the 5000s player employs a very powerful image decoder, and it buys you playbacks that are seemingly free of artifacts.

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I have owned several high end blu ray players from the likes of Denon, Marantz and Pioneer. I thought they we all solid performers until I bought the 5000ES. This Blu ray player is by far the most solid built and best performer I have ever owned. Video is crisp, great color with lots of tweeks and adjustments at your disposal, with audio via HDMI or Analog the best I have encountered. If you can find one of these beasts still around, I would not hesitate.

I'm a huge analog guy always have been. I never bought into the HD craze until one fateful trip to the Sony store. I saw a big beast sitting sadly in a clearance bin it was marked down to $50; the heft and many connectors on the back quickly caught my eye and held my interest. I felt sorry for it and thought it would be an upgrade to my PS2 which I had up till then been using to play DVDS. Something told me to GET IT, GET IT NOW... so I bought it and took it home. I had a smallish Trinitron and had been using it for awhile when I was bitten by the HD CRT bug using this player on my Trinitron almost felt like using a Ferrari to go to the corner store and back, almost like the player deserved better.

So, a $35 Goodwill acquisiton for a 34" Panasonic CRT HDTV, and an HDMI cable later it was like a window to the world. I just wanted to keep watching things over and over because the video quality is second to none. I've seen cheaper bluray players at friends and family's homes and I really do feel sorry for them. If you have a big set, you need THIS player to do it justice. Even SD content on regular DVDs, the player has an odd way of cleaning up and making look spectacular.

Samsung YP-MT6V 256 MB Digital Audio Player Black

• Supports MP3, WMA, ASF and Ogg files
• Built-in flash memory holds 256MB
• FM Tuner and recorder
• Line in & voice recording
• SRS WOW optimization

The Samsung YP-MT6V 256 MB is a perfect easy to use music player. The things that I like the most about it are its perfect compact size, and great stylish look. Also, whenever you are not around a computer, you can just hook it up to a cd player, or other music device that takes headphones and mp3 encode a song. It has a great sound and I think its much better than the same priced iPod Shuffle. Mainly because it can record voice, FM radio, you can record straight of a cd player, and you can see what you are listening to, unlike the no screen shuffle. The only disadvantage of the 256 mb player is the fact that it only holds 256 mb.

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The Samsung YP-MT6V 256 MB digital audio player is a superb mp3 player. It is able to play all types of codecs including ogg which was the big seller for me. It also has a root directory meaning all you have to do is copy your digital files directly to the player using windows explorer. You do not need to use some fancy program that complicates the process even more. The one "AA" battery is said to last up to 42 hours, and with the quality of sound and performance of this little gem that is remarkable. It also has an FM transmitter and a voice recorder. The factory headphones produce great sound, so overall this is a heck of a player. Easy to use, and a true digital media player. Highly recommended

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I like this unit very much. After my IRiver was stolen, I looked around for a replacement.

The unit is easy to use and comes with everything. The software is a bit unwieldy though. At first I had a split screen to rip songs and see what is on the player itself, but that went away and I don't feel like reinstalling to bring it back. Then you have to go to Windows Media Player (I use 9) to transfer the music over to the device.

I've gone to a another CD ripper and just drag the files over. Much faster and much easier.

I'm a runner and the screen is bright and clear. I like being able to lock the controls as they tend to get pushed when I run if I don't lock them.

The sound is really great with the ear buds and even better even using a cheap headset.

I bought a wireless transmitter (GE) to use in my car but you have to really crank the volume up to get anything out if it. I think this may be more a function of the transmitter.

Everything else about the unit is great. Samsung did a very nice job with this player and FM tuner.

I am a very satisfied user.

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I own a iBook G4, and copying songs from iTunes to this device was easy. I'm a ver exigent quality sound person and at first sight I was wanting t to buy an iPod Nano, but was very expensive for me. One Friend of mine toll me that this Samsung was very very good enough for his daugther so I gave it a chance, and I'm impressed!!

The only think that I had to do was update it's firmware (Downloades form Samsung's support page), but that was very very easy. Why? I like see Spanish menus on my devices and with it's original firmware (V.1.1) has problems, but with new one (V. 2.1) was working like a charm.

I reallu recomend this product!!! Great work Samsung Group!

P.D. If you want more great sound avoiding external sound, buy an earpad pair and put it over the the earpad that comes with this device!

Sony ICDSX46 - 128MB Digital Voice Recorder w/ MP3 Playback

I recently needed a voice recorder for my job...so I did an extensive research and decided to buy either Olympus DS-2 or Sony ICD-SX25.

I went to Circuit City to check out the two recorders and found ICD-SX46! I did not know Sony just released the ICD-SX46 when I went to Circuit City. ICD-SX46 has more memory (128MB) than Olympus DS-2 and ICD-SX25 combined.

Olympus DS-2 was way too big (approximately same size and a flip phone that is opened) to be in your pocket and made mostly out of plastic while SX46 is made of aluminum and slimmer in design. I decided to buy the sx46 because of its design and memory capacity.

Well, so far I love this recorder. The recording is very clear and even clearer if you use a headphone to listen to your recordings. The small speaker is also good, but the volume has to be almost all the way up to hear the recordings that had been far away from the microphone.

The aluminum body of this recorder feels sturdy and well made. Even the battery covering of this recorder is attach to the body so that you would never loose it. The record button is on the side so you can easly push it without dropping the recorder.

The buttons are also made out of aluminum and they don't feel cheap. And did I mentioned? the recorder is really light even with the two AAA batteries.

The LCD screen is also big enough to read, but does not have any back lights...so if you use it at night..make sure you got enough lighting to see the lcd screen.

You can also turn off the "BEEP" sounds which you hear whenever you push a button. You can also turn of the LED lights on the top of the recorder that lights up whenever you record or play the machine...so that you can save more energy.

This machine says it plays MP3 files..so I tried it but the software that came with the recorder made me convert the MP3 into that sony file thing (I'm not sure what you call it). But the music sound pretty nice even with that little speaker. However I would not use this machine as a MP3 player because it is not meant for such task...it is all about recording.

There is fast/forward button on this recorder...if you push and hold the forward button..it would fast forward until you let go of the button.

The recorder does not have on/off button because according to the manual..it would not consume too much battery power even though lcd is on whole day....however you can use the "HOLD" switch on the back of the recorder as the off/on button...the lcd would go blank and no matter how much you push the record button, it would not record untill you toggle the hold button. I like this feature.

The software that comes with this recorder is pretty much basic...I didn't really get to use the editing tools so I have no idea how they work....sorry about that. However you can change your setting of the recorder with the software instead of doing it right on the recorder...I think that is pretty cool.

By the way, the product comes with a soft cloth case, USB cable, 2 AAA Alkaine batteries and a CD.

So far I am glad I got this recorder. Good job, SONY.

I had been searching the internet high and low for a digital voice recorder that would fulfill my needs -a quality voice recorder AND a suitable device that would record instruments -staying up late nights, spending hours on live chats comparing products, waiting weeks for e-mails back from companies about their recorders, and then I found this and took a gamble. And I won! This thing is amazing. The body is a little large to be an mp3 player, but, as another poster said, it's all about the recording. The piano recordings sound almost professional, and the internal microphone produces a better quality sound than my $150 external microphone that I plugged into it!!! My only qualm is that you must open a program in order to extract your recording and save it to your computer instead of the recorder simply opening like a drive, but after the first try this becomes a piece of cake. Regardless, this recorder packs many helpful features and is extremely flexible in different environments. There are many, many different voice recorders out there today, but this is one to get.

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I have had this for a year now. The unit itself is pretty high quality. Many options. The problem is the software. The digital voice editor software that comes with it is very limited and never was great. But, what's worst of all is you need to keep the disk with you and not lose it, because if the software has a glitch (like mine just did) and you are on the road, and you don't have the disk, you cannot hope to find the software to re-download to reinstall. Sony only posts updates to it, as if the software itself here was some valuable product to protect. It's a little proprietary player that also happens to be the ONLY way you can transfer the files to your computer. So, if it stops working, and you don't have disk, you are screwed. This is unacceptable in this day and age. It's not like ANYONE in the world would want to download and use this software for anything other than if you were using one of these units. It's essentially barely more than the driver you need to transfer (and you need it to convert) the files. Typical proprietary Sony, overprotecting things to the hurt of the customers who want just to use their product. (This is how Beta lost to VHS, in so many ways).

I would NOT buy this unit again for this reason.

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I got the Sony ICDSX46 -128 MD digital voice recorder to help me stay organized at work. I am constantly shifting between different clients/projects during the day and needed an easy way to accurately record the time I was spending on each. The Sony is small enough that I can keep it in my shirt or pants pocket without really noticing it. This means I actually bring it with me everywhere (one of the problems I had with other time-tacking methods).

The Sony has five folders that can be used to keep recordings separate. I use them for (a) time billing, (b) expenses, (c) to-do's, (4) drafting notes and (5) interviews. When I do playbacks of a particular folder I get a full sequence of only the items I am looking for. The folders also make it easy for me to download things to my assistant's computer vis the built-in USB connection. Very cool.

There are many other features on the recorder that I have not used yet. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I do know that it was up-and-running as soon as I put the battery in and has been working perfectly since. One thing, make sure that you use the 'hold' switch on the back of the recorder. Otherwise, the recorder will fo on inadvertently in your pocket.

For someone that makes a living in six-minute increments -the Sony is a godsend.

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I should have read these reviews before purchasing. The stick is very small, the directions are extremely lengthy and not incredibly user-friendly. However, I could have made it work, EXCEPT for the huge fact that the hardware does not save files in an MP3 format or any format that is compressed and/or easily transferrable to CD. Also, it does not allow you to tag data once saved. It assigns its own tags, which work okay unless your have more than 2 or 3 files saved. No thanks, this is going back.

2nd generation Degen DE1125 Ultra-Thin AM/FM/SW Radio with 4GB MP3 Player/Digital Recorder

November 3, 2009:

Stay tuned as I will update this review shortly with more technical details to follow. I took a chance and ordered this Degen DE1125 from overseas ($78.99 shipped by registered airmail) despite some poor reviews that I have seen recently, but my unit is just fine and once again the overall quality control of electronics production in Chinese radio factories looms its ugly head! My unit is the Degen brand and not the Kaito version so it has sw capability instead of the USA weather band channels. It is excellent on the fm and good on sw bands despite relatively low sensitivity ratings compared to several other Kaito and Degen radios. To boot the unit is very well made and extremely small and pocketable and just what I was looking for by the way. I like it much better than the Sangean DT-200V and DT-400W units and it can even pick up routine weather broadcasts on my local am government sponsored emergency preparedness station. It does need a tone control that is certainly sorely lacking, but other than that I have no great complaints at this point, except perhaps for a more precise frequency control in smaller increment steps (see further below). The AGC (automatic gain control) does oscillate so that the signal strength fluctuates quite a bit for weak am stations as noted by other internet reviewers, but the stronger sw stations come in just fine as do all fm stations that I have listened to. I am very pleased overall with this radio/MP3 player, especially at this asking price!

UPDATE: November 18, 2009:

PROS:

1) Very fine quality MP3 player (comes with two songs, one by the late and great Karen Carpenter (Its yesterday once more) and another classic, the Hotel California). Both are excellent for demonstrating the MP3 capabilities available on this system.

2) Good quality voice recorder/microphone system with ability to record directly off the air (better at lower speaker volume).

3) Tuning is through either the very fine tuning knob or using the Auto+/Autokeys on the keyboard so it is a much improved system (compared to the Kaito KA1123 or the Degen DE15 units).

4) There is excellent sensitivity for fm with very good selectivity

5) Fair to good sw sensitivity and good selectivity

6) Fair am sensitivity and good selectivity

7) High quality MP3 player with 2 GB of onboard mempry available.

8) Good quality ATS (Automatic tuning storage) preset capability on all bands with 255 presets available (adjusted using the Auto +/keys). These presets are easy to play back too using easy to locate keys (can be used to either advance or backtrack frequencies) on the right hand side of the unit.

9) There is a very detailed and highly readable, quality LCD screen with a (green) high quality backlight.

10) The LCD screen details are different for the "off" position versus each of the three modes of operation (as listed under 1) below under Cons). The clock can be displayed in all possible screen displays and so it is very easy to set accurately.

11) There is a very nice on-screen digital signal strength meter that is displayed whenever the digital volume levels are adjusted.

12) It has a very long lasting and very flat rectangular battery (Lithium-Ion: Nokia cell phone type). The battery is charged using a USB to unit cable (provided) that goes directly to a PC (with automatic charging capability). The same USB cable is also used for quickly downloading songs from a PC.

13) It is a very small and pocketable, very nice looking unit with a high quality build (with a black rubbery surface with a nice feel). It has a nice support stand that opens up from the back and exposes more of the speaker to the air as well (see below).

14) The unit also has an extendable (nonrotating) vertical antenna about 15 inches in length that is good for fm and sw signal detection.

15) There is also a lock slide switch to keep all controls fixed when needed.

16) It also has a very good sounding speaker.

17) The printed manual is in both Chinese as well as in English and is not very hard to understand.

CONS:

1) There is no tone control for any of the three basic modes (am/fm/sw radio, MP3 player and voice and off the air recorder).

2) The tuning capability is fixed and does not have adjustable frequency step controls.

3) The radio senitivity is best only for listening to major stations, except for the fm operating mode and to a lesser extent sw. I think the Kaito version with all USA weatherband channels may prove to be a better buy overall if the sensitivity for these is adequate. There is some hiss to be heard in the background on am and on the voice recorder.

4) It has a lone bandwidth and no DX/local attenuator, but can register fm stereo through the earphones. It does not have an external antenna jack either.

UPDATE: November 19, 2009:

Apparently the weatherband reception option instead of sw reception (2.3 ~23 MHz) has been dropped by Kaito (Degen) since it no longer appears listed on the Amazon website (it was listed there until very recently however!). Even today on their own website it is still listed as the Kaito KA800 with am/fm and weatherband reception capabilities and an orange backlight!

Like another reviewer (Ann) I bought this little radio by mail order inspite of other negative reviews elsewhere on the internet. I got mine from a seller in Vancouver, Canada. Overall I am very pleased with this radio. I think the fit and finish is very nice and FM reception is excellent even with the aerial antenna fully down. AM reception is also quite good and at night I easily receive stations for Los Angeles and the SF bay area. On SW the performance matches my older Panasonic RF-2900 which is just fine. Certainly a real SW enthusiast won't use this as their only radio, but the portability and versatility of this little radio is really pleasing. I love the size, features and the USB charging method. I've loaded lots of MP3 songs into the 2GB of FLASH (it appears as standard "disk drive" on your PC) and it charged while I did that! The English owners manual is adequate and the radio is easy to operate. I haven't used the headphones since I already had a decent set. The MP3's sound fine to me with reasonably rich sound, though it would have been nice to have a tone control or EQ settings to select from. I also like the green LED backlight. The display is easy to read in the dark. Also, I think this model must be preferable to the older DE-1123 because that model doesn't have the jog control which works great! Don't be afraid to buy one of these. You'll be very pleased, especially for the money spent.

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Good build quality. I'm technically challenged, so after a few evenings of learning MP3 download basics, I'm happy with this versatile product. 24+ hours of music, downloaded so far. Sound quality is decent. Tons of great features in a tiny package. I ordered mine from Hong Kong...mine takes 3AAA batteries (rechargables that arrived with the unit, seem faulty, so I switched to standard alkaline for now). Packaging was for 1123 model with 2GB of storage. My only dislike so far, is that the MP3 controls are a bit "delayed". Radio reception on FM is excellent, AM fair, and SW good. You'll want to upgrade the headset.

Not quite perfect, but definitely recommended. I don't think there's another product that offers all these features, in a quality pocket sized product, on the market.

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I have been using the product for about a week.

There is no auto-record functionality, which is a bit disappointing to me. I was hoping to be able to set it to record certain AM shows everyday of the work week. But I have to make sure to turn it on every morning before I leave for work. I do that so that I can ensure it records while being able to leave it at home and not have to carry it around with me (potentially getting it stolen or lost). I am a teacher, so I cant just leave it lying around on my desk, and some of the schools I am in get very poor AM reception. So, all in all, I find it best to leave it at home and have it record a certain station all day. Of course, it pretty much saps the battery and records a bunch of stuff I dont want, but I still get what I want eventually (and I have gotten in the habit of recharging it everyday).

It would be much nicer to have the auto record ability, much like my DVRs. That took it from a sure-fire 4 star to a 3 star product, imo. If it would have that functionality, and it was easy to use, and reliable, maybe even a 5 star product.

Other than that, nice product. I like that it has a "lock" button, good speaker (for listening w/o headphones), it's designed so you have to "double-check" before deleting a file, and you can adjust the auto-tuning so that you can most likely pick up all stations (see manual for how to do that).

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I enjoy this radio/player very much. It has great reception and gets stations my larger radios can't. I had some questions and the people at Kaito Sales were very helpful. I am in Florida and so being in Eastern time, I was still able to speak with them after 6PM when I got home from work, since they are in California on Pacific time. Lee was extremely helpful.

I look forward to seeing any new products they may offer in the future.

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JVC Everio GZMG130 30GB Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 34x Optical Zoom

My fiance and searched high and low for a good camera that would fit in our budget. Our inital reason for needing one is to record our wedding, but with kids and whatnot in the future, we wanted a camera that wouldn't be obsolete next week.

We were going back and forth between a Sony SR-42, which is Sony's newest model in HDD, which was $599 at Best Buy, compared to the $499 we paid for the JVC. The Sony supposedly has a better lens, but we couldn't tell. The salesman at Best Buy said that unless you were looking for differences you really wouldn't see them.

The biggest difference we found between the two cameras was the optical zoom. When you were set on a higher zoom, the JVC was able to keep focus better. With the Sony, if you were at a 30x optical zoom and moved the camera everything went blurry and it took some time to re-focus. At the same zoom the JVC didn't do that. That is what really swayed us towards the JVC.

We would have rated the JVC with 5 stars if there had been a port to plug in a microphone or external lighting to the camera. The Sony didn't have that either-you had to buy a more expensive model of either brand in order to get those features.

The software seems to be pretty user-friendly on our XP operating system, but we haven't needed to burn anything (30GB holds a lot of stuff!). Hopefully that will go smoothly.

We've been happy with picture quality so far, and we don't exactly have the latest and greatest in terms of our TV. The functions are pretty easy to use on the camera. We preferred buttons to the touch screen on the Sony. The LCD on the camera is really nice and swivels in just about every direction. The camera is so light you forget you're holding it.

We haven't purchased an SD card for the still-photo portion since we both have digital cameras, but switching back and forth between the still function and video function only requires a flick of the thumb on the on/mode button.

Overall we've very happy with the camera. We went to Best Buy to purchase it and got the warranty, which covers cleanings, and just about any form of damage (including if I drop it, which could very well happen) except loss or theft. Hopefully we'll continue to be happy with our purchase.

We had the camera about 3 weeks now. Recorded my daughter's school musical with it, slightly over an hour long. The white balance seems a little off, but it should be correctable. The direct back-up of these files onto DVD disc fails -no idea why, because the program and "manuals" are more point and shoot than the camera. (You can examine the user manuals at JVC website to satisfy yourself of this point.) However, the files are backed up by the camera into a deeply buried folder called "My Works" on the computer.

I then used the provided cyberlink software to try to edit out the dead spots. I was able to do something only because I have used Roxio programs. Explanation and documentation of the cyberlink program is generic and minimal. So after I produce the movie, I get the news: TO BURN A DVD DISC, ONE MUST PURCHASE THE UPGRADE!!!! My independent Nero burner program will not recongize the mpg files, and I can only produce a disc readable by Windows media reader, and not a DVD player.

To make a fair comparsion to other cameras, add $100 to the price tag, because in spite of all the talk about making your own movies, you still have to pop out $80 more to do it. The Cyberlink programs looks to be a poor program nor will you get much help to get it working.

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I have had this for about a month and have taken a few movies. Some of my family who I don't see all that often. The 16.9 aspect on the camera screen is great and easy to change to regular screen size if that is you preference. It is great to have my home videos in wide screen format and the picture looks good on my 42 inch plasma. Made one dvd so far with out to much hassle. If you play around with the files in the camera you can edit down video before putting in your computer. It allows you to make shorter files from original footage then you just delete the parts you edited and anyway it works great and is pretty user friendly if you are at all computer savvy since screens on camera and controls make sense after a few wrong button pushes. Great size and weight. Can't wait for our vacation to really put this thing through it's paces. You will need an extra battery, bigger is better and a wall charger is very handy especailly if you are traveling. Amazon had best price. Originaly saw at B.J.'s and almost bought but better price and no tax or shipping with Amazon. Had to wait a few days for the free shipping to kick in but I don't mind. Good luck if you decide to go with camera. Alot of features and quality for the money. OH yeah, terrible still pics but that's why you have a digital camera.

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This is my first camcorder, but I think this thing is pretty awesome if you want a basic, reasonably priced camcorder. I'd read somewhere that if you format the HDD before you record any videos, that helps in the grainy department. I did that, and haven't had any issues yet as far as the picture goes. It's really clear and sharp. So if you aren't sure if you want to get this because of the "grainy images" complaints, I'd say go for it. It isn't like what they're describing. If you're looking for a camcorder that you want to have around for those moments you want recorded, this one does the job. The user interface is really easy to figure out, and not having to worry about having enough tapes/discs around is great.

The pictures this thing takes aren't too wonderful, as mentioned before. But I didn't buy this to take pictures with. That's what my digital camera is for. I'd say having that feature is good for those times you want to take a picture, but don't have your digital camera on you. The images wouldn't make very good prints, though.

I'll have to agree with a few other reviews about the software. It's... okay, but there are better programs out there. The program that JVC includes does suck up a lot of system resources and seems to lag when I try to playback directly from the camcorder (I blame it on the usb connection, as opposed to firewire). I found that saving them to the computer and playing directly from that gets rid of the lag though. Also, the software is limited in some areas because you can't get certain features without paying for the "deluxe" version of it. But the software is good to have if you don't have anything to convert to mpg, avi, real media, etc.

Overall, I really like this camcorder, and haven't had any issues yet. It's easy to hold, the buttons and joystick make it easy to navigate, and the picture quality is really good, given the price range of this camcorder. Definitely would recommend to anyone who's a first timer, or wants a reasonably priced camcorder.

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I really like this camcorder. I have NOT had most of the problems any of the other reviewers have had. Except i agree that the still photo function is not very good but i have a digital 8.0 megapixel compact point and shoot as well as a Nikon digital SLR. The still photo function should not be used for prints but if you just want to take a quick photo for your MySpace page or something similar then it works just fine. Oh and the light for the camera is only good if you are shooting up close at night and the night vision feature leaves allot of tracers.

JVC offers a variety of attachable lens, including a telephoto and wide angle lens as wells lens filters. All of which work great. I have no problems editing using the powerdirector and powerproducer software that comes with the camera. Although to use the advanced features you have to purchase the upgrade but the basic model has plenty of easy to use features to make some great videos without upgrading. all of the features in the software and on the camera are very user friendly especially for the novice.

I have had no problems shooting great high quality videos that look great on a regular tv as well as my 42 inch LCD TV. I love the fact that you have the option to shoot in 16:9 widescreen or in regular modes (although if you don't have a widescreen tv dont record in widescreen as it will make everything look stretched out) and editing the videos and burning them to a DVD using the Everio software is simple and the DVD's are easily viewed on ANY DVD player with no problems. I recently shot a friends wedding and reception using this camera and the quality and sound was fantastic and they were very pleased. Although i do wish this camera had an external mic input.

This is the best camera for the price and i am extremely pleased with it and if your a first time user or just a novice then this is the perfect camera for you, anything more would just be over kill and would leave you with a bunch of features you either don't know how to use or will NEVER use.

The in camera functions are so easy to use, you hardly need the instruction manual and with the built in camera modes there is hardly any reason to use the manual settings at all.

GSI Super-Quality Multi-Function Mini DV High-Definition 3MP Camera/Camcorder/Webcam/Voice-Recorder

I was excited when i bought this product, my son and I wanted to have something with the functionality described for our travel blog project. However the minute i got it out of the box, my 9 years old son, preseed the play button. We never saw the play button again, it was there inside of the camera.

The manual is worse than the camera, very bad, i was expecting something different for a price like this.

Please stay away from this camera.

I mounted this to a motorcycle handlebar on a trip across africa. The video quality is nothing incredible, but if you are looking for something usable that you are not afraid of breaking/losing, then this is a pretty impressive product for the price. Battery life was good. Its hard to see the on/off leds in bright light, but its pretty easy to run. Other guys had 300 helmet cameras that did HD and they couldnt ever figure out if they were on or off, but the video quality of theirs was noticeably better since it was HD. This thing is sealed pretty tight, the back cap screws on and its very weatherproof, but you cannot turn it totally off with the back cap on, though you can turn on/off recording... comes with a variety of mounts, but i ended up duct taping it. Though the african roads are a rather punishing environment to expect anything to stay on...

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This product is complete junk. It is crap. You get what you pay for, only in this case that's not true. For $60 I expect a camera that at least works sufficiently to produce some sort of image. This product fails that standard. The manual is barely intelligible, as it's written in "English as a Fourth Language." I'm running Windows XP (under VMWare Fusion on a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard). Nothing I do gets Windows to recognize the camera. Forget any Macintosh support. Forget too any sort of customer support; there's no return address, no phone number, no URL, no nothing (and, judging from the manual, what good would those do? No one at this company seems to have mastered, or even much studied, English). What a ripoff!! Who knows what sort of video quality it's capable of; the darned thing simply does not work. All the appropriate lights light up, but there's no way that I've found to get it to work with a computer. I gave it one star only because negative ratings aren't an option. Junk. Rip off.

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I've never tried this camera mounted on bicycle/motorcycle handlebars or on a helmet, but it works great for shooting videos from a moving car. It just requires a few cheap modifications.

This is the same camera as the Swann model MDV-450. However, this version comes in a tin box which is kind of cool. However, it does NOT come with any MicroSD card, so you'll need to purchase one before it's useable. Note that the card MUST be a class 10. A Class 4 or Class 6 will not work. Swann claims that you can use up to an 8GB card, but I've been using a WINTEC Filemate 16GB card without any problems.

The cool feature with this camera is that you can mount it to vehicles windshield. That creates the smoothest possible videos while driving -far less vibration than a dashboard mount. Unfortunately, the only way to mount any camera to a windshield is with a suction cup, and these will eventually fail. However, a cheap fix that works very well is to use Velcro strips with adhesive on the other side and stick a couple of them up on the windshield and then do the same with the suction cup.

There's also a threaded plastic rod leading from the suction cup that has a pivotable plastic clamp on the other end that snaps around the camera. The clamp has 3 curved plastic teeth on each side to grip the camera and they break off. You can superglue them back on, but there needs to be a more permanent solution because this is the only way to hold the camera in place. I'm still checking around for a solution to this.

The videos are not clear enough to read license plates, but very good for basic recording. I've recorded all kinds of bad driving occurring in front of me, as well as mattresses and other items sitting in the middle of the freeway. At this price, don't expect good night video unless there is a lot of light around. And forget about audio. The camera has a microphone, but you need something much higher end than this if you want to hear anything.

I've bought two of these over the last year and use them daily. With the above modifications they've been very dependable.

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i received this product and it doesnt work.. how fun is that...???

the cam does not work unplugged from any power point.

does not turn on unless plugged in..

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VideoSecu Wide Dynamic Range WDR 700TVL Infrared Security Camera Built-in 1/3" SONY Effio CCD DSP 9

This camera offers 700TVL resolution and very good features, with a good 9-22 zoom range. The field of depth is quite shallow so careful focus on the point you wish to capture is essential. The focus and zoom controls are internal to the device, so it may be awkward to adjust when mounted, but this does add some security to the install as well.

On my unit the IR stopped working after a couple of days of testing, but this was traced to a loose wire from the control board. Re-seating the connector fixed the problem.

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Sony DCR-SR80 60GB 1MP Hard Disk Drive Handycam with 12x Optical Zoom

Just bought this camera from Circuit City about two weeks ago. The first camera I had to return the next day because the image on the LCD was stuck upside down. The camera powers up pretty fast and you can begin recording in just a couple seconds. I love the fact that you can browse through the video and play anything on the fly. I would have thought at this price point it would take better still shots (only 1mp)but that wasnt really the reason I bought it anyway. Low light is ok.. it's no better or worse then my JVC Mini DV. I like the Sony 'night shot' feature. It allows you to take video in total darkness with a built in infrared mode. Do yourself a favor though and purchase an extended battery. The one that comes with it is pretty worthless at only a 1 hour rated life. I purchased the extended 9 hour battery and can realistically get about 4-5 hours without having to charge. The touchscreen is a little different but you get used to it quick. Kinda wish it had a viewfinder but that's on the next model up.

Mainly I purchased this because I was sick of dealing with tapes... I have a whole box of VHS and Mini DV tapes that I now have to take the time and convert to usable formats on my PC. The beauty of this camera is that all that goes away and the video is going to be in it's purest form for this level of camera. It doesnt take hollywood level video but at least you are removing one step out of the equation when having to re-render it. The software that comes with it is pretty worthless. about the only thing I liked was it has the ability to archive any changes from the camera whether video or photo and auto back it up with one click.

Don't buy the SR-40 or SR-60 you will be disapointed with the features vs. price. If you are looking to upgrade from tape go with this one the SR-80 becasue it is the best value over the two lower models. If you can afford it (i couldnt) Get the SR-100 becasue it has the better camera (3mp) and a viewfinder.

Compare the reviews of Sony vs JVC before you buy a HD Camera!!

This camcorder does capture good video. But the main drawback is that it records in MPEG2 format (DVD quality). Initially its nice and easy to capture video and watch it on your computer by downloading the files using the USB 2.0 connection. It gives you instant gratification. But after capturing 4 or 5 hours of video, you will notice that your videos aren't so great as you expect it to be. Its not the fault with your camcorder. Its because all of us shoot extra footage, unwanted scenes, shakes, etc which we want to edit. You may want to add a title or two, add transitions, add backgroud music, combine your photos with the video, etc. Basically you may want to edit your footage. Its here when you find the major drawback of this camcorder. The MPEG2 quality video is not good for editing. The video quality is so compressed that you won't have sufficient bandwidth to edit the video.

MPEG2 is a LOSSY compression technique used to compress large video files into smaller files that can be fit into a 4 GB or 8 GB DVD. Since the camcorder compresses the video and then writes to the hard disk, the source file that you download to your computer is already compressed and has lost much of its data during the compression. If you edit this already compressed file, you lose more data during the process thus resulting in poorer video quality.

When you edit these videos, add some transitions or special effects, increase/decrease brigthness or noise, etc, the newly edited video loses further clarity and thus makes your video look ugly and pixelated.

In summary please don't buy this camcorder if you are serious about your videos and would like to edit them. But if you are not bothered about editing and want to watch your unedited footage forever, then go for it.

That said, if you still think you want to go for this camcorder, please read the review on its other features:

1. Super NightShot Infrared System: Not a useful feature. Its amazining to initially see how this camcorder is able to "see" using infrared light. But the moment you shoot your subject using infrared light, you never want to shoot again as they will appear like devils when shot using this infrared light. Remember infrared footage appears almost black-and-white and not color. And the subject's eyes really look like devil.

2. 2.5-inch wide SwivelScreen LCD display with touch panel capabilities: Sony convenietly "forgot" to mention that this screen is NOT widescreen. Most of the camcorders now-a-days come with widescreen LCD. Its a good feature if you always want to shoot in widescreen. In fact I would suggest you to shoot in widescreen only as all future TVs and current LCD/Plasma TVs are widescreen. You can future proof your video by shooting widescreen. This camcorder DOES support widescreen video but the LCD is NOT widescreen. So when you shoot widescreen, you see black bands on the top and bottom.

3. Digital still photos: Please don't rely on this feature. The best photos from this camcorder as as good as the worst photos from any popular digital camera. Technology has still not matured to the point where a camcorder can shoot as good as a digital camera and vice versa.

4. 20x optical/120x digital zoom: Optical zoom is very good. You can handle upto 10X optical zoom without a tripod. Any more zoom requires the use of a tripod. I was able to zoom in and read a car tag from the top of Sears tower, Chicago. I love the zoom feature in this camcorder. Don't use the digital zoom feature. Turn it off. As mentioned above, MPEG2 compression already makes the video bad in quality. The digital zoom further makes it worst.

5. Professional-quality Carl Zeiss lens: Yes its good. The image quality is truly great. No doubt about it.

6. Super SteadyShot picture stabilization system: Good enough to avoid small vibrations caused when going on a ship for example. But not good enough for the shakes encountered when walking with the camcorder. Don't expect to get great footage in such conditions. For great footage, you must still rely on a steady hand or a tripod.

7. On-screen zoom and record buttons: Not an useful feature. The camcorder tends to shake more when you use these zoom buttons on the LCD because the LCD is always projecting outside when shooting video. Hence you shake the camcorder more when you touch the LCD than when you touch the camcorder's body.

8. USB 2.0 interface: Good interface. Fast enough to download 30 GB in 1.5 hours. Firewire interface would have been great. But USB 2.0 is also good enough

9. Image Mixer Software: Very useless software. The free Picasa software from Google is far better in organizning your videos and pictures than the software that comes with this camera. Forget about this software.

10. InfoLithium battery with AccuPower meter system: Great battery life. I could shoot for upto 1 hour 20 minutes with one battery. Remember we always don't shoot continously in everyday life. We turn the camcorder on and off repeatedly when shooting. This battery last for 1 hour 20 minutes during normal shooting as explained above. If you shoot continously you may get longer battery life.

11. NOTE: This camcorder does NOT have an Active Interface shoe. Other Sony camcorders do have this feature. This allows you to add other Sony accessories, for example, extra flood light. If you are not planning to add any accessory, then don't worry about the absence of this feature.

12. DVDDirect compatibility: This feature allows you to directly burn your video and photos to DVD. I don't think this is a very useful feature. Its always better to download to computer, and burn only the good files and photos to DVD instead of burning all of them.

Overall summary. Buy this camcorder only if you are not serious about editing the videos. Its a good buy for point-and-shoot-and-view pleasure only. In my opinion, a mini-DV camcorder (DCRHC42 for example) is still a better bet than a DVD or hard drive based model. The only inconvenience in a mini-DV model is that you have to be a bit techy to download video to computer. If you are ok with that, the mini-DV still provides good value for money as its far cheaper than DVD or hard-drive models.

Buy Sony DCR-SR80 60GB 1MP Hard Disk Drive Handycam with 12x Optical Zoom Now

I agree with the previous reviewer. The low light performance of this camera is pretty bad. Deeps reds are more like deep pinks...but other colors are quite natural, though a bit flat.

It is a nice camera otherwise: very compact, HDD makes a world of differenc in ease of use. Handgrip takes some getty used to.

Stills are useless. No built-in flash makes situation even worse.

Would have liked to have component video out so that we can get widescreen output diretly from the camcorder to TV.

I may end up trading this for the big-brother DCR-SR100....

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This camera is working out great for me. I love that I can play back movies instantly. The microphone works very well. Better then I expected in fact. I would agree that shooting in low light is not great, but it is adequate. It is also annoying that the image is shot in 16:9, but the LCD is 4:3. When I playback on my 16:9 TV I find that there are things in the shot I didn't see on the viewfinder. That's good actually, because the image on the TV is better than what I thought I was going to get.

Overall I am very happy with this camcorder and would certainly recomend it.

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This Handycam is Great for only one reason the 60gb hard disk. It means never having to worry about tapes or DVD etc. It's small and light.

I returned a Sony DVD handycam which malfunctioned within the first 30 days of receiving it and bought the SR80 instead.

I'll focus on the negatives:

a) VERY POOR low light performance. Shooting indoors is a pain. For example you try to shoot a dance floor in a night club forget this camera can't deliver. I am about to purchase the light attachment hoping to alleviate this problem. The only way to get halfway decent low light shots it to shoot in a party mode where the image loses all sharpness.

b) The original lens that comes with this camera ahs a very narrow focus it's like you have tunnel vision. I bought this in time for my daughter's 6th birthday party and the results were terrible. It was impossible to get a decent shot unless I was at least 10 ft away from the subject and I am talking about trying to get more than one person in the frame. I bought the wide angle lens for about $40 and this has made a lot of difference. The lens however is not sharp when you have zoomed out to the max. I also found that I cannot use the camera in most conditions without the wide angle lens. Why Sony would sell a camera with such a poor lens is beyond me.

c) Sound is OK. It's supposed to be Dolby Surround. It provides only mono sound with the Bluetooth remote sound attachment.

d) Super night shot is useless beyond a few feet. Trying to shoot our Christmas tree was a nightmare. The wide angle lens also blocks the infrared light that is supposed to light up what ever.

e) 1 mp Digital stills: Why do they even have the option? Results are terrible. There a cell phones which shoot better pictures?

Pros:

1) Image stabilization is excellent.

2) I already mentioned the benefit of having the large hard disk.

3) Good battery life.

4) Nice wide LCD makes it easy to operate even for people with big hands.

5) Easy to navigate interface.

6) Hot shoe for external attachments like additional light and Bluetooth microphone device is necessary.

7) Day light shots are great.

Zmodo PS-101 1A Single Port Power Supply

Bought two of these to power Zmodo cameras.. The power supply causes lines in the video of the camera like some kind of power bleed over.. removed it from the camera immediately to prevent damage..

The company will not refund your shipping. So returning the power supply will end up costing more than they are worth..

I have the suspicion this was known in advance and is part of the tactic to unload these things..

I was a huge waste of money and time..

not pad

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Elgato EyeTV 250 Plus Digital/Analog TV Receiver and Video Converter (10020780)

The EyeTV 250 Plus is an external USB based tuner that supports NTSC (Analog Cable and Satellite), ATSC (Digital Satellite) and QAM (Digital Cable). (Not all the models available for sale on Amazon are the newer one that added QAM support, so be careful This one definitely has the QAM support). It also has an adapter that can accept Composite and S-Video inputs along with analog stereo audio. For my purposes I was most interested in the QAM capability since I am a cable subscriber. The biggest difference between the cheaper EyeTV Hybrid and the EyeTV 250 Plus is that the 250 has an external MPEG-2 (Video)/MPEG-1 (Audio) encoder (The Hybrid model relies on your CPU to convert the signal into digital format). The advantage here is that when you're recording or viewing something off of either analog TV or the analog inputs all the encoding happens outside of your computer, so all the computer has to do is decode and display the video. This takes a lot of load off your CPU so it becomes much easier to multi-task.

The tuner itself is great. The biggest plus (in my case) is the ability to pick up Clear QAM digital HD channels. This confines you to only the broadcast channels (ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, and PBS in my case). It does take quite a bit of CPU power to handle HD broadcasts however.

More important than the tuner is the included EyeTV 3 Software, which controls the tuner. EyeTV 3 is pretty slick. It includes a TitanTV subscription so you can access TV listings and even remotely schedule a recording to your Mac. The program also allows you set up favorite channels. It also keeps the list of all the channels you have access to, which is my case is 461. Keep in mind that's an analog and digital version of every basic channel, plus the five HD channels I can see plus all the other HD channels that I can detect but can't watch (it just says encrypted). The only other channels that show up are any non-encrypted digital channels such as the local school districts TV stations and On-demand channels.

What I like best about EyeTV 3 (and I'm using 3.0.2) is that it offers a plethora of deinterlacing options. My number one annoyance is interlaced content. The beauty of EyeTV is that it does a great job deinterlacing content, which makes SD material look a whole lot better and removes some of the annoying jaggies in HD material. While it has the standard motion-adaptive and always settings for deinterlacing, it also offers a progressive scan setting which doubles the frame rate from 30 frames per second to 60 frames per second. The results is especially noticeable when watching SD material. I have to watch Versus via the s-video inputs on the EyeTV and I can hardly believe the huge difference that the progressive scan setting makes for watching hockey. It doesn't make it look anywhere close to HD but it makes it look a whole lot better. It's a bigger strain to use the progressive scan setting on HD content and it makes even more Core 2 Duo powered mini sweat (although I think this may have more to do with the poor on-board graphics) but with HD I don't find progressive scan to be as big of a plus.

The other great thing about EyeTV is that it functions as a super-DVR. You can set up series recordings just like you can with a normal DVR and EyeTV records the program and saves it to your hard drive. You can then use the built-in editor to remove commercials, etc. While the editor isn't iMovie, it's pretty good and the preview panes down on the bottom can help you find the commercials quickly. What makes EyeTV superior to a regular DVR is that you can keep your recordings around as long as you have disk space and you can edit them. You can automatically have recordings exported to other formats even directly for your iPod or Apple TV. Many people have asked about a recording feature for the Apple TV, and the EyeTV is the closest thing to it. You can set up a recording, and then tell it to export to Apple TV and add to iTunes. Once the show is finished it'll do the exporting and it'll be available on the Apple TV.

So what isn't it good at? Well, I find the exporting feature the most frustrating. It captures everything in MPEG-2 video and either AC3 Audio or MPEG-1 Audio. My frustration is that the exporting feature is extremely slow. When I do a recording sometimes I'll get about 3 seconds of data on the beginning of the recording that I don't want there. Editing it out is easy enough, but then EyeTV insists on compacting the whole recording again. Also, even though EyeTV can capture and play AC3 (Dolby Digital) tracks, it can't output them to QuickTime files. It's AppleTV setting also lacks support for 24 frames per second so everything (even if its HD) is dropped to 960*540 if it has a frame rate of 30 fps. (The good news is that the solution to this program is free! HandBrake) I also find the lack of dual tuners annoying. Although EyeTV 3 has a Picture-In-Picture function it can't be used unless you have two devices because the EyeTV 250 Plus is a single tuner only. This also means that if you're recording a program you also have to watch whatever you're recording. So if there are two programs on at the same time that you want to record you're out of luck. My final complaint is a pipe dream, but it would be really nice if the EyeTV 250 could accept component and digital inputs for the recording of HD material with digital audio.

All in all I am extremely satisfied with the EyeTV 250 Plus, despite the few shortcomings. It provides a great TV-on-you-Mac solution at a relatively low cost.

I bought this specifically to do VHS to DVD conversion. So my review will not cover a lot about the tuner functionality. What I can say about that setup went quick, event free, and everything worked all my channels including those fancy new digital ones (which look really nice on the computer screen). Once the guide downloaded everything seemed ready to record just like a Tivo. The remote control requires you to be a bit of a sharpshooter, but it's not as bad as my Philips DVD Player.

The options for quality and recording length are limitless. There are four quality setups and then a custom one which you can tweak every setting. I believe recording length is limited to 12 hours per recording which is no problem for me. Seamless integration with Toast (which also came with it) and a plethora of export options to keep anyone happy. The quality is crisp. People that complain of VHS conversion quality encoding have one of two problems 1) They don't remember how crappy VHS looks compared to digital 2) Their VCR is a piece of garbage. I'm using an $1800 professional Sony editing VCR as the playback device it cleans up the quality and makes the tapes look as good as possible. Remember The better the source, the better the quality. Don't expect this device to make your tapes look better, just the same. However, I was able to tweak some tapes that had poor color and sharpness from a crappy camcorder. It has those settings, too.

It's mac quality at its finest I have transferred over 60 hours of video in my first week with it without ONE problem. No errors, glitches, encoding errors, anything IT JUST WORKS.

There is a PC version made by Terratec, but it's kind of hard to find I've read that it is almost as good as this for the PC.

Buy Elgato EyeTV 250 Plus Digital/Analog TV Receiver and Video Converter (10020780) Now

It was a breeze to hook up and get running on my Mac: plug in the device, let the setup run to scan for channels, define the recording directory, etc. The software is mostly trouble-free, but has a few minor glitches that I've gotten used to.

One is a one-time annoyance: linking the channels to the TitanTV program guide. It's a little more tedious than it needs to be. The second problem is an ongoing thing: occasionally, when it wakes up to record a program it doesn't seem to "see" the signal from the antenna and i get a blank recording instead of a show. If you're "catch-up" watching (watching a show while you're recording it) it will yank you out of your show and into live tv when the recording finishes, and you have to go back and find your place to continue watching the recording. Finally, it seems to eat up more CPU time than it should, even while it's not (apparently) doing anything. However, El Gato seems to be very committed to software maintenance and enhancement, and the EyeTV software has improved even in the short time i've owned it!

All in all, though, it's easy to use, convenient and a great alternative to those all-in-one DVR boxes, since you have so much control over scheduling, editing and exporting for later iPod viewing.

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If you have cable and an iMac, and simply want to watch TV on your Mac then this is a great choice.

If you want to put HDTV in a sitting room or lounge, and want DVR capability, then you can't do much better than a 27" iMac and the EyeTV 250 Plus. I recommend an external 1TB (or bigger) FW800 drive, but it's not essential.

If you are looking for a high performance AV setup for your cutting-edge home theater, then you can do better, but the EyeTV 250 Plus and a Mac Mini is still an excellent cost-effective option for a DVR, especially if you want to avoid DRM plagued AppleTV and cable/satellite boxes and want the convenience of a turnkey system.

I recently upgraded from a four year old third party demodulator/encoder box to the EyeTV 250 Plus. This also allowed me to upgrade from EyeTV (software) version 2.4 to version 3.3.1. I'm pleased with both, but very happy with the hardware. The whole setup runs on a 20" iMac (mid-2007 2.0GHz Core2Duo, 128MB Radeon HD 2400 graphics with 1680x1050 resolution), also upgraded with an external 4TB RAID array.

My house receives "antenna service" on cable an unfiltered clear QAM signal from my cable provider. This signal includes analog broadcast channels, most basic cable channels and many digital HDTV channels, both broadcast and cable. It appears to be the intended service for this device.

The EyeTV 250 Plus hardware does a very good job encoding all of these cable signals into streaming digital video. (The default settings for analog SD encoding are a little dark, but the software gives you control over this.) All encoding is done in hardware and provided to the computer's USB input. Analog SD signals are very clean, and -unlike my previous devicethe Elgato output is free of glitches caused by flashes and jump cuts. HDTV signals broadcast at 720p and 1080i come thru sharp and crisp and very well balanced. A range of deinterlacing options are provided, and the adaptive option works well.

The encoding module is small and unobtrusive, and the power module fits on a power strip without interfering with adjacent plugs. I really can't find much to criticize with the hardware it could offer more encoding/compression options, but the options provided are adequate. The connectors are all very close together, making threading on the cable connector sometimes difficult, but that seems to be a universal problem with appliances using the cable TV 'F' connector. The remote control operation is a little obtuse some of the buttons are unlabled, and even when you press them it's not clear what they do. Behavior seems to depend on whether you're watching live TV or a recording. I'm sure there's a manual page somewhere buried on the CD-ROM, but Elgato should have provided a quick reference card with this remote.

The EyeTV 3 software provides several functions: 1) buffering and watching live TV, 2) recording programs and playing them back, 3) managing your library of recorded programming, 4) editing and exporting recorded programming, and 5) the channel lineup and programming guide.

For EyeTV software, functions 1) and 2) are essentially the same operation. Live TV is recorded to a buffer of configurable size, and played back from that file for display. Version 3 of this software allows the user to save this buffer into a video file or begin a new recording. Only one Live TV stream is available per encoding device, but the number of playback files isn't limited unless you choose the preferences option to use only a single playback window.

Playback is responsive and robust as long as the hard drive can keep up. This is usually not an issue, but I encountered it using an exceptionally slow external drive (now replaced). If the file storage device is slow or busy, playback exhibits hesitation and skipping; there is room for improvement here by adding an adaptive playback buffer on a local drive to accommodate slow storage media. This will be a more common problem as people adopt NAS devices, or share libraries between EyeTV installations.

The other way to record a program is to schedule a recording. The schedule features in EyeTV 3 are much improved, with the basic scheduling more than adequate to timeshift a nightly or weekly program. For collecting entire seasons of series, the Smart Season Guide feature will help you find new episodes and avoid recording repeats.

The software includes a basic editor, suitable for trimming the ends and commercialectomies, and exports programs to iPod, iPhones, Toast (a basic version is bundled with EyeTV) and other libraries/devices.

The final feature is the programming guide. This is the one area where I am dissatisfied with EyeTV and Elgato. Certainly, the quality of this feature depends a lot on the content provider (in this case, TV Guide and formerly Titan TV) and Elgato claims to be trying to keep the cost of subscription down. But the EyeTV program guide and its interface to TVGuide's servers are not robust, and failure mode reporting is obtuse and uninformative. In general the approach is inelegant and frustrating to use. Associating user-configured channels with any program guide source is next to impossible. I find the web-based TitanTV service easier to use, and to Elgato's credit, the interface between the TitanTV browser window and EyeTV is nearly seamless.

Elgato provides reasonably good customer service on its website for its hardware and software. I have had good and bad experiences with its ticket submission system. Their response time is usually one or two days. Their knowledgebase is less satisfactory, and often contains out of date information. Your first and best resource for support should be the EyeTV Lounge discussion forum. Several Elgato technical support representatives are active on this forum and will either answer your questions or refer you to their support ticket system.

All in all, the EyeTV hardware and software are the best, most integrated solution to connect the coax coming out of your wall to a Macintosh, and competes very strongly with some of the best Windows and Unix based solutions. It doesn't replace a cable box, and certainly won't decrypt scrambled Pay TV channels. It's meant for a clear QAM cable signal, and does the basics very, very well.

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This thing does what it is designed to do: however, some Internet descriptions of it are vague (and the manufacturer's own site could be clearer) so please be sure that it is designed to do what you WANT it to do. Also, while it has a lot of DVR features (including some that some of the reviewers obviously couldn't figure out and claimed it doesn't have) it is NOT a Tivo or a single-function DVR and it is NOT as easy to use or as gee-whizzy as such stand-alone devices usually are.

While it does have its own signal processor (which is why I picked it over the EyeTV Hybrid) your computer does still have some work to do. I don't care what it says on the box, if you don't have a Core Duo or preferably a Core Duo 2 based machine, don't bother unless you are willing to put up with slower performance and possible performance issues. That, as they say, is life. Also, make sure your OS is up to date, you have plenty of RAM, and you don't have fifty zillion little doohickies running in the background all the time. I am using a 1.8GHz Core Duo 2 Mac Mini with OSX 10.3 and 2GB of RAM, recording to an external USB2 HD, and it is smooth as can be.

I am using it solely to digitize VHS videotapes. To answer a question it took me FOREVER to research on the Web, it DOES allow you to digitize commercial VHS tapes with Macrovision. (However, I am digitizing tapes I own for archival/backup purposes, which is clearly allowed under US Copyright Law no matter what the content providers claim. You should not use it to digitize tapes or other media you don't own, because that's stealing. Also, once you digitize them, you can destroy them, but you can't give them away or sell them, because that's also stealing.) The quality is acceptable especially when you consider, as another poster pointed out, that VHS video quality sucks compared to modern digital cable, HDTV, or DVD media.

While you can adjust the recording quality, please be advised that digitized video at watchable quality takes up lots of space. I'm averaging about a gig and a half an hour of VHS video. If you want to watch it on a big screen and enjoy the experience, you can't compare it to how small the little videos people email you are or YouTube videos. If you aren't willing to buy some HD space, then either digitize at low quality and don't complain, or don't buy this thing for digitizing video.