Full HD 1080P 20M Underwater Waterproof Night Sports Action Camera for Surfing Surfboard Bike Car M

The tiny camera was a purchase for viewing underwater competitive swimming stroke evaluation. Unfortunately, the charging cable came in a Chinese format and could not be immediately charged from American electrical outlets. I would have figured an adapter of some sort might have been included for an international clientele.

Great picture but short battery life. The information/user manual doesn't give a lot of troubleshooting support and there's no company website. If it breaks, I guess it's done. I kept the static lens cover on, because there is no supporting protection or cover for the lens. It does not include parts that allow you to attach to a helmet and/or rifle with a picattiny rail system.

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Rode MiCon-2 Connector for 3.5mm Select Stereo Devices

• Micon to 3.5mm Stereo Adapter
• An Adapter for Your RODE Mic! Wireless Adapter/Cable s:lilrode
• RODE MiCon to Standard 1/8" Adapter

Works, but insultingly expensive.

(If these things in fact cost nothing to make, Rode might want to rethink this, and lower the price. People will be much happier with them if a $300+ mic of theirs comes with a whole PACK of these, covering all common sockets. I wonder how many people, like me, receive their stuff, realizing they forgot to get the adapters, and can't use their thing until a 2nd order arrives. An *expensive* second order.)

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These were for my Rode Lavalier. I'm a little concerned at the size of the connector, but with that said, I haven't had any issues so far and the connection seems solid.

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So the pin mic needs phantom power to work, and none of my recording units have phantom power in a 3.5mm jack, only the 3 pin XLR jacks provide phantom power. That goes for mixing boards and what not too.

AVerMedia MCECINEMA Averlife Cinema Media Player

• Support Video: Max Resolution: HDMI output up to 720p,/RM/RMVB up to 1024x574/MPEG 1&2/AVI/DivX/XviD/DAT &
• Support Audio: MP3/OGG/WAV
• Support Photo: JPG/JPEG/BMP/PNG/TIFF/GIF
• Support Text File: Txt . MOV up to 720x576
• HDMI Output, up to 720p;Enjoy videos in various formats;
• Create a photo slideshow of family and friends directly on your TV
• Listen to your favorite songs by streaming audio files in different formats ;

Bottom Line: Good for pictures anywhere or video files on a small screen. (To be fair, for the price this isn't all that bad. I bought it for a bit less than "the price" on sale so I feel even better.)

The unit is small, about the size of a paperback book. I liked that it came with both a component cable (necessary because the player-side connection is non-standard) and an HDMI connector. The player display and menus have a polished look, unlike some low cost media players still available.

Image display is nice. There are a number of built in, nicely done, transitions, and you can configure it to use one all the time or select randomly.

Video display is where this thing falls apart. To test it I rendered the same short movie clip at three different MPEG-2 resolutions. VCD 480x480, PC 640x480, and HD 1920x1080. The VCD played fine but was fuzzy on my large screen. The PC version was sharper but noticeable slower. (The accompanying audio changed key... actually, several keys.) The HD version wouldn't play at all. (There was a pop-up message saying it was an unrecognized format.)

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The manual or description nowhere says that this player can play HD video files. It do has HDMI output, and can output a 720p picture, but it is only for player menu and image display. Video playback is purely SD (1024x576 is not a HD, it's just native 16:9 SD).

I've tried various video formats, here's the results:

DIVX AVI (DIVX3-4-5-6) All ok.

ISO MPEG2 (720x576) ok.

SVCD (544x576, 480x576) partially ok, while playback is smooth and in sync with audio, image gets distorted at regular intervals of time (approx once per 2 seconds).

RealMedia I had some old, QCIF resolution files, thrown them in, plays them OK. Have no idea, how it will handle larger resolution files.

Quicktime (.mov), both small resolution files, and higher resolution ones (640x480x30fps) were played nicely.

While this unit plays standalone .vob files finely, it does not supports DVD menu, navigation or chapters.

The only one drawback I've noticed is oversaturated colors at HDMI output (haven't tried other ones). I have to reduce saturation on my TV from 50 to 30, when using this player, to make colors look normal.

Another con in movies with AC3 audio, audio level is too low, and have to crank up it to max.

Another con #2 while this device recognises flash drives and hard drives easilly, it does not recognises external DVD-ROM.

Overall, this is nice product, and for $20 price tag, this will be the quite reasonable purchase.

UPDATE: Found a serious flaw with this device. Contacted avermedia support, but no answer for 2 weeks so far.

When playing .VOB files, which have audio track with LPCM audio in it (most musical videos and concert recordings have LPCM audio), video and audio playback speed increases, hissing and chopping sound is heard, and video and audio came out of sync.

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Pros: Small; NTFS for USB hard drives (meh); Remote; Wide range of outputs (will go from my HDTV to CRT in kids room to LCD in mini van).

Cons: No internal storage (meh); No exFAT (Biggie: no support for

Maxell Music 32x 80 minute / 700MB CD-R Media for Audio, 30 Pack Spindle

I've recorded more than 2,000 blank CDs of music, mostly classical, from originals to copies, from LPs, cassettes, reel-to-reel tape to CD, from CD copies of one brand to CD copies on Maxell blanks using both Sony and Philips CD burners, and from downloads directly via sites and through my PC's processes. In my experience, Maxell Music CDR is the most reliable brand of music CD on the market. They consistently outperform Sony, Fujifilm and Memorex (and any other brand I've used) and give me a product I can play on my PC, my CD player, my CD player-burner and in my car CD player.

I've been doing this with music going back to the middle 1970s when I regularly recorded from radio broadcasts and my turntable to cassette and to reel to reel tape. I followed tape technology in its day and bought my first CD player in 1986. I bought a Philips CD burner in the 1990s and later bought the Sony CD burner I use today. I have recorded from a turntable and cassette originals to CD using Maxell wiht nary a slip other than an occasional fault in my burner.

My success stories with Maxell products are plentiful. I purchased a download of a Beethoven choral work about a year ago that was no longer available in any purchasable CD format other than in an expensive multi-CD collection. I downloaded it to my PC, then burned it to a Fujifilm 80 minute music-data CD. The transfer was successful but, once I played the CD, it included a lot of static that reminded me of what it used to be like playing LPs. I'd heard this before -in the waning days of my old Philips CD burner when it would not successfully transfer the music from one medium to another without some excess noise also being transferred. When I bought my new Sony CD burner and burned a new Maxell CD from my earlier CD burn, the noise was gone and I was left with a pristine original.

Most recently, I downloaded a free copy of a symphony from an online Bruckner site to my computer, then burned it onto a Memorex 80 minute music-data CD using my PC's directions for a "mastered" disk (via Windows Vista Supreme), which is supposed to be playable in any conventional CD player. Once finished, the new disk played perfectly on my home players. When I tried it in the car, however, the player wouldn't read it.

I burned this CD onto a Maxell Music blank using my CD burner and this issue is now resolved. This is just one in thousands of episodes I've had over the years using Maxell's superior product. As I understand it, the reason they work so well is because, ironically, they can record at speeds as low as 4X. Don't ask me why but it works. This is the brand to buy if you want to record music from any medium to CD.

I have used hundreds of Maxell Music CD-R media through the years without problems, and acutally prefer them to any other music CD-R's. I ordered three of these spindles in November 2009 and just began using them. Immediately I began to get music with skips making them unacceptable for use. I opened a new spindle and experienced the same problem. I was afraid that my write drive was bad, but regular (non-music) Maxell Cd's recorded music fine. As a last resort, I went to my local computer store and bought a Maxell Music 50 pack, (which differed only by having interior plastic wrap and a "Made in Taiwan" sticker on top). These work fine, as I have always experienced. I can only conclude that the discs that Amazon is selling are defective. It may be that some will work and others will not, but I do not have the time or inclination to try each one to get a correct burn. Of course the return date has expired, so I will just have to recycle them. Be forewarned!!!

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Maxell makes a very reliable blank CD-R that can handle up to 80 minutes of music or 700 megabytes of data. Moreover, these blank CD-Rs are capable of recording data at high speeds. I have used these as data discs and discs to record audio. I almost never got a coaster. Great!

The CD-R discs are compact and easy to store. While the discs are still blank, store them in the circular case on the spindle that they came in. After your burn data or music onto them, I would recommend storing them in slim jewel cases instead of paper sleeves. It's just better protection for your CD-Rs that have anything stored on them. Don't store these discs, burnt or blank, in rooms that become very hot; this causes damage to any brand of this type of disc and you could lose data over time.

There are two caveats that many other people note about any brand of this product: when you are burning the data onto the blank disc, don't be surprised if you see that the data is burning at a rate slower than the packaging advertises. This can happen if your burner doesn't have the capacity to burn faster, or it may be a quirk. I am not a professional so I cannot be certain of precisely what causes this phenomenon; but I assure you that the extra minute or two (tops) that you wait to get your CD-R completed is worth the wait. In addition, DON'T write on these using Sharpie ink pens. The ink can seep through the top coating of the CD-R disc and slowly but surely compromise your data--and you wouldn't want that, now would you? If you need to label the discs, label its jewel case using a post-it note.

Overall, Maxell blank CD-R discs store data very reliably and I believe that an extra minute or so to burn the data onto the blank disc is well worth it just in case it doesn't actually burn at the very highest speed advertised.

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I needed the best CD-Rs available in a hurry, so I went to Walgreen's and passed up on Memorex, Sony, and another less expensive brand in favor of this golden-faced Maxell CD-R 30-count music spindle. They were all coasters, playing intermittently and then sticking. Not a usable one in the bunch.

[Amazon doesn't deliver on Saturday, or I could have waited. the 100 CD-R spindle of Verbatim discs that I had ordered from Amazon came on Monday. Immediately, I tried burning the same 60-minute music file using the same equipment for recording and playing back the file. No problems. Perhaps it could just as easily have been the other way around. Nevertheless, it's somewhat like the restaurant business. If that first meal is undercooked, etc., the customer is hesitant to return. These Maxells do have a somewhat embossed, uneven upper surface to accommodate the fancy gold and silver patterns. I'm not sure, but that tiny irregularity could be too much for some players to cope with.]

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This has nothing to do with the quality of sound that was recorded on the CDs but with the fact that half or more failed. We were sent this brand of music CDs as a substitution for the ones we ordered. It took 2 spools of 50 CDs each to get 60 CDs to burn at all. The ones that did burn played OK but we noticed what looked like a lot of flaking in the CD material itself.

Bottom line We will not use this brand again nor do we recommend it at all.

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Roku SoundBridge M500 Network Music System

• Wireless digital music receiver for streaming music from a PC or Mac to any home stereo or surround sound system
• Native support for Apple iTunes and Rendezvous, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Player 10, and Rhapsody
• Compatible with Windows Media DRM 10 music services, including Napster, MusicMatch, and Walmart.com
• Easy-to-read 40-character, 2-line LCD display shows artist and title info; built-in WiFi card slot (card included) and Ethernet interfaces
• Ultra-fast 400 MHz Blackfin DSP; measures 10 inches wide by 2.37 inches in diameter; 1-year warranty

Roku's Soundbridge units don't work with all routers, so before you think wireless music is within your sites, do your homework. To Roku's credit, they offer a list of, and rate compatability factors for, most of the common routers consumers are using at home. CHECK THIS LIST CAREFULLY before you buy this product or you might end up with some expensive audio equipment that only works if you go WIRED. Also, Roku has a nice discussion board forum on their site, and you can get a realistic idea about issues concerning the pros and cons of their products. If you do buy something that doesn't work, they do offer a 30 day-no-questions-asked return policy. Bottom line is CHECK OUT THEIR SITE b4 u buy anywhere else.

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Received this unit last night. Had it set up in minutes! Instructions were simple, configured to my wi-fi with encryption, no problem. Found my computer, no problem, didn't find my napster library added the folder with my music to the shared folder, then worked no problem. Internet radio station no problem. It will drive headphones directly if you want, has volume control on remote. Would be great driving computer speakers. Even shows time and date when off.

With napster it is really great. I can load up my computer with thousands of tunes and then put the M500 anywhere in the house and have access to all the tunes. One of the few devices that can do this with "rented" music.

I highly recommend this device.

The 500 has all the features of the bigger brothers but not the slicker display. However the LCD is plenty readable. The VU meters are a bit slow (not a big deal). It comes with the Wi-Fi card (which you install used to be an option I guess) so it is really ready to go out of the box. If you have napster, rapsody, yahoo music or a lot of your CD's ripped to MP3, WMA or AAC than you should consider this.

What you can't do (maybe true of all "streaming" devices) is fast forward or rewind inside a track. This can be problematic with long tracks if you want to hear a section again.

Finally I have napster to go and an Iriver player. On the Iriver the gaps between tracks are long while the player loads the next track, this can be annoying on classical or spoken word works. The Soundbridge doesn't have this problem. I think because the computer can stream the next track faster than the portable Iriver could. (this is a DRM WMA issue, for the Iriver and not an issue with MP3's).

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Within 20 seconds of plugging it in I was playing music from my iTunes music library on my Powerbook. Simply could not have been any easier. Excellent sound quality. Streams internet radio stations (including any in the iTunes Radio tuner and tons more) -it more than replaces XM or Sirius anywhere you have internet access.

Minor downsides: Remote could be designed better, and would be nice if it used 802.11g instead of b (since tests have shown that one "b" device slows down the whole "g" network), but these are minor complaints in relation to how well the SoundBridge works and how easy it is to use.

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Finally bought after several weeks on research. It works well; easy to connect to ITunes and Rhapsody (my two favorite music servers).

Just a few notes

1) The manual is a bit hard to follow especially concerning wireless connectivity.

2) Will not stream Itune files ripped using Apple lossless really big deal for me since I use lossless as my default.

3) 802.11b instead of g no big deal to me; my network performance is mostly gated by the speed of my DSL connection.

The biggest problem is setting it up. If all works well when you first plug it in great. Else be prepared to search through the tech support documents and the user forums.

Everything the other reviewers claim is true.

It was easy to set up, was found instantly by my wireless router and is reliable and responsive. It is served music by my PC's Windows Media Player and Media Connect which you must download if you're using WMP 10.0. If you're using WMP 11.0 the music server is already built in.

The unit will show up as an icon in your 'My Network Places' window and by right clicking it (the icon) you can Invoke' a web page to configure your settings, see what you're playing and cut, copy and paste Internet Radio Station urls of your choice.

Yahoo also has a cute (did I say that?) little Widget to control the Roku from the Server PC or any other PC that's on your network....and with album artwork too...So if you're in one room with the Widget and the Roku is in another, you can advance, replay, pause and adjust the volume from the PC that you're at!

Music is such a large part of my life and this little gem teamed with either MusicMatch, Yahoo Unlimited Music or my own 'ripped' library give me complete control over my music listening needs.

Do not pass go, do not consider any other music client...I promise that the Roku of any numeric ilk will do exactly what you want.

If need be, please eMail me for further info about this or any other item that I've reviewed.

Peace Out,

Warren

Nokia C5-04 Unlocked GSM Phone with 5 MP Camera and Ovi Maps Navigation Optimized for T-Mobile--U.S

This is not having a 5 MP camera instead it's only have a 2 MP camera. Features are all same as Nokia C5-03 with only difference in Camera resolution and Wi-Fi. There is no Wi-Fi in this version which is absurd. There is no point of buying Nokia C5-04 instead of Nokia C5-03.

Amazon listed this product with wrong details of 5 MP camera which is actually confusing. I am returning this product due to this.

No 5MP camera & no Wi-Fi on this phone !!!! So DON'T buy this phone based on the specs given here ! What is Amazon coming to ??!!!!

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Yeah boo! This item is listed wrong. Only 2 MP camera and no WiFi for the C5-04. Battery life is good though, plus 3G for Tmo, and the latest Symbian^1 is nice.

Read Best Reviews of Nokia C5-04 Unlocked GSM Phone with 5 MP Camera and Ovi Maps Navigation Optimized for T-Mobile--U.S Here

To clear things up, here's a link to another review on the C5-04:

I've just bought this phone from Wind Mobile in Canada. It looks like their entire product line is being replaced so I am guessing that this phone has reached the end of its marketing cycle.

First, the good stuff about this phone. It's decent-looking in design, with decent construction quality. The screen colours are not lacking, and the interface looks quite pleasant. Despite have a resistive touchscreen, the "buttons" on this phone do not require too much pressure to press, which reduces fatigue. Typing on the screen number pad and QWERTY keyboard is relatively easy. The OVI Maps is an excellent application for GPS navigation on foot and vehicle, thus I recommend that if you do want this phone to consider purchasing the 3G data plan if the rates are not too high. The themes and wallpapers can also be customized. The Symbian OS seems to be pretty easy to use, with an intuitively-designed interface. As microSD cards up to 16GB can be inserted into the phone, users can prevent clogging up their phone memory with apps. Speakerphone volume can get very loud, but may be a little distorted when set to max. As for the call quality itself, it's great, as that's what Nokia phones are renowned for.

Now the bad stuff, which stacks up against this phone. The lack of a Wifi adapter on this phone is infuriating, as 3G speeds are not as fast as promised by my cellphone provider. Opening any webpage, downloading anything, or simply transmitting and receiving data over the internet takes minutes to accomplish. I believe that this is also because the phone only has 128MB of RAM. When connecting to the computer by the provided USB cable, the phone tends to freeze several times. Thus I've given up on the OVI suite and have resorted to copying files directly from my computer to the microSD card itself. The web browser itself is showing its age, which is true of the Symbian S60 OS itself. Also, without a capacitive touchscreen, performing any tasks in the web browser is tedious and slow. The shortcuts on the home screen cannot be changed, so accessing installed apps can be tedious and discouraging. The phone memory is a paltry 75 MB. After installing the updates from OVI suite it's already almost full and I have to start deleting stuff. The OVI store itself has a relatively limited selection of apps, which is a positive indicator for its demise (after all Nokia is switching to Windows Mobile based smartphones). The camera isn't bad because it's 2MP (on the contrary, many cellphones with 2MP do take more than acceptable pictures), it's because it's fixed focus, which means the lens can't adjust at all when taking photos. Thus the pictures are downright terrible. Same thing for the video. Another thing for music fans the phone doesn't support East Asian characters (or any characters other than the Latin alphabet AFAIK), so be prepared to deal with long lists of box characters when searching for music on your phone.

As a smartphone, this is an outright failure. By restricting the S60 OS features, memory size, and RAM capacity, and taking away Wifi, Nokia took away potentially great qualities from a phone that could have been MUCH better (it's a shame that a 600MHz processor was paired with such lacklustre hardware). The lack of the decent camera scares away the one last potential demographic for this phone the teenager on a budget. In fact, they should have just gotten rid of the camera itself and focused on improving the hardware specs. Remember the saying, "Jack of all trades, master of none?" Well, this phone is not even a jack of all trades. It nearly fails to perform any of its smartphone functions adequately.

The redeeming features of this phone are it's call quality, loud speakerphone and excellent GPS navigation app. However, if one wants to use the GPS, they need 3G internet access. That doesn't seem to be worth it when you consider that the web browser is annoying to use, and access to the OVI store is terribly slow. As Nokia makes plenty of phones with good call quality and loud speakerphones, one might as well just buy a normal Nokia cellphone at half the price. Stay away from this phone. In fact, when my parents get new phones from Wind's new lineup in December, I'll probably switch with one of them. For the meantime, I'll be using this thing as a phone, messaging device, GPS, and music player all of which are functions provided by the typical cellphone today.

Edit (September 13, 2011): I realize that I may have been a little too critical of this phone, so here's an update.

The Swype program comes standard with this phone, so typing has been made much easier. As you use the Swype function more, it gets better at guessing the word that you want to input. I find texting others and answering emails easy now that I have started using Swype. Also, once you install the Opera mobile web browser, browsing and loading pages becomes much faster. However, it does not support Flash so you'll have to resort to your default web browser for that. The OVI Apps store may be lacking in apps, but the OVI suite itself is well-designed and pretty easy to use. Transferring contacts, music, and photos is a breeze.

Again, while this phone has a resistive touchscreen, I just can't help but notice how well it is programmed. It's not too sensitive to be pressed accidentally but you only have to press down with a little pressure to press a button. When scrolling through songs in the music player, I found almost as easy as with the iPod's interface. Speaking of which, there is also a custom equalizer with much more settings than the average portable music player's.

I do have mores gripe about the S60 OS, however. To change profiles I always have to go to Menu -> Settings -> Personal -> Profiles, and then change my profile. This does become tedious after awhile, and one does wonder why Nokia didn't make it accessible from the home screen to begin with as many other manufacturers have. Sadly, the on-screen keyboard is simply too small, and with thick fingers like mine I can't really see what I'm typing sometimes, which makes it hard to use the Swype function.

One suggestion I have for potential buyers of this phone is to get a microSD card of at least 8GB and make sure that all downloaded apps are installed onto that instead of the phone memory. Even then, when I only have the Opera browser open the phone still runs out of memory.

My verdict is that this phone would be fine for those who usually text, talk, and listen to music a lot, but are also interested in accessing the internet from an ultraportable device. I am also raising my rating of this phone from 2 stars to 3 stars, as I've realized that my previous verdict was partly due to my unfamiliarity with the S60 OS, which has proven itself to be quite easy to use with a few exceptions.

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Lamentablemente espere mucho por el envio a mi pais, para darme cuenta que el telefono que me vendieron no es el que ofrecieron, no tiene camara de 5 Mp sino de 2 Mp, no tiene WIFI, no acceso modificar o ver documentos de Office, no se conecta a Ovi Nokia Suite o a pc Siute, muestra la pantalla como si estuviese desbloqueado y realmente si lo esta atrasando las llamadas entrantes, si realmete hay una posibilidad de cambiar este equipo y me hagan una devolucion por favor devuelvamen mi dinero o me cambien el producto por otro que sea reamente lo que ofrezcan

Hauppauge 1198 WinTV-HVR-950 TV Tuner Stick/Personal Video Recorder with Remote Control (Black)

I run the Hauppage USB 950Q Tuner on a Windows Vista 32-bit system with a high end Nvidia 9800 640MB PCI-E video card, dual core Pentium 2.8ghz processors and a Creative Xi-Fi PCI soundcard, with 3GB's of system RAM. This is well above the minimum requirements.

My primary use involves plugging in the coaxial cable line directly to the USB Tuner, in order to record certains shows a couple of times a week.

I did some basic research and read the various reviews of what was out there. My video card takes up so much space, that I didn't want to fool with squeezing a PCI card inside the case, a USB card that I could even take on the road with my lap top easily, seemed perfect.

This version comes with (at this time) the latest Hauppage drivers on the CD. It's best to install the CD apps first before plugging the USB device in. If you don't, make sure to cancel the Windows prompt to find drivers on it's own.

I also had to install the WinTV application in order for Windows Media Center to recognize the signal. I prefer to use WMC because of it's very nice guide, genre summaries of "what's on" and the speed at which it operates. I still need to fool around a bit with the aspect ratio, as I have a widescreen 24" flat panel monitor.

After the 10 minutes or so it takes to scan all of the analog cable channels, I played the live TV and the picture was grainy, choppy, and kept stuttering out. It took me a while to figure out it was a bad signal from the cable line. Keep this in mind if your picture is snowy, having blips or a white line running through it intermittently etc..., you probably need a Cable Signal Amplifier. I got a bi-directional cable TV amplifier from Radioshack for $34 and after plugging it in the right way, the signal and picture for analog channels was noticeably improved, and I am now reasonably happy with it. Make sure your fuzzy picture is not a result of this, if you have any splitters on your line, multiple TV's and an internet modem hooked up to your cable lines, an amplifier can work wonders. I haven't seen this obvious remedy mentioned in any other reviews, so wanted to make sure I put it in here.

I also tested the included atenna, and the local, free QAM or HD channels it picked up, looked fantastic, the analog channels were too choppy but clearer than the cable picture, I didn't spend much time with the antenna though. The problem is there are very few of these HD/QAM channels available, even here in a major city where I live, and they are just versions of the local network station (which I rarely watch). Literally 4-6 of these, if that.

If the day comes where everything is broadcast in HD, this card will make the picture rather remarkable, for obvious reasons being you don't have to convert an analog signal and the resolutions match hi-res PC monitors much more closely.

WinTV is very cumbersome and slow, I notice a slightly better picture with it at this point, versus WMC, but WMC's functionality make it the preferred application.

Unfortunately I cannot find a way to easily switch back and forth between the Antenna source and Analog Cable line, without having to re-scan everything which takes 10+ minutes for WinTV, less for WMC. I don't think there is an easy way, even with another splitter.

So, buy a cable tv amplifier, (bi-directional if you use PPV or Indemand services etc..,) make sure you have a powerful video card (more important than your CPU but they ultimately both work together) and at least 2GB of system RAM if you're on Vista ecspecially.

This should give you adequate results and feel this is probably one of the better, more affordable, PC TV with HD/QAM options out there, and should get better with time as broadcasts move to an all-digital signal.

Of course if you have a DVR or hi-def cable box, use the S-video connection if possible, and your HD channels and other digital channels will probaby look and play even better.

Hauppauge Model 1198, HVR-950 does not have Clear QAM as described in the title, and item information.

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I am using this tuner as part of a Beyond TV setup with multiple tuner cards for receiving OTA HDTV broadcasts. Installing the tuner software was easy, and its tuning sensitivity seems as good as the other brands of HDTV tuner cards I have used. I have not tested the remote control with it, so I cannot comment on that part of it. I did not try the video-in option or the included antenna so I cannot comment on those either. I briefly hooked my analog cable up to it and it seemed to tune those channels well also. The included software suite is adequate and does what it says it does. Its compact size would make it great for travel and/or a laptop.

When you hook this up you may want to use the USB extender cable to minimize strain on your computer's USB port from the cable attached to the tuner weighing down on the port.

Needless to say, the only disadvantage of this type of product vs. a plug-in card or USB box is that you must chooses if you want CATV or OTA HDTV, since many of the cards and USB boxes offer separate F-connectors for cable and OTA signals. Their may be a way to combine both signals on one cable, but I did not attempt that. Video input is separate via a small port on the tuner stick, so that input can be used with either setup. Also, to the best of my knowledge this stick does not have a hardware-based MPEG-2 decoder. Some products require at least one tuner in their setup to have a hardware-based decoder, so you may want to double-check your application to be sure.

In short, this is a great product and I would buy another one. I've used Hauppauge products for years, and found them to be well designed and reasonably priced. This tuner continues that tradition.

Read Best Reviews of Hauppauge 1198 WinTV-HVR-950 TV Tuner Stick/Personal Video Recorder with Remote Control (Black) Here

This product has problems with Windows XP (and possibly ATI video cards). Could not get a picture at all on one computer but had sound. Audio had lots of static on another computer with a great picture. It would not work on one of our laptops at all. But, it worked great on a new laptop with Windows Vista Ultimate. Hauppauge's fix for these computers was an older driver in which the remote control would not work.

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Bought to view cable TV on my laptop computer. Plugged into a coax cable and into usb port it works fine. Only issue is the audio sync with picture. If I work on an application on my computer then come back to TV the sync is off. I need to change channel then back to the show I was watching to fix the timing. But it does work well so I recommend this product.

2.4GHz Wireless 4-Channel Standalone Network Home Digital Surveillance Kit w/4 Infrared Cameras & V

I wanted an inexpensive wireless surveillance system to cover limited ground and use indoors where I had plenty of outlets. Unfortunately, this system does not work. Only one of the cameras worked when the DVR was connected to my TV and I could not install the software on my compatible computer. Unfortunately, the seller refused to acknowledge that the product was defective. Only after I filed an Amazon claim did they agree to accept a return less 20% -unless they determined the product was defective upon receipt. I've shopped on Amazon for years and am usually quite satisfied. I'm surprised they're doing business with this company.

You will not be able to use this system outdoors unless you have electrical outlets close by. The reception to my receiver is spottie at best with cameras in 40 foot range of the receiver. The color yeild only B&W thus far. Reception fade away at night.

The connections on the cameras to power supply should be much longer to keep out of weather for outdoor use.

Receiver has four antenna that have limited movement that may contribute to issues--can only go left or right.

Camera do not seem to be geared to any one channel

I purcased a new receiver from another vendor that has eight channels that rove or stay static color is great, reception is more constant.

I can not use the usb and record to PC as desired.

Will try to find a work around to solve this issue.

Do not wait as I did to have outlets & cameras installed by an electrician before testing out cameras--my mistake and loss.

I'm sure this my be a good system in doors with limited distance and interferance.

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Shipped 3/31/2010 Got here 4/7/2010. So There's the 7 day refund period. Should have read the reviews like I usually do, instead of being rushed to order it based on 98% positive feedback???? Totally agree with E. Taylor, Steven & James. Product received did not match the pictures here or at eLoofaimports website. Cameras had RCA 3 Wire connections (red, white, yellow)--not the single black DC12V. Cameras don't even match the pictures on box or in the box. Without power to the cameras, they will not work. The 4Ch DVR is different than picture. No warranty card in box. Had previously been opened--so it is not NEW. Can't open the User Manual on the enclosed software because it is in Word 97 and even XP Professional couldn't convert the graphics. Spent 4 hours trying just to hook up receiver to DVR to computer. And it can't be hooked up to new flat screen LCD monitors if you don't have RCA cable hook-up. Ours is a completely digital monitor. As the sayings go "BUYER BEWARE" & "IF IT SOUNDS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE, etc." So the product is a total a waste of our money.

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i have bought this system .....n it was a waste of time n money.....it was late on shipping, n it was the faster shipping.....then i tryed to install the programs....it wasnt installing ....then i emailed the seller about the problem.... i never got an email back from them or have heard anything....also the their web site isnt a real site... its a fake...DO NOT buy anything from this company....ur better off going to radio shack n spending the few extra $100's for something u know u want .....like i said this company is a rip off!!!

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This just proves that you shouldn't use a computer if you a very tired. You can see that the other reviews say it is junk, mine didn't even have all the parts so it didn't work at all! The company takes no responsibility after you get through their phone system. Thank God Amazon let me return it. On a positive note, the packaging was fairly glossy

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Franklin AnyBook Reader - 60 Hour Edition (DRP-4000)

Last month, a new product from Franklin Electronics called AnyBook Reader was launched. It is aimed at the working, busy or traveling parent, far-away grandparent, or any other long distance relatives, who want to bond with a child even when they are apart. It's an interactive reading device that allows you to read & record any book in your personal library in your own voice and then allows your toddler (who may or may not know how to read yet) to follow along with their favorite books and your voice, so that you're reading the book instead of the Nanny!

AnyBook can be purchased through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. There is a 15-hour version ($39.99), and a 60-hour version ($59.99).

Ok, now that you have seen the press release let me tell you all about it.

AnyBook comes with a selection of blank stickers for recording your voice. There are also stickers that have sounds recorded in them if appropriate to the book (dog, firetruck, rain, crying, etc). The stickers are made to be removed and won't ruin your pages. You can even re-record on them or order more if you run out.

You touch the button on the pen to start the record mode. You hear a few beeps and it is ready for you to record. That's it! So easy!

Last week I quickly and easily recorded two books so that I could carry it everywhere with me. My first stop was the school where I was meeting with my son's teachers and therapists.

I opened the first book and put the reader to the sticker. They heard the book being read through the pen and then I opened the next book to show them how the reader will read anything I record into the sticker. They all looked at me in amazement.

I was asked, "how do you get the recording". I explained that I touch the pen to a sticker that I place on the page, the pen counts down and I record the page into the pen by reading. They actually thought it was Ruby on the Max and Ruby book so they were at first confused. When I told them it was me doing characters that is when they were all amazed.

Everyone stated the same thing; they have seen other readers out there but you have to literally buy books from the maker of the pen. That is what makes this pen so much better! You can literally read/record your children's favorite books and they can hear you read to them anytime.

It is the easiest thing and so personal. I love this idea for military families especially but I think this is great for anyone. Perhaps your children don't get to see their grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends often. They visit you once or twice a year. They could read a book or two for the child into the pen and your child can hear them anytime they want.

Another friend had asked about the stickers and if they can put on other things. Sure, why not. This got me thinking how great this would be for a baby learning speech or perhaps someone trying to learn another language. Place the sticker on anything, record what it is and the person can actually learn speech.

What a great gift idea. Imagine a child on your Christmas list opens a book of books with the pen that you have already recorded the books on! This pen says "love".

Finally! ... a reader that is not limited to buying those special reading systems and the accessories for them. This is like the reading pens, but you can use the books you already have or would rather have for your children AND you record your own voice into it. So, you can personalize the story using your kids' names or by using your own character voices. It comes with sheets of removable stickers that are used to identify your recording. For example, you adhere a sticker on each page of your book. Then, you turn the reader on, touch the sticker with the reader to activate the sticker and then you record your voice reading the page. It also comes with an assortment of pre-recorded stickers with sounds on them (animals, phone ringing, clapping, etc.) to add to the story. My kids have fun with it. You can get creative with it, too. I can totally see myself eventually using this for their school items, crafts, albums, etc.

Buy Franklin AnyBook Reader - 60 Hour Edition (DRP-4000) Now

Now there are not many nights that I miss storytime with my boys before bed, but there are the few nights I do and there are times when they want to read a book by themselves. I am not saying there is a total substitution for a parent reading to their child, but their is a device that can now help out a little. The AnyBook Reader by Franklin Electronic Publishers is a device that allows a parent (or another significant adult) to read a book into a microphone-like device and record themselves reading the book. What is nice about the AnyBook Reader is you can use it with any book in your child's library and you can use it with multiple books at one time! (There is a 15 hour and 60 hour version.) You place a small sticker on the corner of the book pages and record each page individually, then your child can tap the sticker and hear you read the story! So no more buying special books and/or cartridges, just buy new stickers when you run out. The stickers use a special glue that won't damage a book and can be removed at any time. A pack of stickers is $9.99 and contains 10 sheets of ready-to-program stickers, each containing 20 stickers for a total of 200 stickers. You'll also get 4 new sheets of sound-effect stickers (80 more stickers).

Setting up a recording and deleting a recording is very easy, almost too easy that I thought for sure I was forgetting something! The stickers are easy to remove but unless your child really picks at them they should stay on just fine. There is a little feedback in the microphone so make sure the room you do the recording in is very quiet (like naptime or after bedtime!) I really though like this idea and it is so easy and quick to do. I could have a basic book done in minutes from adding the stickers to the pages to recording it. What makes this product really unique though is that it is your own voice that you are recording, so not a strangers or a robot voice. This would be especially great for a grandparent to record (and easy for them to use), a deployed military parent or other family member. My sons got a kick out of hearing my voice and now its funny they look for the white stickers in all their books! The AnyBook reader may be a little bit more upfront than other readers (about $60) but its your voice and its any book your child wants! Really you could use these stickers on anything you want to record a message on the possibilities are endless!

Read Best Reviews of Franklin AnyBook Reader - 60 Hour Edition (DRP-4000) Here

"AnyBook reader uses a simple touch, record, and playback process. A special optical reader, built into the tip, reads unique codes imbedded in the designs of the stickers included with AnyBook reader. It's similar to the way a scanner at the grocery store reads barcodes. Each sticker code is unique. When a voice recording is associated with a sticker placed on a page, Anybook-Reader stores the recording and "remembers" which sticker has been associated with the recording. Touch the sticker again and AnyBook reader plays back the correct recording."

It takes a little time to get this going, but once it's done, your child can have a book 'read' to him any time he wants!!! It's easy for my kids to use and they love being able to play with it on their own. They even like to just record their own voices on the reader.

If your child doesn't know how to read yet, the Anybook reader won't help them follow along. It isn't like a tag reader where you run the pen across a word and it 'reads it'. You simple touch the reader to the sticker and then the whole page is read to your child. But if your child can read even a little bit, this Anybook reader will be a helpful teaching tool.

It comes with a bunch of stickers, and you can always record over a sticker if you are done using it in a certain book. But you can also buy more stickers if you don't want to record over any of them. The stickers don't damage our books and we can easily remove them if needed.

This is a fun tool.

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I can't believe I haven't heard of this product before, it's genius! My son is learning to read and constantly wants my husband and I to read books to him. We were happy to do so, until my son got turned on to the 100+ page per book "Captain Underpants" series. It's a cute series (we bought them all), but requires quite the time commitment to read through, and my son wants to read them constantly. I searched online for "reading pen," and found this. All the other systems required special books, so they were not Captain Underpants-friendly.

To record, you turn on the pen, hold the power button for 3 seconds to go into "recording mode," touch the sticker, then hold the volume-up button while you record that page (I only put stickers on the left side and read both pages to conserve stickers). Then you let go of the button, put the sticker on the next page, and repeat. Then hold the power button 3 seconds again when you're done recording to exit recording mode. Very simple. Directions for deleting recordings are equally simple, and the stickers can be removed/changed so you can move them if your child gets sick of a particular book. The stickers are reasonably priced, though, so I already ordered some extras. Only the white ones and pictures of faces can hold recordings, the others contain sound effects that you can add as desired. They seem to be easy to move/remove from pages as the company claims.

The only cons: the sound quality isn't great, especially when you're reading louder or making loud sound effects. It helps if you don't hold the pen too close to your mouth while you're talking. Even then, not super quality, but my son doen't seem to mind. When you're holding the button while recording, sometimes it "rocks" back and forth a little which results in a loud clicking sound on the recording. This is the biggest problem I've encountered so far.

Overall, it's a great value. When you consider that it costs $25-30 for those "record your own" Hallmark books that contain only one story, and you can record about 10 with this depending on length of the book (it comes with 22 sheets of 20 recordable stickers, I think), it's a much better deal. When you add the fact you can use it on any of your child's favorite books, it's a slam dunk. It's also a great gift idea for a child that can't yet read or has parents who sometimes travel. A+++!

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Panasonic DMR-EZ475VK Progressive Scan DVD Recorder

• Built-In Digital Tuner with Analog ATSC Tuner
• Automatic Program Information Acquisition (ATSC)
• 2x LP Horizontal Resolution (500 lines) - JPEG View with SD Slot
• Long Time Recording with High Picture Quality (EP mode: 8 hours)
• HDMI Simple Connection (HDMI Ver. 1.3) - DivX Playback

What makes this different from the DMR-EZ47V model? Only the inclusion of an HDMI cable. This is my third Panasonic DVD-type recorder and none of them have had major failings.

Don't believe the Amazon reports of a bad digital tuner as it just isn't true. The secret to good terrestrial digital reception is the right antenna. If you have that, you get great channels. Albeit, not in high def. But this is not a high def recorder. I didn't bother with the analog channels as I receive them all digitally, and then some.

I recommend the stand alone Phillips "Silver Sensor" antenna or clone. Don't waste money on the Terk models as they look nicer but don't do the job as well. Analog transmission is going away so you won't need rabbit ears. If the "Silver Sensor" doesn't work, you are just in a bad location. Mine works great through a 5-900 MHz 3-way splitter.

With my old GoVideo DVD/VCR combo I had 8 cables running from the back of the unit to the TV. 3 component cables & 2 audio. Plus 1 yellow composite and 2 more audio just to play VHS. 8 cables replaced by 1 (ONE) HDMI. Both formats play through HDMI.

With the HDMI upconversion turned on your DVD and VHS pictures can display at 480i/p, 720p, 1080i/p, or just select auto. While the difference in the picture is noticeable, especially with VHS, don't expect miracles. The best upconversion in the world can only simulate HD, it can't create information not in the original. For true HD movie experience we still need blu-ray. I have one and it is awesome.

If the HDMI on your TV supports Viera the Panasonic remote control can control limited functions of your TV. No more manual programming of the remote to work with your TV! The smart features means your player will automatically turn off when you turn the TV off. However, my Vizio doesn't support Viera so it doesn't work via HDMI. Pages 68 69 in the manual allows programming of the remote via the buttons.

As you can see in the product description this player supports a wide variety of discs. One long awaited favorite is the ability to record to DVD +/R Dual Layer. DVD-RAM is great because playback supports 1.3x playback by pressing [play] a second time. Press [play] again to return to normal speed. Now you can record your favorite programs in digital quality (Analog only to VHS.), skip commercials, and watch them faster on DVD-RAM. The upconversion means you almost don't miss the HD airing. Plus you have the ability to cross copy VHS to DVD and vice verser, providing copy protection is not an issue.

One of my favorite features missing on this unit is "shorten segment". It easily allowed cutting out commercials, yet leave a single video file. Alternately, "divide program" allows cutting around the commercials, then you may delete them. It's a bit more time consuming and leaves you with a fragmented video file. This will not affect play back as it simply jumps to the next video block. However, the "combine chapters" function only works with "chapters" you create, and doesn't combine the segments of cut pieces.

Thus I must agree it is a bit more complex to use, and you will need to spend some time with the manual and even cross reference some pages. It is time well spent as it is nothing you won't learn with repeated use. It's not rocket science. You'll be a pro in no time.

While I wish this had a hard drive and recorded in HD, I can't ding the product because that is not the design intent. Maybe next years model. I'm very picky in what I like and I am VERY happy with this player.

This is a great way to give that old 4:3 analog TV a digital tuner and keep it around a few more years. Plus you could receive more digital channels than analog! But only HDMI supports upconversion. Even with some short comings such as the standard definiton digital tuner, this player does it all and does it extremely well.

My two biggest gripes which make me wish I never sold my analog GoVideo combo. Finalized DVD-R will NOT copy to VHS. Only unfinalized DVD-R will copy providing the material is not copy protected. I can no longer copy a couple of regular DVD's to tape. Maybe there are tweaks to be found. But my need to copy to tape isn't as great as was my desire to do so. Cest la vie.

For more on this product download the manual and firmware updates at the Panasonic website.

Buy Panasonic DMR-EZ475VK Progressive Scan DVD Recorder Now

I bought the Panasonic DMR-EZ475V in May, 2007 and have had a lot of problems with it. It botches up DVD+RWs in so many different ways that they have to be thrown away. It's operations haven't been thoroughly tested, thus locking up the machine more often than not. I spent $300 plus sales tax for this...terrible WASTE OF MONEY. Believe me, stay away from this machine and be suspicious of similar Panasonic procucts. Bottom line...the DMR-EZ475V S-U-C-K-S.

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One of the biggest factors in rating a product, for me, is its durability. I would have given this DVR a higher rating but it has essentially conked out after 17 months of use. For $300, I expect a product to last at least 5 years. Pros: Once I got it working it recorded good video and audio quality using the LP or SP settings. Cons: It was hard to set-up, it froze up a lot programming or reading discs (but fortunately not while recording), and now is refusing to read or finalize most of the discs it records. No more Panasonic purchases for me!

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I bought this for three reasons: a) to replace my 12-year-old VCR, b) to take advantage of the digital tuner for my ancient TV, and c) to transfer my VHS tapes to DVD. It failed at all three.

The digital reception is great but on a standard 4:3 screen there is a 1 inch black border around the picture, so your 19" TV instantly becomes an 18" TV. I have it hooked up to 13" TV in the bedroom. I'm not happy. The digital tuner is also inconceivably slow changing channels. Surfing is a nightmare. When changing channels, it tends to go past the channel you want and then slowly go back to it. The so-called episode guide tells you what's on and the next show only. Brilliant.

Sales literature excitedly tells you that it has an SD card slot, which made me wonder if I could record to it like a poor man's DVR, but in fine print in the manual (after you buy it) it tells you all it can do is view JPEGs.

If Panasonic's parent company Matsushita invented VHS technology, why does this thing do such a crappy job playing tapes? The 12-year-old Sanyo this unit was supposed to replace still plays tapes smooth and clear (I just have to worry about the tape getting eaten) but in this one the same tape's picture jiggles constantly, which means transferring tapes to DVD is useless because all you get is jiggly DVD's. It's a Matsushita product, just take away "Matsu" and "a".

The remote is so complex you cannot use it without a light on. The manual was written by a dyslexic that read too many of those open plot books as a kid. The device gives you a choice of turning completely off or staying in sleep mode, which consumes more power than off, so in other words it's still on. Sleep mode is annoying because its fan will kick on in the middle of the night and scare the crap out of you. The off mode is worse, as if you intend to watch a show on TV, by the time it turns on you've missed too much.

I used to have high respect for Panasonic products and preferred them whenever possible, but this device has burned me to the point where not only will I never buy Panasonic products again, but I wish that those people at Panasonic responsible for designing it are dragged from their offices and beaten with sticks.

I bought the DMR-EZ475V 3 years ago for $300. It S-U-C-K-S and has ever since I bought it. Very user-UNfriendly. It is ERRATIC, UNRELIABLE, and a piece of JUNK. I've had nothing but frustrations with its operation from day 1.

Sony HDR-CX12 High Definition Memory Stick PRO Duo Handycam Camcorder With 12x Optical Zoom

Five months ago, I took the leap and bought a Sony HDR-CX7. I had been using the Sony HDR-HC1 HDV camcorder, but as my boxes of DV tapes grew, I thought going tapeless would solve two problems: 1) tapes degrade and take space, while a flash memory card could be backed up easy to DVD-Rs. 2) it would take much less time to copy data from a flash card to the computer, instead of importing real-time. The downsides will be mentioned in a moment.

As it turns out, #1 was correct, but #2 was not. After getting an 8GB memory stick, I realized I could not back that up to a 4.7GB DVD-R (single layer) so I now use a series of 4GB parts, so each backs up to a cheap DVD-R when I am done (I just use the Apple Mac OS X disk utility and tell it to make a Disk Image from Folder, and point it to the memory stick. When I mount that image later, it will be recognized in iMovie or Fnial Cut as a camera/memory stick and let me import.) So now I have a stack of DVD-Rs of backup images -much nicer than DV tapes (and I can make clones/copies much easier).

#2, though, surprised me. The computer has to import the AVCHD and then transcode it to some editable format, and this takes longer than real-time. On my Core Duo 2 iMac, it was fast enough to import and transcode HDV video from tape (one hour of footage took one hour) most of the time, but importing AVCHD from memory stick or CD or disk image takes about double time. So note that this format is slower -until we all get computers fast enough. Maybe one day I will be able to import an hour of video from a memory card as fast as the USB reader will handle it, and instantly be able to use it.

The downside would be that AVCHD compression would not be as good as HDV. (13GB of data on a DV tape versus 8GB of flash memory for about an hour of video). And, after watching some footage, I could see much more artifacting and blockiness in dark/shadow areas. There are four quality settings in the CX12, and I have not tested the highest (I record on the second setting), so it may be better.

Still, for general video, it's completely acceptable. Motion did not seem to be an issue (taping out the side of a moving car, recording the joust or sword fighters at a renaissance festival, etc.)

The size and convienience won me over, totally. The CX12 also takes very nice still pictures -good enough that I generally don't bring my Fuji F10 camera with me. But, if you side-by-side compare the lower-resolution Fuji 6.3 megapixel images to the CX12 "10 megapixels" (not true resolution), the Fuji clearly wins -brighter colors, better in low light, and sharper image. The CX12 is "good enough" for casual photos, but still doesn't replace even a cheap $170 digital camera.

Sound is good. Features are good -having a manual knob to focus, for instance (upgrade from the CX7). Smile detection is addictive -I set it to automatic, and it captures images while I video tape. I get home to find pictures I didn't take. Posing people can be diffuclt in this mode -you have to say "wait, don't smile until I tell you" else it starts snapping away if it gets a face (even if you have yet to frame the photo in the viewfinder). Still nice.

It can record more than three photos while video taping -three was the limit of the CX7. It is also faster between still shots (about a second, or 3-4 with flash, and slower if it has to refocus). Acceptable, and much faster than CX7.

The camera loses the flash button (you now do it through a menu system on screen) but gains a sleep mode, so you can suspend the camera, then power it up and start recording in about a second (instead of 5 or so from a cold start). It uses about half battery to sleep, but still may be useful.

Overall, I'm very pleased, though I still wish the stills could be good enough to not need a still camera, too.

Low-light sucks compared to my old 1999 vintage Digital8 Sony, and focusing is slow in low light (just like with the $2000 Sony HDR-HC1). I guess that's just an issue of the HD imaging sensors being so small (?).

But I do like it, and I like it better than the CX7 (which I also liked).

This isn't a review of the features and performance of the camera. I am not an expert at comparing it to others. This is a review of what you can do with the files that you create.

I got this camera and the 16gb memory duo card. So far so good. It stores between 2 and 5 times the life of a single battery in video.. hours and hours unless you pick the highest bit rate.

The challenges come after you get your files home.

1. Sony Vegas

Probably this is the best solution for workflow from this camera, but it is windows only. Moving right along ..

2. PS3

Happily you can either insert the card into your PS3 (or into a multi-card reader via USB a recent one, not an old one, as high capacity memory sticks can't be read by older multi-card readers). The PS3 sees the clips, shows moving previews, and they look fantastic. You can also put them on a media server (such as MediaTomb mac/linux) and connect to it from the PS3. Not quite as nice, as the thumbnails lack preview, but workable.

3. Connecting the camera to your Mac via the included dock

This works fine and I'll sub-divide what you can do at this point:

3a. Using Final Cut Express (or Final Cut Pro).

Neither of these programs will deal directly with the MTS files (which are AVCHD and 5.1 ac3) without the full directory structure of the card present! so don't copy the MTS files off, and delete them if you want to use FCE! At any rate, use FCE to import the clips, they are decompressed and blown up to an apple format that uses heaps more space! you can't edit natively in AVCHD using FCE. It isn't clear to me that you can even edit natively in FC Pro. Note, FCE down-mixes to 2 channel stereo during import!

3b. Not using Final Cut Express using other tools (linux users read this too)

You can't play these MTS files reliably using Quicktime or Quicktime Pro despite the claim that quicktime pro can play h264 video. You can't even use the Perian codecs (which are available free and based on the open source libraries used by ffmpeg). They claim h264 compatibility but unfortunately they do not read the sony h264 stream properly. You may see various problems: missed frames, half speed, crashing or lots of errors. It may be that a SD camera setting on this camera is more reliably usable, I got bored trying so many different things. This also means you can't use ffmpeg or mencoder under linux, despite their flexibility. The latest version as of time of this review just does not deal with all your clips. It might deal with some, reading and re-encoding if necessary to mpeg4 or whatever, but you WILL get frustrated. The same problems apply to mplayer, vlc, MPEG Streamclip, and so on, as they also depend on the same libraries.

Note: xportdev will demux MTS files and TMPGenc will decode the video correctly, you CAN use these two tools to create mpeg4 or whatever.

see http://www.sonyhdvinfo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=40 this forum for more info.

3c. Not using Final Cut Express using VoltaicHD

VoltaicHD will convert the clips properly but there are no options to speak of. It creates much larger mov files that can be used in typical mac utilities, quicktime, etc.

3d. Using Toast Titanium

I believe this produce accepts AVCHD files. I haven't tested it, obviously you have to buy the product. It appears to be capable of writing DVDs or even bluray discs after the edit is done.

4. Uploading to vimeo (the HD version of youtube)

Vimeo does not accept MTS files, it tries to accept h264 video if packaged in an avi or whatever, but will not process them correctly. It accepts mpeg4, or re-encoded h264 as output by mencoder. It probably also accepts mov files from VoltaicHD and obviously you can get FCE to output a file that vimeo will take.

The problem I have with this is the chain of encoding and decoding:

image --> camera --> encoded to avchd --> decoded in voltaicHD or FCE --> re-encoded to mpeg4 or whatever --> uploaded to vimeo --> decoded --> re-encoded to their On2 codec --> played by flash.

As you can see this chain is ridiculous and the result will not look as good as the ideal, which is:

image --> camera --> encoded to avchd --> played

My conclusion is that your frustration level will vary according to what you want out of your clips. The camera offers very limited editing: you can chop a clip into two and delete any clip, so you can basically throw away bits you won't want to waste time on.

If you want to show them off on your HDTV via the PS3, without mixing them into a "movie" then everything is great. They look really good.. the interlacing is really not visible when the PS3 plays them, resolution is outstanding at least depending on how high a bit rate you pick.

If you want to burn DVDs then I expect Toast Titanium or FCE will be reasonable but there is some quality loss from the inevitable decode reencode cycle.

If you want them on the web at vimeo, although the result is heaps better than youtube, it certainly isn't high definition. I believe the vimeo bit rate is limited to 2000 kbit, for example.

Buy Sony HDR-CX12 High Definition Memory Stick PRO Duo Handycam Camcorder With 12x Optical Zoom Now

I have a Sony standard definition miniDV camcorder, and also bought the HF100 and the Sony CX12, both flash camcorders.

I found the Canon to be the better value: good to great video and audio quality in good lighting conditions, better user interface, and standard SD cards will save you money and hassle vs. the Sony CX12.

However, the Sony is the superior product IMHO based on the following features: much better low-light performance (by low-light I mean indoor night-time videos of kids with under ordinary incandescent lighting (without lots of halogens)). Sony DVD HD DVD burner is more flexible than Canon's, for example, you can shoot video in HD, and burn a standard DVD for people w/o HDTVs and Blu-ray. I understand to do this on the Canon burner, you need to record in standard definition to begin with. Build quality is a little higher (LCD joints stiffer, battery/inputs door covers more firmly attached). Slightly better audio (I noticed you could sometimes hear "clicks" from the Canon's zoom button).

The first 2 items (low-light & recorder characteristics) seal the deal for me. Generally, the camera is comfortable to hold, image stabilization is excellent (better than the Canon). Flash performance for still pictures is poor.

Read Best Reviews of Sony HDR-CX12 High Definition Memory Stick PRO Duo Handycam Camcorder With 12x Optical Zoom Here

I was so happy when I got the CX12. It was beautiful, the video was beautiful, and the camera was incredibly easy to use. I started taking video and buying hard drives to hold it all...

The problem came afterward. The camcorder records to a file format called .m2ts, which is an "mpeg-2 transfer stream". What this means to you and I: barely anything in the world supports it (except Sony products). The same way that you can only buy Sony flash memory cards for the camcorder. And even the software that supports it does so poorly. This was my experience:

1. Picture motion browser. The included software that came with the device. This software fairly reliably recognizes the camcorder is plugged in (plus). Unfortunately, if the clip is bigger than 2GB (equivalent to 16 minutes of HD video), the software will split it automatically. And this isn't an exact split you are missing a few seconds. Imagine my surprise when one of my gigs that I recorded was missing 5 seconds in the climax of a song. Thankfully, I hadn't deleted the files from the camera yet, so I went back and manually split the video during a pause. Lately, though, my band has been doing improv's that last ~15-20 minutes as we write new material. I can't break these up, and thus get fragments of songs on my computer.

Worse than this, though, is the incredibly tedious process of splitting a video every 10 minutes. Every time I upload video I have to go through and spend 20 minutes of work formatting the video for the SOFTWARE THAT WAS BUILT FOR IT.

2. Sony Vegas Pro. I called Sony customer support and asked them if there was a way around the 16 minute barrier. They said I would have to get another video editing program. They recommended the Vegas line of programs, which comes with M2TS support (most video editing programs don't. you see where this is heading?). These programs cost between $50-$600, which depends on the amount of bugs you want fixed and features you'd like. I figured I would go with a free trial version of Vegas Pro, and skip all of the hassles.

Before saying where I am now, I would like to note that I am a computer engineer, have done extensive technical support, and always have dealt with my own computer problems. I am an experienced PC user. Here we go:

I'm sitting here after 3 hours of frustration, and Vegas won't recognize my camcorder. It is there, It has video, and *Windows* knows it is, but this $600 piece of Sony software (designed by the same company) cannot recognize it.

I've had this camera for about a year, and I have yet to make anything out of all the video I've recorded with it. This is a beautiful, sleek, sexy camcorder with a ton of power for the size. I just wonder when I'll get some use out of it.

Just, before you get this, ask yourself if you want to deal with the Sony deathtrap.

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This is simply the best camcorder I have ever owned, and I have owned seven dating back to 1987. I have a fairly new Sony hard disk camcorder and this HDR-CX12 has it beat hands down. The hard disk will skip and stop recording if the buffer is exceeded when there is repetative movement, whereas the HDR-CX12 just keeps on recording. The storage media is so much easier to deal with than the video tapes in other camcorders. I purchased this camcorder for my motorcycle tours and it has worked out perfectly. I wish that Sony would get away from using their Sony-only storage media (in this case the Memory Stick Pro Duo) and start using the storage media that is more widely available. I would also like to have more storage on the memory stick than 16GB, but that is the max currently. But, until then I will continue to buy Sony simply for the quality of the product. Highly recommended for anyone looking to purchase a quality camcorder.

Pros: extremely small camcorder, storage media easy to handle, video quality outstanding (records in HD), simple to operate, quality product.

Cons: not waterproof, Sony needs to develope storage media greater than 16gb (seems like a ripe market for Sandisk?), pricey (but most likely worth it), pricey stoage media, so much fun that I end up recording TOO much.

Sony DVP-NC665P/S 5-Disc Progressive Scan DVD Changer, Silver

• DVD-RW/-R (VR and video mode), DVD+RW/+R, and MP3/CD-R/CD-RW playback
• DVD progressive-scan output (480p); Precision Drive 2 System with Dynamic Tilt Compensation
• Component-video, S-video, composite-video, analog audio, optical digital, and coaxial digital outputs
• TV Virtual Sound with four surround modes
• Measures 16.9 x 3.78 x 16.1 inches (W x H x D)

I purchased this DVD player to read my burned home movies and it works great. I had an earlier model Sony without progressive scan and I sure can tell the difference between the two models. This model produces a sharper and cleaner DVD picture overall. It loads DVDs quickly and is fairly quiet when changing discs. I would recommend this DVD player to anyone interested in a 5 disc progressive scan player. I returned to Amazon to purchase the exact same one for a different room.

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Like many other reviews for Sony 5 Disc Changers this one died after 1 year also (right when the warranty was up). If you read reviews of other multi-disc changers they all have the same problem. Suddenly they will say "No Disc" (in any of the 5 spots)and you will never get it to play again. I have a Sony Plasma TV and Surround sound system and could not believe this happened like the other reviews said.

Stay away or you will be buying another one within 1 year.

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This is the second Sony DVD player that I have owned and all I can say is don't make the same mistake that I have. They work beautiful for about a year or so and then just stop working. We were huge Sony fans and our whole entertainment system is Sony but we have learned our lesson. No more Sony products. If you only need a dvd player to work until the warranty is up this is the one for you but if you want something to last stay away from Sony!

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DVD player will not turn on. I will never order nothing from this site if I could give no stars I will

This is my first review here on Amazon I just felt compelled to write today because of all the negative feedback on this player. I've been using mine regular for over six years and mine still works perfectly. Maybe I was one of the lucky ones that received a good one. In fact I am listening to music with it right now, I can't believe the vast majority of people on here had this player die after just one year. Other that the remote breaking after only a few years, I am hard pressed to think of any gripes I have with this player. When I did use it to watch movies it worked just as it should for that purpose. The digital audio out provided great sound and the component video provided an awesome picture. Now it is just a CD changer for my music listening and for that it is just as adapt. I feel for everyone who had this unit die after a short time, just thought I would throw my experience out there. There must have been a few good ones because I have one of them. By the way mine is black not silver, not that it makes any difference.

Pyle Home PDH9 9-Inch Portable TFT/LCD Monitor with Built-In DVD Player MP3/MP4/USB SD Card Slot

• 9'' TFT LCD Screen with adjustable viewing angles; screen rotation - Wireless Full Function remote Control
• Resolution: 600 x 234 - ID3 Tag Compatible
• Compatible with DVD/DVD-R/DVD-RW/VCD/MP3/MP4/CD-R/CD-RW/JPEG/DIVX/AVI/MPG/VOB Formats - Support USB Key/SD/MMC MS Card
• RCA Audio/Video Line Inputs; Output - Supports Multi Regional PAL/NTSC
• Built-In Rechargeable Battery Power Source for Portable on the Go Enjoyment of Music; Video Average Battery Life 2 hours - Dimensions: 9.45" x 6.9" x 1.57"

If your looking for a DVD player that can play AVI's this will work fine. I had no problems playing AVI's through a USB Drive but couldnt get anything to work with an SD Card. I also couldnt get MP4's to work. I didnt really try much else. I bought it for an upcoming roadtrip to Canada with my 4mo old and 2yr old so I really needed something to keep my 2yr olds attention. The strap for the back of the seat wouldve worked fine but was made of cheap material no big deal though. The kicker was if you barely touch the screen you could see distortion, and the whole thing felt like cheap plastic. Not something that could withstand a toddler. Also, the instructions were HORRIBLY translated and made it sound like a death machine which im sure it isnt. The picture looked great, the sound was great and there was no problem playing dvds (even ones i had burned) or AVI's though USB.

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This Pyle Portable DVD player, has good volume and will play both NTSC and PAL format DVDS from any numbered region. That is enough reason for me to enjoy it. However the picture, despite adjuments, is not as sharp as I would like. No I'm not saying it's bad. It would be great if it were a bit sharper. I bought this player mostly to watch music concerts from around the world. Because of the sound, I'm happy with it. Because of the picture I must give it four stars instead of five.

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USB and DVD works just fine, only the battery wont last longer. the body is made from cheap plastic material.

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I would give this item 5 stars if it weren't for the crappy battery life and the fact that I received it with a broken charger. If you are going for sound this is one is pretty good, but don't get it for battery life.

Sony PEGA-VR100K Video Recorder Compatible with Clie PEG-UX, TG, NZ, and NX series

I bought this system when there were no reviews based on:

o Trusting the Sony brand name.

o Impulse Buy after getting a Clie

As to every device, there are pros and cons. Problem is when the cons >> Pros.

Pros:

o System is small, Light Weight.

o Can be placed vertical or horizontal.

o Accepts MS & MS Pro (30 min for every 128 megs approx. at high quality)

o Can record at various quality levels for memory efficincy.

o Line-in and Line-out + RF in.

Cons:

o System ONLY RECORDS, it does not play what you recorded, so playing recordings on a big screen TV is out of the question.

o No remote provided, which means you have to get up every time you want to start or stop a recording. Placing the system in a small space between your TV and DVD player adds the disadvantage of awkward button pressing.

o Way too expensive. for the price of 2 I can get a top quality DVD recorder.

o Recordings do not play on a PC.

Sony always does this,come up with a great product (Clie) and flood the market with prototype add-ons that are discontinued due to 'lack of sales'. I hope this trend doesn't last long.

First off, some of these people who offer reviews need to stick to beta and 8 tracks. In reference to a previous review, of course it doesn't playback, its a freakin recorder. Second, just because it lacks a remote doesn't make it bad (get up and start the record process yourself!!!!!!!!!) I digress though, I purchased one of these so I could watch movies on long plane rides from DC to LA via my Clie UX-50. I load up a 1 or 2 gig memory stick with about a half a dozen movies and I am in a happy minature video coma for hours. Of course I have to initially deflect all the curious questions about the UX-50. Ughh. The bottom line is that this is a great product that does EXACTLY what it is designed to do.... record video to memory sticks for later viewing on other memory stick compatible products. Sure its expensive, but its cutting edge, well designed and its a Sony product. If you havn't noticed, Sony products are not cheap. You get what you pay for.

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I love this unit. You can choose to record at, basically, 3 quality levels. The sound and picture are great on my Sony UX-50. Many will consider it an expensive toy, but the quality is fantastic and I enjoy it. For the person that has everything...

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GeoVision GV-MFD130 Surveillance/Network Camera - Color (84-MD130-100U)

I don't usually write reviews, but I thought this product was worthy. I had a few issues setting up the camera, but found the technical support to be excellent. They are in Taiwan, so it takes about 24 hours to get a response, but they are very helpful. So far, so good. For the price, this appears to be a very good camera. I anticipate purchasing more of these, and expect the installation will go more smoothly now that I know what to do.

I have purchased GeoVision products in the past and found them to be very reliable. So far no issues with the purchase and product arrived as expected.

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Zoom H4n 4-Channel Handy Recorder Bundle with Carrying Case, 16GB SD Card, Headphones, Mini Tripod,

worked out perfectly, whoever made this is a pretty cool guy, eh kills aliens and doesn't afraid of anything. I highly recommend it, though the headphones that come with it are kinda cheap, but it works.

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Transcend 16GB MicroSDHC Class10 UHS-1 Memory Card with Adapter 45 MB/s (TS16GUSDU1E)

The Actual product being offered and shipped by Amazon is the same model number, but the manufacturer (Transcend Taiwan) specifications are actually different. This is probably why there are a few reviews with people saying the speed is not as fast as expected/advertised. I have attached some photos of the actual product received on (2) separate occasions that confirm the true spec is up to 45MB/s sequential read (20MB/s sequential write). If you compare the photos I supply and the ones on the Amazon web site, you will see the Amazon photo does not show the printed speed rating to the right side of the device packaging. Regardless, the speed is fast enough to handle any phone and/or tablet read task which often peak at 15MB/s or less.

I have also attached a quantified benchmark using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 within Windows 7 on a high-end Dell Precision M6600 workstation. The results are within the specification guidelines so I have concluded the Transcend 32GB MicroSDHC is snappy and as advertised on the *packaging* even if it is not on the Amazon web site. Therefore, the product receives 5 stars from me and Amazon should correct their error. Lastly, as with all memory, 32GBits = 29GBytes once you do the real world conversion so do not concern your with any discrepancies there.

I bought this due to the Crystaldiskmark posted by Transcend. I've posted my own tests, and while the card is nice, it's not the fastest out there, and at least when I bought it, it was priced at a premium to cards like the Sandisk ultras.

It's totally functional and a lot quicker than most, but I wish it was faster for what I paid.

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Very good speed for its price, faster and cheaper than Sandisk Ultra 32GB U1.

Bought for video on Gopro Hero3

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Works fantastic with new gopro hero 3. No issues whatsoever like the san disk one. On par or better with the other known brands.

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First off, I'm not going to tell you I gauged the speed of the card because I didn't. What I can tell you is that it works fast and has a lot of memory. There's little delay between pictures and movies are easily recorded for considerable lengths of time. That's what I wanted from the card, so I'm happy.