DLO DLA1400D/17 Action Jacket Arm Band for iPod Shuffle 3G

• Padded neoprene pocket secures and protects
• Integrated cord management or key storage
• Washable armband fits a bicep circumference of 6" to 20"

Product does what it is designed for. Excellent purchase because product is priced right. I recommend this product to anyone who is active and wants to listen to music while working out.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002YB4RPM/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_title

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I use this band with my i-pod shuffle. Best price, made well and will last me a long time. Great for those who go to the gym or if your like me, I am an avid walker.

Pyrus Electronics 2GB Touch Screen MP3 /MP4 Player with Digital Camera

I bought this as a Christmas present for my 8 year old son, after charging the device and loading music, it worked fine for the first half hour. After that, it was turning itself off and on even though the battery was full charged. Device would play a tune then would have errors that that tune couldn't replay.

This thing had a lot of good reviews under different sellers and slightly different product names. We got 2 different Payus Electronics MP4 players for our kids for Christmas and they are both terrible. The main problem is the touch screen on them both, which makes it virtually impossible to do anything. They are made out of cheap plastic casings. The resolution on the video and camera are horrible. Don't waste your money.

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This item was not a good item screen did not light up properly (it blinked off and on). This camera was horrible just was not my type of mp3/mp4 player thx but no thx.

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I bough this for my daughter for x-mas. the touch screen is slow. it's build with a plastic casing. it looks like a toy. I was surprise about the camera it wasn't bad for a cheap device, the camcorder wasn't bad either my daughter loved it until I went to download music and it didn't turn on anymore it lasted 3 days. still trying to get over the disappointment. you get what you pay for.

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this MP3 player is not the best out there, but it is not bad.

however, there are several things that i would like to correct from other peoples, reviews. i read a lot that you have to press extremely hard for the touch screen to work. that is not true, you just have to lightly touch the screen with you finger nail or a pencil or something sharp. another thing that i read that is not true is that you can not organize your own music, that again is also not true. if on the menu you go down to Dir List, you will see a list of your music or files exactly how you put it on.

Pro.

you can put in a mini sd card for more memory.

you can listen to music while it is charging.

an indented screen means that the screen will not crack. ( i dropped it from a 3 story building to prove that.

extremely good base (if the MSEQ mode is on)

Kaaaans.

the touch screen is not that accurate.

the battery does not last long,

not good sound quality (especially if the volume is high)

can not go that loud.

if you are looking for an Mp3 player that has a good battery, good sound quality and good base, and is not expensive, I recommend coby

CyberHome CH-DVD 402 DVD Player , Black

• Onscreen MP3 player interface simplifies playback
• Plays JPEG image files on CD-R or CD-RW
• Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround sound output (for use with compatible AV receiver)
• Component-video, S-video, and composite-video outputs; switchable for NTSC or PAL video outputs
• Offers up to 4x zoom, parental control with password protection

I bought this as a second player for DVD movies, CD Audio, and MP-3 music discs burned on my Mac. It will also play Kodak Picture CDs or JPEG pics you burn on a CD.

So far, I have been very happy with this player for the price. It has all of the video and audio outputs I need, and it actually has some cool features found only on higher-end models.

First off, let me say that this is a LARGE component. It won't fit on top of a medium sized TV (around 26-27 inches). The entire cabinet is real metal, and has a solid feel. So what it lacks in compactness, it makes up for in sturdy construction-so sturdy that my Technics Pro Logic Receiver is sitting on top of it! The buttons on the front are minimal, but well arranged and useful. Unlike some of the other "economy" brands Cyberhome does give you an LED display on the front of the machine to see what chapter or track you're playing. The remote has glow in the dark buttons that-while not exactly intuitive-are logically arranged. The picture quality is quite good through the S-Video and Component Video hookups. By choosing the "SETUP" button and then navigating to the "VIDEO" menu you can actually adjust the brightness and contrast output of this player. In fact, it is ESSENTIAL you do so, as this DVD player seems to have the brightness and contrast values set to "LOW" at the factory. Having this feature is a nice plus.

What does the player lack? No Dolby decoding built-in, but it will let you output to an analog or Dolby digital receiver. It does seem to take longer to read and start playing a DVD than other players, but that's minor.

To sum up, if you want an affordable first DVD player, look at this one instead of the really cheap APEX. This one looks better and plays better. You won't find one better for the price, and may end up buying two for the price of one namebrand.

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This fantastic DVD player is value priced, but packs the features of many more expensive players on the market. As a fan of imports and VCDs, I got it because it played DVDs from all territories and VCD/SVCD without a hiccup. It plays MP3s and even JPEG files very well too. All through composite videos, compression artifacting is almost non-existent. We're talking extra-crisp visuals and sound. This has become my primary DVD player, unseating a much more expensive DVD player thanks to all the features. I've got to say, for people looking for an entry-level player, this is THE player. And for anyone who's big on imports and want solid features, this is still a great consideration.

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This is one great player. It is a large and heavy unit compared to other players in this price range, but I venture to say it will be around a lot longer. The tray is good and solid too. Just as importantly the picture and sound are great and it plays everything I've thrown at it. It also has a display and a super easy to follow manual. My son is returning his Norcent. No comparison in quality! Anyone interested can now pick it up at arguselectronics.com for 59.95 or data.vis.com (DataVision) for 59.99.

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This is a really good DVD player. The low price is the best but the picture and sound quality is the better than other manufaturers. This can play all region DVD and even mpeg movies. That is very helpful.

I becomes a fan of Cyberhome.

After two weeks of great performance it just stopped working. I put in a disc and the TV screen just displays "READ" forever. I tried it with several discs with the same result. Funny, I bought this unit because of all the great reviews. I guess it's just a crap-shoot with cheap electronics from little-known manufacturers! At least Amazon is willing to give me a refund!

Mini Car Key Camera Micro Spy Keychain DVR Video Reocorder Hidden Car Key Camcorder 8GB Mirco SD Ca

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Lesson learned ~ not all cameras are created equal. Seems there are many versions of these cameras with varying degree of quality. The one I received seems to be version #3. The date stamp that comes with the camera is "01/01/2008". The most current version seems to be version #16. Knowing what I know today, I would never buy a 808 Car Key Camera without knowing and being able to verify the version #. Want to know more about the different camera types, visit Chuck Lohr or check youtube "808#16". Editing the TAG file in the root will update the date and time. Translation to English was fairly bad but after watching a youtube video, I figured it out. The quality on my camera is ok, as a toy.

this spy micro camera works so good!! i can recomment this product,the camera have a good resolution too, so many thank you!!!

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There are two function buttons. The one closest to the camera hole is designated REC. The other one is inboard of the REC button and designated ON/OF

1. The device has a built-in rechargeable battery that needs to be fully charger when the device is new.

2. Make sure to insert a MicroSD card before using the device.

3. Press and hold ON/OF to turn on the device. The yellow LED will turn on , which means the device is in STANDBY mode.

4. Press and hold REC to start recording video. The yellow LED will blink fast three times, then turn off. This means that during video recording, the LED is not lit, which makes it less likely to be spotted.

5. Press REC to pause video recording and save the recording to that point. The LED will turn on. The device is now is STANDBY mode. In STANDBY mode, press REC to take a still image. To continue recording press and hold REC.

6. To record a still image: Turn on the devise by pressing and holding ON/OF to enter STANDBY mode. The LED will turn on. Press REC to record a single still image. The LED will flash. Press REC for another image.

7. To set the data/time of the devise, which is used to timestamp media recordings, create a text file in the root of the MicroSD card with a file name of TAG. TXT. Open the file and add the following three lines: (date) 2009/10/22. 03:45:00 Replace the data and time above with the values you want. Save the file. Turn the devise off, then back on to reset the clock based on the text file.

8. To turn off the devise, press and hold ON/OF until the LED goes out.

9. The device powers off by itself after a period of inactivity.

10. It's not necessary to power on the device to access recorded media via the USB cable.

11. If the device stops functioning, use the reset button to reset the device. The reset button is recessed inside the small hole between the MicroSD card and the USB potr.

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Archos Vision 30c 8 GB Video MP3 Player with 3-Inch Touchscreen and FM Radio (Silver)

• 8GB MP3 Player; 3.0" Color TFT Touchscreen
• FM Radio & Voice Recorder; 13hr Battery Life; USB 2.0; G-Sensor; Built-in Microphone
• 13hr Battery Life; USB 2.0; G-Sensor
• Supports MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, APE; MPEG4, AVI, FLV, RMVB

In order to better review the Archos Vision 30c I wanted to compare it to several of the other MP3 players I have had the opportunity to test. My conclusions and the parameters of the test are included below.

To accurately compare the different players I rated them on sound quality (SQ), Video Playback Quality (VP), user interface/ease of use (UI), Radio Quality (RQ), and Other Features. I should mention that for other features I will only be reviewing the major additional features of the Touch. All the advantages of various apps would be beyond the scope of this review. Suffice to say that the touch acts more like a tiny tablet then an MP3 player.

Jump to the bottom if all you want is the conclusions:

Equipment: The players: 8 GB Archos Vision 30c, 4GB SanDisk Sansa Fuze, 8GB SanDisk Sansa Fuze+, and 32GB iPod Touch 4G.

Headphones: Skullcandy INK'd Earbuds*

*I know these are cheap but the SQ is good enough to allow me to distinguish differences between the players.

Sound Quality:

1) Fuze: 9/10

The best of the bunch, great sound for an MP3 player, with clear notes and solid if not spectacular base. With Rockbox* I would give it a 10/10.

2) Touch: 8/10.

Unlike previous ipods I have used I actually enjoy the quality of the 4G touch. I could wish for more equalizer controls but I think it does a solid job, just not quite as clean as the Fuze. Not compatible with Rockbox.

3) Fuze+ 5/10

For some reason the Fuze+ just doesn't seem to have the same quality as the Fuze, I don't know if they changed the chip or what, but the SQ simply isn't as good. Moreover the Fuze+ isn't compatible with Rockbox.

3) Vision: 5/10

Normal equalizer setting has poor SQ with virtually no base, but the M/S equalizer does a good job of boosting sound of improving sound quality on tracks (this uses an algorithm to add and subtract the data going to different ears to provide a more surround sound feel). I found the 3d M/S setting to be too much and to make the player overloud but the Bass setting for the MS equalizer does an excellent job of repairing the bass problem. I like the ability to set manual EQs on the player. Not compatible with Rockbox.

Video Playback:

1) Touch: 8/10,

The touch has a great screen, large enough to enjoy on a long trip or flight, with minimal differences in viewing quality based on angle of view. Extremely clear and clean picture, with very little glare or reflection. Limited handling of file types, basically only MPEG-4 is the main reason I took off points.

2) Vision: 6/10

For size this takes second place to the iPod. The amount of glare and reflection on the screen however makes watching in most environments fairly difficult and watching in bright light impossible. This however was not as big a problem inside a car and I imagine it would also not be so bad on a plane. Since these are the two most likely places for video viewing I felt the a score of 5 was still warranted. Diversity of file playback pushes the rating to 6.

3) Fuze/Fuze+: 5/10

I found video playback on the two devices to be very similar. The screen is too small to really watch a movie or show on, but it doesn't have as much glare as on the Vision. Both of these allow a lot of file types. But for me the screen is just too small for serious viewing.

User Interface:

1) Touch: 9/10

Apple is known for both industrial engineering and intuitive design, the touch is no different. All the features you might want regularly are easily viewable with only a few swipes. The touch screen is both responsive and accurate. There are some limitations to the operating system in terms of apps you can use and function management but they don't really detract from an excellent user experience. Volume controls and the lock/unlock buttons are the only external buttons. If you could press pause and play without having to take it out of your pocket this would be a 10.

2) Fuze: 8/10

A great tactile wheel that actually spins for song and menu selection (alla the iPod classic but the wheel spins) is super easy to use. Moreover pressing play/pause, fast forwarding etc. can all be managed without ever removing the player from your pocket. Menu use isn't quite as easy as with the iPod since you can't type or touch but it is still straight forward. The actual user interface is probably a 7, no stellar user friendly design but loading Rockbox firmware I think changes the UI to an 8 due to customizability.

3) Fuze+: 5/10

Uses a similar UI to the fuse but the controls are different. The Fuze+ uses an inductive touch plate similar to the LG chocolate line of phones instead of real buttons. The plate is both oversensitive and not sensitie enough, either not responding or jumping around. Still control is manageable if difficult, and side volume buttons allow for easy volume control when the player is in a pocket.

4) Vision: 1/10:

The Archos Vision has the worst user interface and controls I have ever seen on any device. There is only one external button, which controls the back function and allows you (if you hold it) to either lock or power down the player. The touch screen does not respond at all to light touches or swipes the way the iPod does, requiring more of a push and then only responding about 40% of the time. I found that if I used a fingernail I could get responsiveness up to about 75% but that was it. Play/pause, SF/SB buttons are cramped in at the bottom of the screen. If you listen to audiobooks then skipping to a point in the middle of a 30 minuet chapter requires touching on a thin line that is only visible in perfect light and at the right angle. Doing so is nearly impossible. FF normally by holding the skip forward button is slow and inefficient, and nearly impossible to do with a nail. Volume controls require that you either tap on the speaker picture at either end of the volume bar or you attempt to actually touch the volume bar at a given point. This however is as difficult as touching a point partway through a song. Also the screen only tilts sideways in one direction.

Radio Quality:

1) Fuze/Fuze+: 7/10

FM radio was mostly clear, and recording quality was adequate, but nothing to write home about.

2) Vision:

5/10 Good FM playback but recording quality of radio music is awful, the files sound like they were recorded underwater, with really muddy sound.

2) Touch: 5/10

Internet radio with apps when on a wif-fi network but no FM radio and no ability to record from radio.

Other Features:

1) Touch: 24/20

Ya I know this doesn't make sense but as I said above this is only nominally an MP3 player, failure to account for that would be inappropriate. It is the only player with internet access, e-mail, internet radio etc. Obviously this has a ton more features than any of the other features. An inability to add additional memory kept it from being a 25/20

2) Fuze 14/20

It isn't that the fuzes have a ton of extra features but rather the main extra they do have, a micro SD card slot is HUGE. Essentially this means that you can add up to 32GB (with current firmware) of storage capacity to your MP3 player, turning the 4GB player into a 36GB player. Not too shabby. Add to that the fact that the Fuze works with Rockbox and that's why this earns 13 points.

3) Fuze+: 9/20:

As I said above these points basically come from the ability to add external memory.

4) Vision 30c: 1/20

There really weren't any features that the vision had that the other two players did not have as well. Additionally there wasn't anything that the vision excelled at above the rest.

*****Conclusion: (consider 25-36/60 to be three stars)****

1) iPod touch 4G: 53/60 (5 stars)

2) SanDisk Sansa Fuze: 43/60 (4 stars) ***Best Buy***

3) SanDisk Sansa Fuze+: 32/60 (3 stars)

4) Archos Vision 30c: 19/60 (2 stars)

If price is no issue, for sheer features, ease of use and the best video with decent sound the iPod is the best bet.

For a simple mp3 player for straight music use, I would go with the Fuze, ease of use and sound quality are the most important features in an mp3 player and the Fuze has those in abundance. Expandable memory and compatibility with Rockbox really make it the best choice. I wouldn't choose the + over the older version.

Skip the Archos at all costs. Barring a major firmware update it is nearly unusable.

*Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players that supplants the stock firmware that comes on the device. It provides significant additional customizability and control, as well as several new features. The highlights of these features are: increased sound management controls, games, PDA type applications. It goes a decent way towards bridging the gap between the Fuze and the touch.

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I truly hate to give bad reviews, especially to products with such promise. At first, I was excited to see that this Mp3 player not only would play my music but would allow me to listen to the radio, too. It's something I kind of missed when listening to my iPod. But, unfortunately, not much worked well.

Of course, I tried out the radio first. No go. I couldn't get any of the stations in town to turn in without static. For many of the stations, I couldn't get it to stop on the exact station number, though that may have been due to the touch screen. Or not.

Then I tried out some of my music. Maybe I'm spoiled but as I listened to the player, I felt like I was back in the 80's, listening to my portable cassette player with its not-so-clear headphones or the cheap radio in my parents' Pinto (yes, we had a Pinto. Don't judge.). No matter what I did or what headphones I used, the sound quality remained subpar.

Trying to use the touchscreen controls was just frustrating. Again, I feel spoiled because I've come to expect instant results (or relatively close to instant anyway) and Achos just didn't deliver. It took forever to move from function to function; no quick swipe or touch to be had.

The other aspects, which made the Archos sound so appealing, were disappointing. The video was of very poor quality and hard to see on the small screen. This also meant that the pictures were grainy (even if they were taken with a high-quality camera). And the recording device just isn't very good, either. I suppose I can use it for quick notes, to-do lists, or writing ideas but, beyond small snippets, it would be difficult to listen to because of the poor sound quality and the static-y sound recording.

I was not impressed. Not by a long shot.

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This little MP3 is perfect for someone like me. I don't really care if the picture quality is good, clear, crisp etc. What I wanted was something I could use when I go running. Just some tunes to make the time pass! And this little easy to use MP3 was perfect! Very easy to upload songs onto, the thing basically runs itself.

Very lightweight so I don't feel like I have an old walkman with me. I haven't had many problems as written in the other reviews about having troubles with the screen. I am sure if you are an avid user you will know more of what they should and shouldn't do. However for someone like me who really just wanted to have something to run with -it is perfect! I know most at the stores run $80 to $100, so I think the price for this MP3 is very fair!

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The MP3 player market continues to thin out as Apple seems to do everything better than anyone else. You can still find $10-25 MP3 players, but with the Apple iPod shuffle 2 GB Blue (4th Generation) NEWEST MODEL selling for under $50, the market has pretty much ceded the over-$50 price range to Apple. Enter the Archos: Selling for around $70, it promises to deliver a touch screen interface, MP3 player, video player, and sound recorder all in one tiny package. So how well does it do all these things? Not very well, I'm afraid.

Let's start with the "touch-screen" interface: It's pretty crude, and it's slow. Very slow. You tap, or swipe, and then wait. And wait. Just as you're about to tap again, the desired function comes up... or not. It's infuriating. Even the volume control is slow. Rather than swiping a finger, as on the iPhone of iPod Touch, you tap one end of the displayed volume bar, and the volume goes down (or up) an increment. Hold your finger down, and it moves in jerky increments.

Sound qualityand that's the main thing we should judge an MP3 player onis dreadful. There's no low bass, or even mid bass. I plugged in the best in-ear phone I have, a set that retails for $80 and delivers fantastic sound from an iPod. The result was thin and very unsatisfying. Same goes for the FM radio. Difficult to use, and poor sound. The video player works, but the screen is too small and the controls difficult. The sound recorder is absolutely dreadful. I tried playing a guitar a foot away from the built in microphone, and what I got on playback was a faint, scratchy sound.

There's really nothing to recommend this device. Given how poorly it compares with even my three-year old Sansa it should never have gone into production. Buy an iPod Shuffle or save up for a Nano or Touch.

able to store my music or movies folders and all unlike other mp3 player which dont accept or reconize folders i love it so much i might get another one for my movies or get one with more GB

Portable DVR 200 + Sony 580 Helmet Camera ExView HAD CCD V 2.0 . Factory Integrated Stereo Micropho

The camera is well made and works good. The DVR battery is crap and only seems to last an hour before its dead. The DVR is very cheaply made and comes with hilarious engrish instructions. I like the fact you can power the camera with the dvr but it kills the battery that much quicker. If you want a good quality helmet cam look somewhere else.

This system has what is Needed to get the Video that is needed, but there are still some questions...

Like can we use alturnative Power,what is the max gig's on Chip Size ???

For BMX you only want 40 minent run time but for Quad Touring, you want a full 8 hours, I mean I want as much as I can Get, that is why we edit...

I might buy this system, but there is much research to do yet...

However it dose look like a REALLY GOOD DEAL!!!

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4 PAIRS (8 Pcs.) Mini CCTV BNC Video Balun`, Passive

They work, they're great, but the picture is misleading. They're all the same, not in pairs, and none of them have pigtails. Make sure you have room: total length is almost 2 inches, and the wires exit the box on the square end. They're small enough to fit on adjacent terminals but do stick out quite far from the DVR.

I needed to have a long run for CAT6 cable to hook up my home video security system. (Qsee brand). These Baluns allowed me to run 4 cameras off a single CAT6 run. There was no noticeable degration in the video clarity or camer performance. Great deal and saved me lots of money compared to running individual RG 59 runs for each camera.

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UTP-Coax video baluns are the easiest way to hook up analog video cameras for a home CCTV setup, and these little buggers do the job just fine. They are priced well, and work great. All you need is a small screwdriver to secure each wire in place.

NOTES ABOUT USING BALUNS FOR CCTV VIDEO:

Video baluns are great, and can make your install faster, cheaper, and with less interference than running separate coax/power cables (or buying expensive siamese cable). Instead of running a thick coax cable and a separate power cable to each camera, you only have to run a single UTP (cat5, cat5e, cat6) cable. Use one color pair for the video and parallel the other 3 pairs for camera power. You will need some male DC power connectors as well (unless you want to splice, solder, and heat shrink the wires instead). I would also highly recommend using a separate wall-mount CCTV camera power supply box with individually fused outputs. Not only it is safer, but when running power over UTP cable, this makes for a much neater, more professional looking installation, as opposed to using the cheap laptop type power bricks with power splitter cables that often come with most home CCTV systems.

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Used all of them and no drop in video. Easy to use and install. If you are running your own line set this will do the trick.

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once figured out the right way to hook them up they worked just as advertised. This is the way to go usinr cat5e cable.

Impecca 2GB MP3 Player with Digital Voice Recorder - MP1202FK - Black

• In the Box - MP3 Player, Earphones, USB Cable, 1 AAA BatteryFeatures
• Easy Access Voice Recording Button
• WMA/MP3 Format Support
• Hold Button
• 7 Preset EQ Selections/7 Repeat Functions

I got this for work so I could make audio notes The recorder quality is easily 5/5, but the buttons are hard to handle. You have to push very hard and in the correct order. There are only two buttons and you have to press them in a strange order to get the proper action; it took me awhile to get the rhythm down.

They're also supposed to send a battery with it, but the one I received was crusty and the seller never responded to my email. Not a big deal, but I was a little frustrated. The quality for recording is great, but I don't really think it's much of an mp3 player.

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You are better off humming to yourself than buying this MP3 player. This piece of trash has already stolen too much of my time, so I'm just going to list my complaints.

Unit requires a AAA battery that it shipped with. It's a shame that battery was correded when I opened the package.

The battery I DID put in was a new Duracell which lasted less than 24 hours. Yes, dead as a doornail Christmas morning. Yes, I am smart enough to have turned the unit off before wrapping it.

The unit identified itself to Windows Media player but then wouldn't play the songs in the "format" they transfered in. Turns out that "format" meant the folders the Impecca created to store the music.

The unit only allowed me to move the files one at a time from the /artis/album_name folders it created to the main menu. I could not delete the folders and start over until I deleted all the contents. Again, bulk delete would not work. Once it became obvious I would have to delete every song one at a time I decided to just move them, one at a time, to the main index.

Once you are in 'voice record' mode you are stuck. There is no option to go back to the main menu. Removing the battery for a minute or so and then restoring was the only option I could find.

I think that's it . . .

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This is really a piece of junk. It is as if the makers failed to program it as none of the TWO buttons on the whole thing seem to do anything you want it to. I loaded it and put some songs on it and took it on a run to listen. I could not get it to play into the tracks, it just kept going to voice recorder.

It is a piece of junk in my kitchen junk drawer now. Not to mention it needs battries.

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we have been using this kind of MP3 players for long time,always satisfied with their versatility, the radio,voice recorder ,USb and of course the MP3 player work very good,for that price is a good deal.

Vitek CCTV VT-EH8/1T 8 Channel H.264 DVR with 1TB HDD and Real Time HD1 Recording

This will be the third VITEK dvr that we have used, in the company and at home locations. Let me start by saying that VITEK probably has the BEST technical support that I have ever experienced. They always answer the phone and always know exactly how to fix the problem, that alone is worth the cost. Product quality is the best. We have 8 cameras, inside and out at our office. With this DVR we can view our office anytime via iPhone, Android, or a simple website IP address and it is a live feed. Must warn you that if youre not experienced with I.T. then you should have someone in the profession set it up for you if you plan to use it over the internet or phone apps. After getting the new unit plugged in, the online set up took approximately half an hour and we were all up and running with live streaming camera feeds. We only use ours for basic non stop recording so I can not get into the advanced recording, but this one does offer it. I say well worth the money.

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Sylvania SDVD1332 13.3-Inch Swivel Screen Portable DVD Player with USB/SD Card Reader

• 13.3-Inch Portable DVD Player, 16:09 Wide Screen Format
• Swivel Screen to 180 Degrees and lie flat
• Built in USB and SD Card Reader to play all your digital format entertainment
• Play Music, Movies and View Pictures - Compatible with DVD +-R/RW, CD-R/RW, MP3, Jpeg
• Includes Built in Rechargeable Battery, AC and Car Adapter, Remote Control, Ear buds

This appears to be a new item at this time, can't find any reviews anywhere, and even manufacturer's information seems incomplete. But I found the owner's manual at curtcoint dot com (spelled out so Amazon doesn't delete it), in case anyone is interested. According to the manual, it appears the unit does have resume play memory (can be disabled); barely 2 hours run time with earphones (included) so probably less using the speakers, battery is an internal Lithium Polymer unit (manual shows location, disassembly required for replacement).

It includes a remote, but it's the small flat type with roundish bumps for buttons like those common on small players, all bunched together. I'm still deciding whether to order one, but the remote would be pretty useless for the person I'd buy it for, they need one with regular buttons in more logical positions as on typical TV remotes. It can play PAL and NTSC standards.

UPDATE 5/16/2013: I took a chance and ordered one. Seems to have a problem with the sound going up to full blast every time it is powered on. I've tried different audio as well as video (just in case) settings and it's still the same, regardless of the kind of disks being played. I tried a few different file formats to see how it does: mp3, mp4, flv, rmvb, mkv, jpg, wma, avi, mov. Only the mp3 and jpg formats are supported out of this list. Sound is on par with small cheap electronics; a little tinier sounding and a narrower frequency response range than the Sony DVPFX980 9-Inch Screen DVD Portable it is replacing. The Sony also has better black level and wider viewing angle, and also no light bleed that I noticed. The Sylvania has slight light bleed across the bottom edge that's noticeable only in black backgrounds. Sony also has a better remote. The only advantage on the Sylvania over the Sony is the much larger screen (big advantage, no pun intended), and it supposedly support the PAL broadcast standard but I haven't been able to test this yet. Oh yes, the Sylvania also supports SD cards beside USB drives, and the power cord is normal length instead of Sony's approx. 40" cord that everyone complaints about. I have not tested battery life, but not expecting much given the large screen. It is very light-feeling; the Sony feels like it weights the same subjectively, and feels and looks especially better made.

I just now found out I cannot access the Preference tab in Settings, where there is an option to reset the unit back to factory settings, among other things. Would like to try a reset to see if it helps with the sound level issue, but it won't go into this tab for me.

Amazon sold a bunch of these by now. I'd appreciate hearing whether the full blast sound on power on problem is common, or maybe just my unit.

UPDATE 5/23/2013: I requested an exchange from Amazon because of the issues above. Unfortunately the replacement was the same: sound goes to max every time it's turned on, Preference tab in the settings is not accessible. I'll try the manufacturer, if they can be contacted, but I find these kind of experiences usually frustrating and a waste of time and so have been putting it off.

Buy Sylvania SDVD1332 13.3-Inch Swivel Screen Portable DVD Player with USB/SD Card Reader Now

my wife, the flight attendant, when she is on trips, loves to play movies when she is in the hotels. a few years back, she bought a small lap top that didn't have a cd/dvd device installed.(in fact, it has a smaller screen than this does). some hotels don't have wifi, so streaming movies are out of the question. so she wanted a nice dvd player, rather than a laptop upgrade. we looked at various models, at different price points, and was rather impressed with the size and the functions of this new item. loved the design, great screen format and size. the only down side, was it felt a bit cheap; very flimsy plastic used on some parts, and the opening door was really hard to open and close; the worse part, was the really cheap and nasty old style slide on and off switch on the side; please people, a 2 cent part you can't upgrade to this nice designed unit? i love the ideas of the unit, just off the mark in a few places

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HD?? DVD's look pretty grainy, but the screen is bright. The player is attractive and perhaps useful, despite the flimsy, but rigid plastic case and switches. The 90 day warranty does not show much confidence by the manufacturer. After 90 days, you pay shipping to and from. It may be a good investment to take out the inexpensive add on warranty. I did not and may regret it, especially since the item arrived in a tight fitting box from Amazon without the customary bubble or air wrap. The inner box was crumpled, as was the ship box exterior, but the player itself was well packaged by Silvania. The cardboard box containing accessories was crumpled. I will re-rate later if there are issues or concerns.

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When I bought this DVD player, I didn't have a lot of expectations because of the low price. This is an amazingly high quality player. Its very light weight, has a crystal clear picture and even without external speakers it has a nice sound quality, there's no buzzing or raspy sound at all. The swivel screen is a nice feature and its very easy to set up. I haven't tried playing it yet on just the built in battery so I can't say how long the battery lasts.

For the money, this is an excellent buy.

Love the quality exlentit sound and big screen plays hd movied just can't say enough

My wife did a great job picking this item for me.

RCA RP5120 256MB USB 104 Hour Recording Digital Voice Recorder

The system won't allow me to upgrade the star rating too bad. My initial review was negative. I thought the recorder had too low sensitivity for lecture recording. Later I read the manual more carefully, and found a CONF setting. Now it records in open spaces loud and clear! I recommend this unit, ignore the star rating I gave it earlier.

Of course there are other units of better quality and flexibility of use. However, if one is on a budget and just needs a recorder for the requirements of the job or school, RCA's product is adequate.

The pluses are the price, the compatability of the unit, the very informative manual, and the fact that there are four "folders" in which one can place his recordings.

On the minus side, the volume setting could be stronger but a decent set of headphones will assist in hearing that which has been previously recorded. The unit devours regular AAA batteries. Because of the latter, an investment in rechargeable ones might be advisable.

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I liked the price and the size. Easy to use but when it came time to listen to the lecture I got frustrated at the ability to rew and ff. The unit was too slow and if I hit the rew twice the unit erased where I was at and started from the beggining...ARRGH. Sounds good and has great pc download speed which is what I had to do to get my lecture in a place to use for my needs. Price good for what it delivers but could be the ultimate if the speeds were more flexible. 1x 2x 10x.

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This recorder, I thought, was a decent interim recorder for only a few days while my Olympus was down and another en route. My mistake! I successfully converted three files to the .wav format needed for my purposes. The fourth file I attempted to convert was considerably larger, 27,000+KB, and I got an error message, "bad file format." What? It's the same format as before! Tech support informed me that the file was corrupted because it was too large and there was no other way to access it. There should definitely be a warning in the instructions that if you record more than an hour at a time (mine was one to two hours in length) it will corrupt the file. Had I known, I would have stopped recording and created new files throughout. Now there's no wayt to transcribe what was recorded and it's lost forever. What a bad, bad investment! I didn't get mine from Amazon, but people should know about this. Mine is going back to the store where I purchased it. It's a piece of junk for lengthy recording.

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This is an easy to use voice recorder, but if you're looking for quality, go with an Olympus. The sound quality of the playback is horrible, both on the player itself and the computer. Hoever, if you need a recorder just for grocery lists or lectures, this will do.

Terk FDTV1A Flat Digital Omni Directional Amplified Indoor Antenna-Black

• Optimized for HDTV reception and designed to blend in with high end components
• 360 degree reception pattern eliminates constant adjustment
• Removable ELN amplifier for outstanding reception without saturating the signal
• Patented reception technology outperforms traditional antennas
• Comes with easy 3 way mounting bracket

First some stats. I live about 45 miles from the primary source of all the local stations, in an apartment on the second floor, with a glass door to the balcony in the room with the TV. Also, the TV (and antenna) is in a recessed nook, with walls on three sides. I had been dealing with a boosted rabbit ear antenna setup from Radio Shack for the past 4 months. I could only reliably receive FOX, CBS, PBS, and the CW, and each of these required fiddling with the ears, circular antenna loop, and gain on the boost (too much or too little lost the signal). I could get other channels unpredictably and with a lot of work, and that was enough until I just got fed up with it all. Purchased three TERK antennas at Best Buy to try out, this one, the smaller version (FDTV2a), and a directional antenna (HDTVa).

All three completely blew the Radio Shack antenna out of the water, though they were very close to one another in terms of performance. This antenna was slightly more capable in receiving the weaker signals than the smaller version. While the HDTVa was the overall leader, the only one that picked up NBC while on top of the TV, it is on the large and cumbersome size, and takes up way too much space with the rabbit ears out (which were necessary for NBC). However, once optimally positioned, the FDTV1a picked up NBC and many others, and required NO adjustment.

I had to stand the antenna upright, next to the TV, and of course use the boost to get the best results. After a re-scan, I now get all of the channels I got before, all of the ones that were spotty, and a couple I didn't even know about, all with perfect clarity and sound, AND WITHOUT NEEDING ANY ADJUSTMENT. It also looks much more stylish than the rabbit ears I had before. I don't get ABC, and none of the TERK antennas were able to change that, but I am still thrilled with the results. I was seriously considering basic cable, and now I have no need for it.

Superb product. Excellent price here on Amazon. Highly recommend.

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I bought a Terk TV-55 antenna around a decade ago (still sold today), since it was one of the most expensive antennas around, and I was hoping there was something to it.

It worked, but I've never been convinced it does any better than more traditional antennas. It does do a better job since the digital transition, but I had to play with it's positioning quite a bit to get everything to come in.

Originally I figured I'd pick up another one of those, but when I saw this, I thought I might as well take a chance on a newer design.

Pulling it out of the box, it's amazing how small and light it is compared to my TV-55...it had me skeptical that it could really do as well.

Before hooking it up, I used the signal strength indicator on my Tivo HD to check how well each station was coming in, so that I could see if this antenna really did better or worse...

I swapped antennas, threw this FDTV1A on a chair near where I have my TV-55, and checked again. To my pleasant surprise, EVERY channel comes in stronger. Channels that were above 80% already are now maxed out at 100. Channels below that have all gained at least 10+ to 30 on the signal meter. I even seem to be able to pull in one station from another market decently that didn't come in at all on the TV-55.

And all that was without doing any more positioning than just throwing it on a chair next to my TV-55 (which is by an outside wall). (I should note that I have channels coming several different directions, so on my TV-55 it's challenging to find an orientation that gets all of them decently-this model really does seem to be omnidirectional, or at least far more so than a normal antenna).

So I'm very happy with this thing's performance so far, and would absolutely recommend it. For YEARS I've wondered why someone couldn't make a better antenna, with all the technology we have now...and it looks like they actually did.

The small size, and small AC adapter are nice too.

One note-if you're already getting channels in super strong, I've heard there's a chance that amplifying them may actually make them worse. I didn't have that happen in my situation at all. Even the channels that were already at 92 or 96 on my signal strength meter just bounced up to 100 without issue, but possibly some people might want to try it without plugging in the amplifier, if their signals are already super strong.

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Bought to replace a pair of good old fashioned bunny ears for the DT converter box. It doesn't get any more channels than the bunny ears were able to pull in, but I've gone from repositioning the bunnies every time I change channels to only repositioning this antenna for the one channel whose tower is the opposite direction from all of the others (In North Tampa, everything but Channel 10 comes from the south, channel 10 comes from the north)

A definite improvement, but I wish I could get everything from the same position.

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This is an excellent little antenna.

I have a great picture, lots of *free* (non-cable) channels, and some temporary respite

from the ever-constant exercise of dipole/loop manipulation.

Before purchasing this antenna, I tried two others: The RCA ANT1251 (Digital Amplified Indoor Antenna),

and the RCA ANT121 (basic loop & dipole-extendables) Indoor Antenna.

The problem with any loop/dipole antenna is obvious: Unless the antenna is (somehow) technologically superior,

many moments will become hours spent adjusting, re-adjusting, and re-re-adjusting those dang dipoles, adjusting the 'loop', and repositioning the antenna base. And when a loop/dipole antenna also includes additional 'switches' and/or 'fine tuning knobs' (such as the RCA ANT121 above), the number of potential positions for successfully orienting the antenna for optimal reception is limitless... and quite exhausting.

I've only had the TERK for 3 days now, but sweet Jesus... the damn thing actually works, and that is the ONLY reason

I'm spending precious moments of my life, writing this silly review. (yes i just wanted to give something back.)

I gave this product '4' stars (rather than '5') because... no product is perfect, and that includes the TERK.

Small Issues:

When I first installed the TERK and powered everything on, I got... absolutely nothing.

There were terrible, broken, pixelated pictures, and yes ~ heartbreak. Then, I added the signal booster/amplifier, and voila!! I got strong signals, excellent pictures, and little in the way of the need for repositioning the unit.

But for my apartment layout, area of town, distance from town transmitters, etc., etc.,

my TERK unit won't work without the adjoining booster/amplifier. (which, for the energy conscious amongst us, could be an issue.)

Booster/Amplifier Design: The design of the booster/amplifier unit is a tad inconvenient.

When the amplifier/booster is connected to the antenna, there is no 'on/off' switch; one must either connect or disconnect the amplifier from the antenna, and then plug/unplug the amplifier from an outlet. Basically ~ once the amplifier/booster is connected,

the antenna won't work without it (and the amplifier must be plugged in, for use).

It's just a tad inconvenient, but the excellent performance of the antenna is worth the inconvenience.

Booster/Amplifier Design: Also... for my particular layout, the design of the booster/amplifier presents another challenge. The booster itself is a tiny little black box, connected via cable, to both the antenna, and my digital converter box. The connecting cable (for the booster/amplifier) is *just* short/stubby enough, and the little booster box *just* heavy enough, so that it threatens to pull my antenna and/or converter box backwards off of my TV set. This is not a big deal, and a little repositioning solves the problem, but to date, the set-up is still a bit awkward. (i have a thick, table-top analog TV; my electronic accoutrements sit atop the TV, for convenience). Optimally and ideally, one will want to place both the main antenna, and the tiny booster box connection, close together, on any flat surface.

(note: the prime antenna cable itself possesses plenty of slack for moving the unit around, but not more than 2-3 ft.

from your television set. when the amplifier/booster is connected, an additional 1-1.5 ft. of cable slack is created,

for moving the unit around.)

I'm able to pull in every local station/channel offered by my municipality... except one. This is interesting, because positioning the unit in almost any spot will pull in every channel (for my area), reasonably clearly... except one, little channel that refuses to be watched.

Basically...

This unit was simple to install, installed easily to my analog APEX TV and digital converter box,

has a simple design with no knobs or switches, and requires very little in the way of adjustment/repositioning.

My current unit sits atop a pile of clean laundry, on a couch next to my TV, and has required little movement or repositioning to receive a great signal. By day, the unit sits atop one pile of clothing. By night (apparently signal positions 're-orient' themselves or something), I move the unit 1-ft. away, to sit atop another pile. Occasional corrections to improve picture quality have been few, and required only the slightest turning of the unit to the left, or right.

I will return my $100 Best Buy version, and re-order it here for 1/2 the price.

(bless you Amazon...)

Additional Reminder: For most, it might be helpful to purchase an additional 6-20 ft. of coaxial cable,

just to find that perfect spot for signal reception.

Also: Don't forget to test the unit with AND without the use of the booster/amplifier box.

Lastly: Don't forget to test the unit in BOTH the flat, and upright positions.

Good luck.

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First of all I am more of a reader than writer of reviews, however I feel compelled to share my experiences in finding a suitable antenna. My original intention was to get rid of cable and watch the OTA stations. So began my journey.

I tried out four different antennas before making my final selection:

1) RCA ANT1500 Superior Flat Antenna (White)

2) RCA ANT1650 Flat Digital Amplified Indoor TV Antenna

3) Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna for Off-Air HDTV Reception

4) Terk FDTV1A Flat Digital Omni Directional Amplified Indoor Antenna (Black)

I was really impressed by the RCA 1500. For a non-amplified unit, it brought in a lot of stations 18(counting substations) on the first scan and 28 after some repositioning. The position I had to hold it in to get those stations was unsustainable. There was no way to mount it on the wall at that angle. Too bad though, since I couldn't get NBC or CW. It had a nice clean design and it was flat and wall mountable, which was important for my setup needs.

Next was the RCA 1650. I figured I would have better luck with an amplified unit. No way, though. It was flimsy, light and cheap feeling and very weak. The performance was way behind the cheaper 1500 (which I consider a great value by comparison).

Ok here goes... one of the best selling antennas on Amazon: The Terk Hdtva. Despite its somewhat garish looks and ungainly stature, man this thing rocks!! I see why it's so popular. It did a great job picking up the stations I wanted, and for someone with the counter space it is absolutely worth a try. Inevitably I returned it because it would not fit properly on my window ledge,due to its bulky design.

So finally I tried the Terk FDTV1a. For my needs this is the bomb. The convenient three way mounting bracket, the black and silver finish, everything about it looked right to complement the looks of my TV setup. And then I plugged it in and BAM! Stations galore, very little fidgeting to get a good signal, and it fits neatly on my ledge. Magic. It was a little more than I wanted to spend but it was worth it. I am very satisfied.

KGuard BR401-4CW154M All-in-One H.264 Surveillance Combo Kit with 4-Channel DVR and 4 Weatherproof

I bought this system primarily for the purpose of keeping an eye on my house when I am away, and recording any theft that might happen. I had the DVR set up and cameras installed in a about 3 hours and it worked fine on the monitor. I spent about 40-50 hours trying to configure the DVR for remote viewing on my iphone. I finally gave up and paid the Geek Squad $89.99 to come out and do it for me. They stayed 2 hours and gave up and left without getting it to work. I then launched into a study program in which I read several long articles and learned how the itnernet works. Then I systematically tried 30-40 different settings until I landed the one that works. Their customer support is not great basically because they don't seem to understand english enough to respond to your emails. THe system would work fairly easily if you have a static IP address. However most all ISP's use dynamic IP's which change each time you get off the internet. I had to connect an old windows XP computer and run a client on it, which I found as a free download somewhere, and set up a free domain name at kguard.org, such as sadsteve.kguard.org. If you contact customer support they will send you PDF files that are outdated and have conflicting information on them. If you write back and ask a question about the PDF they will just send you another copy without answering your question. All these standalone DVR's seem to be built on similar platforms. This is my 4th system. One of my "weatherproof" cameras lasted until the first rain. It stopped working, and I can see water standing on the inside of the lens. I've filed a support ticket with customer support, but haven't heard back from them yet. These things are made in Taiwan and are sold all over the world. They seem to be better at marketing and sales than design and support. I do like H.264 video format, which is a good standard. Some brands have their own proprietary formats, which make it hard to share video with the police department if needed. I don't know if I would have had better luck with another brand like Swan, sold from Walmart or Sam's. I have a feeling the quality is about the same, but maybe the American support would be better. I spent a few hours on the phone with customer support out of California. They would occasionally answer their phone, but usually would have to call me back. Their help guys are not IT professionals and are just there to help you follow the manual. When it doesn't work they can't problem solve. I joined numerous forums to discuss my issues with IT pro's. I spent time with my ISP provider (who was no help), and also called and emailed Actiontec, who makes my router/modem. So there you have it. I feel I could install any of them now that I've learned how to port forward in my router, created a DDNS and deal with PPPoe ISP. When I read "easily connects to the internet via your smartphone" I really want to kick someone. So good luck, you will need it.

Two hundred bucks is a great deal for a 4-camera surveillance system, so I suppose we can't ask for everything. The system itself is very good. The 113-page instruction manual is not easy to read and worse, some of the instructions do not match the system's programming--I suspect a last minute upgrade occurred after the manual was printed. However, it's possible to just ignore the manual and fiddle with the interface and figure it out.

A worse problem is the resolution at night when the infrared kicks in. They claim that it works up to 30 feet, but I'd say only about ten feet is truly clear. If that's good enough for you, the All-in-One is the system to buy.

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2.5''TFT IR Vehicle Car DVR Dash Cam Camera Road Video Recorder Night Vision LED

• 2.5" TFT Colorful Monitor.
• 6 LED's, support nightvision.
• 120 degrees viewing angle.
• Screen rotation angle: 270 degrees
• 1280x960/720x480/640x480 resolution selectable.

This was a fair price for what I received. The night video is good and the daytime video is good also; I got what I paid for. Keep in mind there is no SD card included in this price.

VONNIC VVR4008HM 8-Channel 1920X1080 HD Security DVR w/ HDMI and SATA Hard Drive Support - CIF @ 24

The "Product Description" lists "Pre-installed 1TB SATA HD" only there is not one inside the chassis, or in the box. There is also a CD-ROM/DVD device door, but inside there is no CD-ROM/DVD device. So, you must separately order a HD and DVD recorder. A very misleading product description.

Sony HDR-SR1 AVCHD 2.1 MP 30GB High-Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom

I received the camcorder a couple of days ago to replace my older Sony miniDV camcorder that is nine years old (still works well). I bought the new one after buying a Samsung 46" LCD flat screen and seening what I have been missing in HD television and it made the my existing camcorder look mediocre. I needed an HD camcorder to go with the HD display.

I have seen other photographers using hard drive camcorders with USB ports and decided then that I would go that for next purchase of a camcorder. I saw two advantages over the miniDV tape of the hard drive: (1)the ability to transfer the images onto a computer quickly (it is more than twice as fast as transferring a miniDV tape using firewire) and (2) the HD had 4 hours or more of operation without changing tapes. I film my son's sporting events that run two hours and changing tapes is always ackward.

I have used on trial basis a camcorder that had the small DVD burner built inside and it worked fine but the need for for having the camcorder operate on the charger for 15 minutes or more to "finalize" the disk was very annoying. I also worry about the miniDVD disks skipping during filming while using miniDVD camcorders in high shake environments such as in the back of speedboat. The just seem intuitively more vibration prone, but I could be worried about nothing. Thus I chose the hard drive version over the miniDV tape and the miniDVD disk similiar camcorder that Sony sells.

Thus far the device has worked well and looks great on the HD large screen TV. I film my son's first football game in HD tommorrow. I had to go back to the store to buy the bigger QM71 battery. The battery the come with camcorder claims to work 90 minutes, but this goes by quickly. The QM71 battery lasts for more three hours. I amd considering also buying the QM91 battery but it very thick and takes up lots of space behind the camera. I like to have two batteries, one to charge and one to use. I also bought a travel charger for the camcorder that makes it possble to charge the battery at home while using the camcorder untethered with a second battery.

I read reports about some people no liking the touch screen and finding it confusing. This is a complicated and it is at time confusing but I like the touch screen.

The worst part of the camcorder is not the camera at all, the software is not up to the rest of the amazing capabilities of the rest of the gear. I use the camera with Windows XP and so I used the free sony software the came with the camera. THe camera puts out .m2ts files. I would guess that none of your current software recognizes this. Mine certainly did not and I have lots of different current software. Apparently .m2ts is the file extentions for the new AVC/H.264 the Sony and Panasonic (of VHS tape fame) are jointly trying to establish. I bought this camera because I this this new disk format with dominated the prosumer video space and many companies will sell slick software for it.

One surprise (it should not have been but I did think about it) was that the HD video images require much more computing horsepower to display than the prior generations of video. A 3 GHz Pentium 4 is the bare minimum to allow a PC to show the video images without jerkyness (Also the new Pentium DUOs work was well). If your current computer is a little old you can use the camcorer to play the videos on your flatscreen but this is not a long term solution. Is possible to fairly easily move videos back forth between the camcorder and your old computer using the USB port. The transfer speed is around 500 MB per minute so the entire 30GB may take an hour. I may a little optimistic on this transfer rate but it not way off. I have just done a few transfers thus far and never have I transfer the whole drive. The longest transfer was 20 minutes and this around 1/3 of a drive. This is much, much fast than the 120MB per minute that I have been getting using my miniDV tape drive on my old Sony camcorder. The radical increase in transfer speed is what I was looking for. While the now think of this as being awesome fast, it will not take more than a few weeks before I think that even this speed is painfully slow. That is why technology is, never enough.

The camera controls, zoom, etc are fairly conventional. Although the detail in the images is awesome since they are HD. I use the 10X optical zoom with a 2X digital zoom mode selected which give me plenty of zoom range. There is a 10X digital zoom range mode but the images are very pixelated at the extreme end of the zoom.

The camera is surprisingly small and compact, moreso than my old camcorder.

The sound is awesome (Dolby 5 channel surround sound). I never new how important sound was until four years ago when I got the surround sound for my DVD player. Have surround for football games and basketball game filming will put the crowd behind me and the field noises in front of me. I will learn more how works out in the future, but inital test show it is working as it seems it should.

The real test will come after using the camera couple of months and seeing all the difference in the new film results. I sure the camera will out well. I many have to buy a new computer or a new video card to using my computer as a player, but I still have some software changes to try.

I can burn traditonal DVDs or a new kind of HD DVDs (called AVCHDs). If I get a bluray burner I can make Bluray HD DVDs. Many options for playback. I store all of our currently family videos on a 750GB hard disk for which I have a USB 750GB drive for backup. I like this method of storing the video collection. Many Blurays or othe DVDs is not my first choice. I have seen dedicated HD video players that can operate through the ethernet. This another avenue to explore. Meanwhile I will use the camera as a video player and see if buy a new video card for my computer fixes my jerkiness with my 2.5 GHZ Pentium computer.

The best thing about the camera is the awesome look of the videos on the large flatscreen LCD display and the worst thing is the annoying software that comes for free with the camera (although it does 75% of what you want).

This camcorder uses a new file format (AVCHD) which is based on current popular standards. AVCHD is simply a streaming version of H.264 video with Dolby 5.1 surround sound audio. When producing an HDD camcorder, Sony had to decide between using the current standard and making a new one. Since the current standard is MPEG-2 video and stereo audio (eg: HDV) at a constant bitrate of 25mbps, the AVCHD format provides a number of features: 1) Better audio, with 5.1 channels recorded by the camcorder. 2) Better video as AVC is H.264-a modern codec that privides much higher quality data for a given bitrate than the ancient MPEG-2 video that HDV is based on. 3) Much more flexibility-to be HDV compatible would have meant recording constantly at 25mbps, and this is too fast for the CDR version (the HDR-UX1) and is unnecessary. 15Mbps H.264 should provide better quality video than MPEG-2 at 25Mbps!

The downside of moving into the future in this way is that current editing software does not yet support the new format. Thus, either you use Sony's supplied software on windows, or you wait until your software company produces an update that supports the format.

AVCHD is the next generation in consumer video and I expect it will be widely supported. I am betting good money (eg: I bought an SR1) that Apple will release updates to Final Cut and iMovie this January that support AVCHD.

However, if you are happy shooting in SD for now, you can get a workflow that works on the mac. The SR1 shoots SD in MPEG-2 format, and while iMovie doesn't yet support Dolby 5.1 sound, it can be easily converted.

All that's necessary to work with an edit SR1 video (in SD mode only) on a Mac right now is the Apple $20 MPEG-2 decoder add on to quicktime (from the Apple site, but included with Final Cut and DVD Studio Pro) and a conversion application to make use of it. I found StreamClip to be a great (Free) solution from Squared 5... their website is at www squared5 dot com.

Additionally the picture taking mode saves data to the hard drive, so this camera really is the one solution for all my imaging needs. 30G will store a lot of pictures!

If you want to work with HD right now, you need to go with the Sony Windows software, or go buy an HDV camcorder. But if you're willing to use it in SD mode now, you can get a workflow going on the Mac with the SR1. And I really expect full HD support for this camcorder will be in the next revision of the software.

Don't bash a product because it uses a new spec that the software doesn't yet support! The products have only been on the market a week or two. Apple and Adobe and everyone else will surely support these cameras.

And when they do, these will be the solution that can't be beat!

I bought an M71 battery and spent 4 hours driving around shooting video-at the end of it, only had 5GB of video and still had batterylife left... this camera is nice to the batteries, and the hard drive is so big that in SD mode, you can get 27 hours of footage at the highest bitrate! Its nice to not be limited by having to swap tapes.

Great Camera all around, fully featured and image quality is great, though if you do a lot of night shooting you probably want a three-chip camera.

Buy Sony HDR-SR1 AVCHD 2.1 MP 30GB High-Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom Now

I have gone through several camcorders in the past 5 years and recently began my search for a hi-def camcorder. One of my frustrations with DV tapes is that for me, they tended to sit on the shelf and gather dust. They took tons of storage space to encode (way more than AVCHD). Editing to DVD also seemed to be more complex than necessary and time consuming. As a result, I have many tapes that I just don't bother to burn to DVD. It was just easier to plug in the camcorder and watch the video from there.

So through my research, I discovered disk based camcorders. Most of the reviews criticized the image quality. This second generation seems to have improved quite a bit. With the compression and ease of transfer to a PC (literally plug in and push one button) I was sold on the Hard Drive format. I'm not a big fan of mini-DVD formats either because of the unique DVD's used and some compatibility issues.

I was pretty much set on a 3CCD JVC Everio GZ-MG505. This is a standard definition camcorder but with 3CCD's and pretty highly regarded. I had a hard time deciding between 3CCD vs high def (AVCHD) +$300

After reading more and more reviews, I realized that even with 3CCD's, the image quality just can not compare to high def. Even high def converted to standard def is better. So I went with the Sony.

The Sony is so easy to use that I was out shooting immediately after charging the battery. I haven't even cracked open the instruction manual yet. That says a lot for how intuitive the camcorder is. When I ordered from Amazon, they expected it to arrive after Christmas. I contacted Amazon and they stated they were scrambling trying to get them before Christmas. Sure enough, Amazon delivered and I have already filmed my daughters Holiday Recital and her meeting with Santa. (The SR1 is great in low light by the way).

My thoughts on AVCHD is that it will be supported soon enough. We have a high def projector but most of our TV's are still standard. Also, we do not own a high def DVD player or BlueRay. We will probably get a PS3 next year. I bet AVCHD software will arrive well before we actually get a high def DVD player so I'm not too concerned about the delay. The SD video in the meantime has been superb and easy to share with friends and family. If I really need to show off the high def, I just plug in the camcorder.

I have no complaints and as a result gave this camcorder a 5 star rating. But I do have a few minor tweaks that would have been nice.

Battery life could be a bit better. Included battery is about 70 minutes. 2 hours would have been ideal but an additional high capacity better solved that problem but added to the weight.

Camcorder is a tad bigger than comparable hard drive based camcorders (those JVC ones are tiny). I actually like the feel in my hand though and it is not too big.

Included software could be a little bit better especially since there is no real support for AVCHD yet. It is very easy to use though. You can edit start and stop points of clips but you can't rearrange the order or include any transitions and the title screens are very limited (about 5 or 6). But again, works well and easy to understand.

Photos during filming limited to 3. My last JVC, I could shoot unlimited still photos during filming. Not that big of a deal though as this is probably rarely used. Just stop and start filming again to shoot 3 more photos.

Hard Drive is somewhat limited at 30GB. For such an expensive camcorder and inexpensive hard drives, I'm surprised the Sony did not come with an 80gb drive which is pretty common and even low end today. I haven't explored this but I doubt Sony made it easy to upgrade the hard drive myself. Of course when you have a high def camcorder, most people will want to record at the highest quality settings as they can always reduce the output for their intended viewing device so having a high resolution source is ideal. Unfortuanatly, at the highest quality setting AVCHD 15MB XP you get about 4 hours of recording time. I personally don't think this is quite enough time for a standard week or two vacation. I usually travel with my laptop and can download the video so this is not a concern for me but with an 80GB drive, one could get 10 hours which seems adequate for the typical vacation.

I didn't deduct for these shortcomings because even without these, the camera is unique in its category and is an amazing camera. I didn't feel like I should penalize the camcorder for my "wish list."

Overall, after months of reviewing camcorders, I am very happy with my purchase and would make the same purchase again.

Read Best Reviews of Sony HDR-SR1 AVCHD 2.1 MP 30GB High-Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom Here

The quality of the video from this camcorder is amazing. I consider myself a videophile, and I own a lot of HD equipment and TVs. I use a Mitsubishi 720p front projector with a 108" screen that is capable of showing most if not all video imperfections; however, this camera's video passes the test. I will not go so far as to say it is perfect, but the quality is amazing and far exceeded my initially high expectations. Video taken under good lighting conditions is absolutely fantastic, and I would say it is on par with broadcast HD minus a lot of the broadcast HD motion artifacts. Videos taken in low light are not quite as good, but much better than I had expected and many times better than my older miniDV camcorder. The lower light video is grainier, but it is a consistent very fine, gray film-like grain (imagine Black Hawk Down on blu-ray). The grain in my older miniDV videos was much more distracting with larger bluish, green blobs everywhere. Some reviewers have reported a lot of motion artifacts from the avchd compression, but I have not seen it yet. For those with this problem, it may be helpful to adjust the compression settings on the camera. Out of the box the camera defaults to HQ compression HD video (7 hour HD mode). Upon seeing this, I changed the compression to the XP mode (4 hour HD mode). I have seen no such problems at this setting, and 4 hours of video at a time is plenty of time between downloads.

I also own a very good 7.1 surround sound system, and I can again say that audio wise this camera is up to the task. It is wonderful to hear your home recordings play back in 5.1 surround sound with very good clarity and without any tape motor noise. I was taking pictures of a friend's baby, and you could hear her clearly from the front channels while the out of frame family members audio was present in the front and surround channels depending on their orientation to the baby/camera. Even my wife was wowed, and she is hard to impress since she has become so desensitized to my many gadgets.

Recording onto a hard drive is also great. The ability to play back your videos instantly without having to worry about tape position is very nice. It is easier to review and delete unnecessary clips, and the camera even has a few very basic editing functions built in. My wife was intimidated by our older camera, but she is already using this one more due to the lithium ion battery and hard drive. She doesn't have to worry about recording time/battery life in most cases. She can just pick it up and go.

I can't attest to the editing of avchd video or the mac compatability because I haven't tried either yet, but I did install the included software onto my PC. The videos download very quickly over the USB 2.0 connection. I was able to download video and burn a DVD+R to avchd format using the supplied software. It is very quick and does not degrade the avchd quality in any way. I was then able to play back the disc in my PS3 blu-ray drive in full HD with surround sound with the same results as hooking the camera up via HDMI. You can even put multiple clips on one DVD and it while play them back in order with a slight pause in between. It is nice to be able to go from video on the camera's HDD to a blu-ray compatible DVD in less than 30 minutes with little to no effort involved. The camera even has a one-touch disc burn button on it (haven't tried it yet though) so in theory you don't even need to open the software and go through any menu settings, it should be all automated.

I love the touchscreen. It is wonderfully designed with context sensitive menus that limit the selections based upon the cameras operating mode. It is very intuitive and almost makes the manual unnecessary. It even has a help function that explains the different settings in easy to understand terms.

So far I don't miss firewire, and I know that eventually the editing software will be there. For now, I will enjoy my beautiful avchd DVDs.

Want Sony HDR-SR1 AVCHD 2.1 MP 30GB High-Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom Discount?

I have had my HDR-SR1 for a week now. It is my first high-definition camera, and my second hard-drive based camera.

First, I'll get the bad comments out of the way...

The camera takes about 7.5 seconds to power up and be ready to shoot. Although this is shorter than my last hard-drive camera (JVC was 10 seconds), it's still longer than most tape-based cameras. It isn't unreasonably long, but I like a quick power-up time so I don't miss an opportunity to shoot something happening NOW.

The AVCHD format is so new that it is not yet supported by any other software other than the Sony software that comes with the camera, and it only allows playback no advanced editing. However, I did not take away any stars in my rating for this, because I fully expect the AVCHD format to be widely supported soon enough-otherwise I wouldn't have bought the camera. Besides, even if I won't be able to edit the footage until sometime in the future, I figured it's more important that I'm at least shooting my footage in high-def... these moments will never occur again!

The camera is a little bit on the large side (compared to most new cameras available today). But it's not so large that I would consider it "bulky". It's probably about the size of a typical new camera a few years ago.

And now for the good...

The picture quality is excellent. In bright light, the video is crystal clear and there are absolutely no visible compression artifacts at the XP and HQ settings. I've never seen HDV footage but can't imagine it being better than this. SP and LP modes are not to bad, but the compression issues become noticeable. In low light the camera does have the typical amount of noise in the image, but it looks more like analog noise than digital compression noise, which I find much less annoying. I consider this camera to be a good low-light performer, but of course it's all relative and this is just my opinion. There is a Night-Shot mode (infrared light/greenish image) which workes well in TOTAL darkness up to about 20' away, at full frame rate. Super NightShot mode and Color Slow Shutter modes offer even more light in the image, but sacrifice shutter speed and everything gets blurred.

Sound is incredible. 5.1ch surround really makes you feel like you're there. Note however that there really is not a centre front channel microphone. A centre channel of sound is digitally created by the camera combining the front left and front right channels. Still sounds fine to me though.

Automatic lens cover is a joy! Opens when you turn it on and closes when you turn it off.

The SteadyShot mode does NOT affect picture quality. With most cameras this does decrease image quality in some way, but not with the SR1.

The lag time from pressing the record button to when the recording actually begins is only about half a second. Pretty reasonable. When you press the button again to stop recording, it takes about 1 second to respond.

The photo quality (4.0MP) is the best I've ever seen on a camcorder, but still doesn't measure up to a 4.0MP still-camera. In other words, personally I won't give up my 4.0MP still camera yet for very important photos, however if I only have the SR1 with me, I will still take photos with it (the photos are good enough to make decent 4x6 prints). With previous camcorders the photo quality was so bad I always carried my still camera with me too. Now I don't have to. Please note that if you're taking photos with this camera while in video mode (either while the camera is rolling or not) you are limited to only 2.3MP images. Nice thing is that this camera DOES have a flash for photos. The only time it won't work is while the camera is recording video. Also, if you try to take photos while the camera is recording video, you are limited to only 3 photos until you stop recording so the camera can save the images.

InfoLithium battery is wonderful. The screen always displays reminaing battery life in minutes. It even takes into account the current state of the camera's use (for example if you turn on the NightShot IR light, it will decrease remaining battery time by about 15% since it takes more power). It's even accurate right down to the minute. Of course, if you're doing a lot of zooming then you may notice the minutes counting down a little faster than real-time, as it recalculates the power usage. By the way, installing the battery does not add length to the camera is it does with most, as it is actually recessed into a slot in the back. Only the extended-life batteries will add length/bulk to the camera.

Sony SLVD360P DVD / VCR Combo

• Combination DVD Player and Hi-Fi VCR
• Progressive Output (480p)
• 4-head Hi-Fi stereo
• TV Virtual Surround
• 19 Micron Heads for optimized EP recording

Having just purchased a Sony LCD TV, I thought I couldn't go wrong with a matching Sony DVD/VCR player. The DVD player appears to be stable and dependable, which has got to be worth something (try finding on Amazon a DVD player with decent consumer ratings from reviewers). But for a consumer leader like Sony, the instructions are depressingly convoluted and reader-unfriendly, packed in a reduced-format manual that doesn't provide full illustrations (front, back, remote) and labels for all the jacks and controls (whatever happened to thin manuals with big pictures and "quick set-up and operation" instructions up front?). I'm not even planning on using the VCR for recording, but I'm still searching the manual to find out why VCR playback isn't registering on the monitor.

A few other minor complaints: the VCR does not accept an S-Video connector (common, I guess); the included Sony remote will operate all the TV sets in the house with the exception of my new Sony(!); finally, I'm a bit annoyed that even a trip to the Sony website does not make clear the difference between this set (SLVD360) and the one just above it (SLVD560), other than a twenty-dollar higher price tag.

I may annul this unsunny Sony honeymoon and take a look at a lower-priced Panasonic or Phillips (their current ads pitched at non-rocket-scientist consumers must have me in mind).

[Addendum: I held on to the machine, which may not have been a wise decision: the VCR is providing the jumpiest image I've ever seen from a VHS tape source.]

Buy Sony SLVD360P DVD / VCR Combo Now

This is a great DVD/VHS player combo unit. Its interface is easy to use and programming is a snap. It has the ability to use progressive OR interlaced scan when using component outputs which is a big plus if you have a TV like mine that has component inputs that don't accept a progressive scan signal. However, on the downside, the unit can't up-convert VHS video. Hence, the component outputs only work for the DVD half of the unit. If you use them, you still have to plug in the VCR using a standard coaxial cable or RCA composite AV cables.

Also, although the manual says that composite AV cables deliver a better picture than using a coaxial cable, I just didn't see a improvment on my TV. The standard cable line provided a much deeper and cleaner picture than the RCA cables did.

Oh, and to the reviewer who asked the difference between this player and the SLVD560, I think the main difference is that the SLVD560 has VCR +.

Read Best Reviews of Sony SLVD360P DVD / VCR Combo Here

Within a week of getting this, it started taking forever to load movie DVDs that work fine on my PC, and the movies would stop and suddenly claim to be 'unreadable disks'. They work fine in other players.

It has some nice features, but I can't say much for its reliability.

Want Sony SLVD360P DVD / VCR Combo Discount?

This is yet another excellent product by SONY for the price and the features are prolific. The DVD and CD player is good. I send the sound to my home receiver and it sounds wonderful. The VHS portion plays better than my other stand-alone SONY VCRs. What I really liked is that you can view JPEG images and this unit has Quasi-S Playback so I can play my S-VHS tapes. The picture is good. As with other similar SONY units, I found it amazing that the EP record mode (6 hour) looked better than the SP (2 hour) on black & white movies. I still don't like the remotes that SONY gives you with these models but that's a minor issue. If you want to watch DVDs, record and play VHS tapes I would recommend this SONY unit.

After moving and rewiring all of our Audio and Video equipment in our house after our Christmas present to each other of a new Sony TV, we purchased this Sony DVD/VCR combo unit from Amazon. The price was cheaper even with shipping than we could purchase it locally on sale. The hook-up time for this unit even with a satellite connection in the mix was incredibly easy. Both the TV and the DVD/VCR talk to each other well, and both remote controls seem to handle all of their multi unit functions well. Have had no problems with this unit since it was purchased in January 2006.