Aiptek MPVR 6MP MPEG4 Digital Camcorder with 4x Digital Zoom

Customer Reviews:

Must buy memory card!
Without purchasing an additional memory card, this cam/mp3 only holds 60 seconds of video and 4 songs. Useless without extra memory card. Light weight and small is a nice feature. No protective cap over lens so I will be buying a case for it. Pretty fun toy overall.
--2006-12-19

READ all Reviews - Save your Money!
Like a toy. Quality is poor, Customer Service and web site not helpful at all. Check all the reviews before you buy. Mac users beware! I'll try to get my money back!!
--2006-12-02

Jack of all trades, master of none.
I purchased this a few months ago to suplement my photography bag. I already own a Nikon D70 DSLR, so I purchased the MPVR as a take-along digital cam for situations where I didn't want to lug around the D70, and also as a digital camcorder for quick videos.

Compared on any one feature, the MPVR falls short to any other dedicated device. But taken as a whole, and for the price, it's a useful gadget.

I have used over a dozen digital cameras and SLRs for over 15 years. The MPVR is impressive for the money. I paid about $130 for it, and I think it's worth that - but no more.

The digital camera is acceptable - good only under the best conditions - and that's about it. White balance and colors are pretty good, though the color range is somewhat muted - easily fixed with photo software. This is a fixed-focus camera, with two settings, Macro and Everything Else. With adequate lighting and if your subject is posed or otherwise unmoving, it does a pretty good job. Shutter lag is significant and there isn't any control of shutter speed/aperture anyway - so don't expect to use this in situations with fast-moving objects. You can manually control the white balance, it has some effects such as B&W or 'Sepia', and some photo frames that will really only be useful for children, but they are there. There are no true 'photographic' customizations to be made. Photos can suffer from some strange digital artifacts at 6MP, simply because of the software trying to simulate 6MP from a 3MP sensor.

The photo quality is better than anything you'll find on a cell-phone, but it just barely compares to low-end digital cameras. For comparison, photos are about on par with an old 1.3MP Olympus camera from 2001. If you're primary goal is photography, I'd suggest getting a lower-end digital camera from Canon, Nikon, HP, etc. You'll get a lot more photographic power for your money.

As a camcorder, the MPVR is much more impressive. It does a good job at capturing any sort of scene, provided the lighting is adequate. Again, no focus control nor true zoom (the digital zoom is nearly worthless) means that your options are somewhat limited - but it does a great job at capturing an everyday, well-lit scene. Audio quality is surprisingly good too. Direct playback using the supplied cables to a TV looks surprisingly good, and the videos are pretty decent even on a higher resolution PC monitor. But again, even the lowest-end dedicated camcorder will do a much better job at video than the MPVR.

It can also do line-in recordings, and it does a fine job. The quality is quite good and it's very easy to do. The included remote almost turns the MPVR into a digital VCR. Pretty cool. The files created, however, are massive and I've had some trouble converting them to other formats for use on my PC. 38 minutes of TV = 968MB of space, so the encoding is not very efficient.

I have not used the MP3 player, but it certainly has one.

The voice recorder works as a voice recorder - not much to say here.

I have very few complaints about the software, but one major one is that the MPVR does not tell you how many shots (or minutes of record time) are remaining given the SD card. Very annoying, as there's no way to really tell (other than guessing based on experience) how much space your photos & videos are taking up.

To summarize, the MPVR is a good product, you just have to keep its price/features in perspective. It's ok at pictures, good at video, and has a few other neat 'convergence' features thrown in the mix. As a quick-and-dirty camera/camcorder, it's fine. But it cannot compare with dedicated devices. On the other hand, you'd need to spend 4 or 5 times the cost of the MPVR to get a collection of other devices to do the same work (camera, camcorder, mp3 player, voice recorder, etc).
--2006-11-27

Low quality but inexpensive
Low quality stills and video but what do you expect for the price? For the price, I suppose it's decent since it does MPEG 4 videos (though the quality is lacking). Some negatives: the flash is almost useless, there is a lot of shutter lag, and it has poor low-light performance. When taking videos, the microphone is pointed up so does not pick up audio very well unless it is coming from the person holding the unit. On the plus side, it's relatively cheap, small, and light. The pictures are decent quality only when there is a lot of light but not a lot of contrast. The menu system is easy to use. I gave it three stars because I think it is OK for the price. If they could make something like this with very good image and video quality (with MPEG 4), then I'd love it. I returned my unit as I wanted better quality. NOTE: I have a Canon 20D and know what great image quality is (photography is my hobby). This unit is nowhere near the quality of a Canon digital SLR camera, but of course this unit is much cheaper too, so you shouldn't expect it to be anywhere close.
--2006-11-27

A Great Product For The Money, but Not Perfect.
This is one of those toys that I didn't necessarily "need", but when I saw the features, the price, and the mostly positive reviews on Amazon and on other sites, I had to get it. This thing comes fully stocked. It comes with all the cables, software, and battery charger. It even comes with earbuds.

So far, most everything is great. The picture quality is comparable to the higher-end cameras from Kodak or Canon. It's also incredibly easy to use (you can perform every function with your thumb) the LCD display is crisp, the battery life is more than adequate,the menus are intuitive, it fits easily to most tri-pods, and functions seamlessly when attached to my laptop. You can record or film videos up to 88 minutes in length (on the standard setting and with a 1 gig memory card) in color, b&w, or sepia; plus it has night vision, motion stabilizer, and zoom functions. I haven't noticed any bugs with the software and the only thing I haven't tried to do yet is record a TV program or DVD.

The one thing I don't like about it, and it can be very frustrating, is a roughly one to two second delay time between snapping a still picture and the image capture. Once you press the shutter, the camera beeps and the image on the LCD freezes making you think you have the final image that's being captured. However, the actual photograph snaps a second later. It's not only your subjects that have to remain perfectly still, but you can't budge either. So, if you're trying to take still images of your kids or pets and they move; or you relax your arm during that delay...you're going to get a blurred action shot or something you hadn't intended. The good news is that you can learn to adjust for it, but it will take a bit of practice.

On the one hand, it's the perfect camera for the novice photographer or home video fanatic. Yet it packs enough advanced features found on more expensive cameras that it's an ideal all-in-one piece of hardware suitable for the YouTube crowd.

--2006-11-25

- Aiptek, Inc.