It is a flash based, standard definition pocket camera that shoots one hour of higher quality video (640 x 480) or two hours of a lower quality video. It is incredibly thin because rather than using AA or AAA batteries it has a built-in rechargeable battery that gets its juice through the USB cord you see dangling in the photograph. (Its also the way it interfaces with your computer.)The specs can get a little long winded which is why you can read them by clicking here. You'll note that it is also available in pink. (Yeah, Nikki, PINK.)
The Vado is basically designed for portable web video. It fits easily in your pocket (it is slightly larger than my RAZR cell phone but smaller than my iPod Classic), boots up and starts shooting video in less than 4 seconds, and allows you to upload video directly to YouTube, Photobucket, or Box when you are finished. I had my doubts about how much I would even be interested in a camera like this but spending the weekend with the Vado QUICKLY won me over. I couldn't believe how much I used it! I took it with me everywhere that I went and quickly shot an hour of video a few minutes at a time. I caught lots of stuff around the office but also got some great family moments that I would never have recorded if I would have had to get out the standard camcorder. While the quality of the video is not necessarily as good as you would get with a larger lense, the video is far better than I thought it would be and seeing as I was recording things I normally wouldn't, it was fun to capture some memories that otherwise would have been locked inside my head.
The Vado captures video with the Xvid codec. It is great for compression and with the built in uploading software it poses no barrier to YouTube, but it can be difficult to find an editing program that will work with your video. Rather than purcashing additional software to put together my stuff, I just converted all of the Vado's movies into WMVs and edited them with Vista's built-in "Windows Movie Maker". Granted, it isn't the most feature rich software out there but it is FREE With Vista. If you are looking for a good conversion software I highly recommend Clone 2 Go. It is excellent and also free. :)
Despite the fact that I work in radio or television, I have never done any video production so I thought I would try my hand using the above formula. The result? It isn't that impressive but here it is:
Like I said, not that impressive BUT it was easy and came together very quickly. With some more time I could have made something more interesting but 24 was coming on so I was RUNNING OUT OF TIME!
The Vado seriously impressed me. The video looked better than I thought it would (especially outside) and the portability combined with the boot up speed has helped it graduate to yet another gadget I slide in my pocket on the way out the door. It's getting Obadiah's seal of approval though I must admit that I am now dying to get my hands on its HD big brother. It costs roughly $100 but if it is half as awesome as its kid brother, it would be worth it.
1 comment:
Another similar couple items I'd recommend looking at is www.theflip.com. The Creative's are a bit cheaper, but I think these are the things that Creative is copying. And heck, one of them is that small and does HD.
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