Review on 🚫 Discontinued by Manufacturer: Aiptek DV4500 4MP MPEG4 Pocket Digital Camcorder - Product Review and Alternatives by Marty Orthodontics

I gave 5 stars not because it's a great camera but because it's great for the price and comfortable. I take my new digital pocket camcorder (DVD quality) that I just bought for Father's Day (a week early) with me everywhere. The camera has headphone jacks and a built-in speaker. It doubles as an MP3 player and also makes a great little camera. It can also serve as an external drive to store or transfer files of any kind. The size of the chamber is about the size of a pack of American cigarettes, which easily fits in any trouser pocket. It encodes video to MPEG4 compression format, the same format used in HDTV broadcasts. So with a 512MB card (not included) I get 90 minutes of DVD quality recording when I don't have photos or music loaded. The catch is that at DVD resolution it's only 10 frames per second. But it still looks very good. It also has several lower resolutions, including a 30 fps VHS resolution for smoother motion. But at this resolution it still looks better than a standard VHS tape. No issues with film noise, graininess, jitter, saturation, sync or color dots. It has no moving parts other than buttons and a pop-up screen. Everything is recorded digitally on a memory chip. Of course, most computers have a much higher resolution than most televisions. So the smallest flaws or artifacts on the computer are more noticeable than on most televisions. Burn them to VCD, SVCD or DVD for playback on your TV. If your graphics card has an S-Video output or better, simply connect it to your TV. At the lowest video resolution, also 30 fps, it looks like those little low-bandwidth online streaming videos you can watch on the web are not good at all, but usable. If you want to send video with limited bandwidth or file size, the lowest resolution will come in handy. At this low setting, the camera will record for hours or until the batteries run out, making it a great covert spy or babysitting cam. It is also a network camera. It only requires 2 AA batteries, so you don't have to keep running to the charger with expensive, short-lived batteries. I use new Sony 2600mha batteries that I already had. They lasted until the memory was full, with 80% battery left. So I don't know how long regular cheap AA batteries will last. The specs say 60 minutes with regular AA alkaline. I also added a couple of 2000 mAh batteries that I bought cheaply in packs of 20 from Revain. He recorded 90 minutes of video with a lot of energy. When plugged into a USB port, it uses USB power rather than batteries and draws around 300mA on average. The included video editing software is better than the software I already had and costs almost the same as the camera. and easier to use. It works for editing any video, not just videos captured by the camera. Camera and software are specially designed for XP. But without software, when you plug it into a USB port, any computer will recognize it as an external drive. You can transfer your files to or from your camera just as easily as you can move files from one drive, folder or volume to another. This way, without the included software, you can view or record your videos and pictures on any computer, even Mac or Linux. I tried it, it works. Your computer needs an MPEG4 player to play the video. Videos show up as AVI files, but if you've ever had MPEG4 files, they usually show up as AVI. If you have a memory card, the computer will recognize it as 2 hard drives, a card and an internal memory. Oh, it also includes jacks for connecting to a TV, VCR, external recorder or stereo and playing pictures, movies or music without a computer. Digital cameras require much more light than their analogue counterparts on tape or film. this one too. It has a flash for photos that works well, but no built-in video light. For indoor videography, you need to have all your regular household lights on at full power or near a good window during the day. Even on the cloudiest days there was a lot of light outside, even after sunset at dusk. Soon after, the light will no longer suffice. It also comes with a mini pocket tripod, cheap but useful. I've been experimenting by attaching a fairly bright 7 LED flashlight to it to record video in a dark nightclub. I still had to be within 3ft of the subject to get a properly lit image. In the future I might build an infrared LED emitter for it and film in black and white in the dark. Yes, it has a black and white setting. No optical zoom, just digital zoom, so add a little more digital zoom and your images will look like the lowest resolution settings. Bottom line, this is not a very good camera. It s cheap. But for simplicity, portability, and flexibility, you can't beat it for the price. very convenient, you can take it everywhere and I never leave the house without it.