Tagged Products - 5in

Maestro 4250 Auto Navigation System w/ Voice Recognition Refurbished

...

Magellan Maestro 4250 GPS

...

the outdated maps in the unit.

SO, BUYER BEWARE --- IF YOU BUY THIS GPS BE AWARE THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY AN EXTRA $80.00 ON TOP OF WHAT YOU PAID FOR THE UNIT ITSELF *IF* YOU WANT TO HAVE THE MOST CURRENT AND UPDATED MAPS!

Call me naive, but I think Magellan should have grow some ethics & actually include the *newest* maps with the *newest* units rather than trying to skin their customers after they've already bought the unit.

2 stars: Good functionality, unethical company

Sony 4.0MP Handycam High-Definition Camcorder with 2.7" Widescreen LCD - Silver

...

about it - this machine is roughly 30% smaller than its nearest competition, and Sony brought the price point for such exquisite miniaturization down to a level competitive with the other premium flash-memory camcorders. Every extra button or dial would have driven up the price of the unit. Design simplicity may have been a motivator as well - the camera's native point-and-shoot capability is just fine for about 75% of the moments most of us are trying to capture, and more buttons would make the unit a bit more geeky.

BTW, I have not had any trouble importing and manipulating AVCHD on my Lenovo T61 Thinkpad. The video editor is certainly meager - one can divide and trim the videos, and that's about it. But the DVD-AVCHD burning utility is fantastic. I had about twenty minutes of video from my first week with the camera. It took about 15 minutes to burn them onto a 25-cent DVD-R, and watch it on my Blu-Ray player (BDP-S350), and the daylight images were beautiful and sharp, even on a big screen.

From shooting my kids for the past week indoors and out, I have one other thought about the TG1's low-light drawbacks - they are more than outweighed by what I call 'form-factor-comfort'. It's not just the delay in getting out my big HDV unit that lets those little moments get away - the size of the tape units is inherently conspicuous and inhibiting, and my kids become self-conscious. The TG1 is roughly the size of my iPod, and its small size makes it much less intrusive in real-time. The little goofy moments when my 15, 13, and 8 year old kids all act like they're three years old are not perturbed by the TG1. This kid-comfort factor is of inestimable importance, in my opinion.

There might be two diametrically opposite subsets of first-time buyers who might consider this unit as their primary camcorder. First are tech-savvy young parents who are aware of the camera's limitations, but want to be able to grab a video with one hand while holding their baby with the other. The second would be techno-challenged people who happen to already own a blu-ray player (this may, admittedly, be a very small group).

Is there an early-adoption penalty? There is, always. Future cameras will be incrementally smaller, or slightly better in low light. But you only want an LCD so small, and the most critical limiter of low-light ability is the light-gathering ability - namely the size - of the lens. So until there is some great new video codec or a new chip technology, low-light performance won't be improved significantly without having a thicker unit. The most realistic expectation one might realize by waiting is having true 1080p resolution. But my kids get older, and less goofy, every day - 'damn good' now trumps 'even better' a year from now.

So do your research, read all the subjective and technical reviews you can, and remember the compromises inherent in the very smallness you seek. You won't find the best image quality and low-light performance unless you go HDV. But for a great second camera, you won't go wrong with the TG1.

JBL ES25C Center Channel Speaker - Cherry Finish With Black Grille

...

about it - this machine is roughly 30% smaller than its nearest competition, and Sony brought the price point for such exquisite miniaturization down to a level competitive with the other premium flash-memory camcorders. Every extra button or dial would have driven up the price of the unit. Design simplicity may have been a motivator as well - the camera's native point-and-shoot capability is just fine for about 75% of the moments most of us are trying to capture, and more buttons would make the unit a bit more geeky.



BTW, I have not had any trouble importing and manipulating AVCHD on my Lenovo T61 Thinkpad. The video editor is certainly meager - one can divide and trim the videos, and that's about it. But the DVD-AVCHD burning utility is fantastic. I had about twenty minutes of video from my first week with the camera. It took about 15 minutes to burn them onto a 25-cent DVD-R, and watch it on my Blu-Ray player (BDP-S350), and the daylight images were beautiful and sharp, even on a big screen.



From shooting my kids for the past week indoors and out, I have one other thought about the TG1's low-light drawbacks - they are more than outweighed by what I call 'form-factor-comfort'. It's not just the delay in getting out my big HDV unit that lets those little moments get away - the size of the tape units is inherently conspicuous and inhibiting, and my kids become self-conscious. The TG1 is roughly the size of my iPod, and its small size makes it much less intrusive in real-time. The little goofy moments when my 15, 13, and 8 year old kids all act like they're three years old are not perturbed by the TG1. This kid-comfort factor is of inestimable importance, in my opinion.



There might be two diametrically opposite subsets of first-time buyers who might consider this unit as their primary camcorder. First are tech-savvy young parents who are aware of the camera's limitations, but want to be able to grab a video with one hand while holding their baby with the other. The second would be techno-challenged people who happen to already own a blu-ray player (this may, admittedly, be a very small group).



Is there an early-adoption penalty? There is, always. Future cameras will be incrementally smaller, or slightly better in low light. But you only want an LCD so small, and the most critical limiter of low-light ability is the light-gathering ability - namely the size - of the lens. So until there is some great new video codec or a new chip technology, low-light performance won't be improved significantly without having a thicker unit. The most realistic expectation one might realize by waiting is having true 1080p resolution. But my kids get older, and less goofy, every day - 'damn good' now trumps 'even better' a year from now.



So do your research, read all the subjective and technical reviews you can, and remember the compromises inherent in the very smallness you seek. You won't find the best image quality and low-light performance unless you go HDV. But for a great second camera, you won't go wrong with the TG1.

Magellan Maestro 5310 GPS - Black/Silver

...

about it - this machine is roughly 30% smaller than its nearest competition, and Sony brought the price point for such exquisite miniaturization down to a level competitive with the other premium flash-memory camcorders. Every extra button or dial would have driven up the price of the unit. Design simplicity may have been a motivator as well - the camera's native point-and-shoot capability is just fine for about 75% of the moments most of us are trying to capture, and more buttons would make the unit a bit more geeky.





BTW, I have not had any trouble importing and manipulating AVCHD on my Lenovo T61 Thinkpad. The video editor is certainly meager - one can divide and trim the videos, and that's about it. But the DVD-AVCHD burning utility is fantastic. I had about twenty minutes of video from my first week with the camera. It took about 15 minutes to burn them onto a 25-cent DVD-R, and watch it on my Blu-Ray player (BDP-S350), and the daylight images were beautiful and sharp, even on a big screen.





From shooting my kids for the past week indoors and out, I have one other thought about the TG1's low-light drawbacks - they are more than outweighed by what I call 'form-factor-comfort'. It's not just the delay in getting out my big HDV unit that lets those little moments get away - the size of the tape units is inherently conspicuous and inhibiting, and my kids become self-conscious. The TG1 is roughly the size of my iPod, and its small size makes it much less intrusive in real-time. The little goofy moments when my 15, 13, and 8 year old kids all act like they're three years old are not perturbed by the TG1. This kid-comfort factor is of inestimable importance, in my opinion.





There might be two diametrically opposite subsets of first-time buyers who might consider this unit as their primary camcorder. First are tech-savvy young parents who are aware of the camera's limitations, but want to be able to grab a video with one hand while holding their baby with the other. The second would be techno-challenged people who happen to already own a blu-ray player (this may, admittedly, be a very small group).





Is there an early-adoption penalty? There is, always. Future cameras will be incrementally smaller, or slightly better in low light. But you only want an LCD so small, and the most critical limiter of low-light ability is the light-gathering ability - namely the size - of the lens. So until there is some great new video codec or a new chip technology, low-light performance won't be improved significantly without having a thicker unit. The most realistic expectation one might realize by waiting is having true 1080p resolution. But my kids get older, and less goofy, every day - 'damn good' now trumps 'even better' a year from now.





So do your research, read all the subjective and technical reviews you can, and remember the compromises inherent in the very smallness you seek. You won't find the best image quality and low-light performance unless you go HDV. But for a great second camera, you won't go wrong with the TG1.

Sony 4.0MP Handycam High-Definition Camcorder with 2.7" Widescreen LCD - Silver

...

about it - this machine is roughly 30% smaller than its nearest competition, and Sony brought the price point for such exquisite miniaturization down to a level competitive with the other premium flash-memory camcorders. Every extra button or dial would have driven up the price of the unit. Design simplicity may have been a motivator as well - the camera's native point-and-shoot capability is just fine for about 75% of the moments most of us are trying to capture, and more buttons would make the unit a bit more geeky.







BTW, I have not had any trouble importing and manipulating AVCHD on my Lenovo T61 Thinkpad. The video editor is certainly meager - one can divide and trim the videos, and that's about it. But the DVD-AVCHD burning utility is fantastic. I had about twenty minutes of video from my first week with the camera. It took about 15 minutes to burn them onto a 25-cent DVD-R, and watch it on my Blu-Ray player (BDP-S350), and the daylight images were beautiful and sharp, even on a big screen.







From shooting my kids for the past week indoors and out, I have one other thought about the TG1's low-light drawbacks - they are more than outweighed by what I call 'form-factor-comfort'. It's not just the delay in getting out my big HDV unit that lets those little moments get away - the size of the tape units is inherently conspicuous and inhibiting, and my kids become self-conscious. The TG1 is roughly the size of my iPod, and its small size makes it much less intrusive in real-time. The little goofy moments when my 15, 13, and 8 year old kids all act like they're three years old are not perturbed by the TG1. This kid-comfort factor is of inestimable importance, in my opinion.







There might be two diametrically opposite subsets of first-time buyers who might consider this unit as their primary camcorder. First are tech-savvy young parents who are aware of the camera's limitations, but want to be able to grab a video with one hand while holding their baby with the other. The second would be techno-challenged people who happen to already own a blu-ray player (this may, admittedly, be a very small group).







Is there an early-adoption penalty? There is, always. Future cameras will be incrementally smaller, or slightly better in low light. But you only want an LCD so small, and the most critical limiter of low-light ability is the light-gathering ability - namely the size - of the lens. So until there is some great new video codec or a new chip technology, low-light performance won't be improved significantly without having a thicker unit. The most realistic expectation one might realize by waiting is having true 1080p resolution. But my kids get older, and less goofy, every day - 'damn good' now trumps 'even better' a year from now.







So do your research, read all the subjective and technical reviews you can, and remember the compromises inherent in the very smallness you seek. You won't find the best image quality and low-light performance unless you go HDV. But for a great second camera, you won't go wrong with the TG1.

Sony 4.0MP Handycam High-Definition Camcorder with 2.7" Widescreen LCD - Silver

...

tried.
In general it's the smallest solution with good video I can find.

Acoustic Research 900MHz Wireless Indoor/Outdoor Speaker (each)

...

tried.

In general it's the smallest solution with good video I can find.

Magellan Maestro 5310 GPS - Black/Silver

...

tried.


In general it's the smallest solution with good video I can find.

Microtek ArtixScan M1 Pro Scanner

...

M1 Pro continue reading this review. We have owned several Microtek Scanners in our office over the years. They are excellent scanners and we've been pleased with their performance.

Recently we purchased the M1 Pro (hardware same as M1, plus some software add-ons) to replace our Artixscan 1800F. We are advanced users and normally do not encounter many problems we can't figure out. However, as luck would have it, we encountered serious difficulty with the installation of the Microtek ICC profiler and Color Matching System. Both of these software packages failed to install properly after numerous attempts on two independent computers.

To make matter worse (and what every reader should know) this renders the main scanning software, the Microtek ScanWizard program, almost useless because it can't be properly calibrated without the others. Of course, we immediately attempted to contact Microtek support only to learn that phone support was a thing of the PAST and that only email contact is possible. It seems that the software problems we've experienced are not unique as others also complain about the M1 software as noted in other reviews on this page as well as on various web blogs.

We have been in contact with Microtek support now by email. Over the course of one week, we have had two back and forth exchanges re our problem, none of which have resulted in correcting the issues. The second response almost mimicked the first and requested we perform the same corrections without offering anything new. Our problem seems to have stymied Microtek and while they respond at their convenience, the user is sitting without a usable scanner.

It seems we may have to return the entire unit to the store for lack of adequate support. Fortunately, our supplier offers a 30 day return policy. But what happens if there's a problem 60 or 90 days down the road. Good Luck.

In case you have not experienced tech support by email, it's a miserable way to go. There are often so many fine details that need to be communicated. Email does not provide the responsiveness of a live body on the other end of the phone. Further, nuances and fine points about configuring software and equipment often require a fair amount of discussion. Getting support by email requires lengthy and time consuming emails not to mention lapses due to response time.

There is something of a silver lining to this problem. The M1 comes with an alternate software scanning program by SilverFast (which installed without problem). This is an excellent package and can be used as a replacement for ScanWizard, but it has its own idiosyncrasies and quirks. In our case, we still need to have the Microtek software enabled. We're wondering if Microtek can beat our dealer's 30 day return period.

We wouldn't have kept this scanner a week given what we've experienced to date. However, we know it will perform well if the issues are resolved.

Sony 4.0MP Handycam High-Definition Camcorder with 2.7" Widescreen LCD - Silver

...

printed manual / comes on CD, I couldn't even find it online. My Macbook Air has no CD drive.
-It sometimes does not save the setting changes if allowed to power down on it's own. You have to press the power button after you are done making setting changes.
-No remote control included. Makes it difficult to watch clips on the TV unless you have a Sony Bravia TV which can control the camera.
-HDMI cable not included. It uses a mini HDMI cable as well.
-HDMI port is not on docking station, Mini HDMI on camera, so you have to plug it in every time instead of just docking it.
-No ability to change volume while playing a video on the camera. You have to exit out and go into a menu to adjust the playback volume.
-Playback screen only shows three thumbnails at a time, I couldn't figure out how to show many thumbnails at once.

Magellan Maestro 4250 GPS

...

printed manual / comes on CD, I couldn't even find it online. My Macbook Air has no CD drive.

-It sometimes does not save the setting changes if allowed to power down on it's own. You have to press the power button after you are done making setting changes.

-No remote control included. Makes it difficult to watch clips on the TV unless you have a Sony Bravia TV which can control the camera.

-HDMI cable not included. It uses a mini HDMI cable as well.

-HDMI port is not on docking station, Mini HDMI on camera, so you have to plug it in every time instead of just docking it.

-No ability to change volume while playing a video on the camera. You have to exit out and go into a menu to adjust the playback volume.

-Playback screen only shows three thumbnails at a time, I couldn't figure out how to show many thumbnails at once.

model 02 Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC), 1.6 GHz VIA C7M ULV CPU, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB 4200 rpm Hard Drive, VIA VX700 Graphics, 5" LCD, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, Sprint EVDO, Windows XP Professio

...

printed manual / comes on CD, I couldn't even find it online. My Macbook Air has no CD drive.


-It sometimes does not save the setting changes if allowed to power down on it's own. You have to press the power button after you are done making setting changes.


-No remote control included. Makes it difficult to watch clips on the TV unless you have a Sony Bravia TV which can control the camera.


-HDMI cable not included. It uses a mini HDMI cable as well.


-HDMI port is not on docking station, Mini HDMI on camera, so you have to plug it in every time instead of just docking it.


-No ability to change volume while playing a video on the camera. You have to exit out and go into a menu to adjust the playback volume.


-Playback screen only shows three thumbnails at a time, I couldn't figure out how to show many thumbnails at once.

Tamrac #5766 Velocity 6x, Compact Sling Pack, for Digital & Film SLRs with up to 5" Zoom Lens Attached, & Accessories - Black

...

printed manual / comes on CD, I couldn't even find it online. My Macbook Air has no CD drive.



-It sometimes does not save the setting changes if allowed to power down on it's own. You have to press the power button after you are done making setting changes.



-No remote control included. Makes it difficult to watch clips on the TV unless you have a Sony Bravia TV which can control the camera.



-HDMI cable not included. It uses a mini HDMI cable as well.



-HDMI port is not on docking station, Mini HDMI on camera, so you have to plug it in every time instead of just docking it.



-No ability to change volume while playing a video on the camera. You have to exit out and go into a menu to adjust the playback volume.



-Playback screen only shows three thumbnails at a time, I couldn't figure out how to show many thumbnails at once.

Pyle In-Dash 5-inch Monitor DVD/MP3 /VCD Player-Pyle In-Dash 5 Monitor, DVD/MP3 /VCD Player

...

printed manual / comes on CD, I couldn't even find it online. My Macbook Air has no CD drive.




-It sometimes does not save the setting changes if allowed to power down on it's own. You have to press the power button after you are done making setting changes.




-No remote control included. Makes it difficult to watch clips on the TV unless you have a Sony Bravia TV which can control the camera.




-HDMI cable not included. It uses a mini HDMI cable as well.




-HDMI port is not on docking station, Mini HDMI on camera, so you have to plug it in every time instead of just docking it.




-No ability to change volume while playing a video on the camera. You have to exit out and go into a menu to adjust the playback volume.




-Playback screen only shows three thumbnails at a time, I couldn't figure out how to show many thumbnails at once.

JVC GZ-HD3 60GB HD Hard-Drive Digital Camcorder

...

managing orange toned colors. Particularly in bad lighting. This was an acceptable downside to me considering how well it outperformed many other areas in autofocus, zoom, anti-wobble (stabilization for shaky hands), shutter speed, backlighting, flash (with anti-red-eye), color accuracy (despite the orange issue), viewfinder, user interface, digital storage speed, and quality of resulting video. The photography aspect doesn't come lacking either. However, the orange issue applies also to stills. BTW, (reviewer note) this is more apparent to me since the interior of my house is painted with earth tones. The camera doesn't have any trouble at all in natural (outdoor) lighting.

The camera's hard drive also has a shock-proof feature to protect the hard drive in a fall, an input jack for an optional external microphone, 10x/40x/300x zoom, and several other features. Another professional review was displeased with the built in microphone (I haven't noticed this problem). But that's certainly eliminated with the optional external microphone and mount-point. Another great usability feature is that the most common scene capture adjustments you would want to make can be set from a mini on-screen popup menu, the more uncommonly used adjustments are made via the main menu. The popup menu can be accessed and adjusted during video recording (which would also be noticed on the resulting video).

One downside I have encountered is that the file output is not a common output format (perhaps it is to support higher quality video recordings). MOD is this file format. I don't know what that is so I end up converting all my movies to MPG. If I didn't have a way to record a script on my computer this batch conversion process would have been very frustrating and time consuming.

The user manual was straight-forward and thorough. I read the whole thing in a few sittings when I bought it and have been very glad I did. I couldn't have gotten up to speed with it nearly so fast. Firstly, the user interface has very few controls, very few buttons. That's what I wanted, but it meant that I would have to learn to navigate the menus in order to know where to find what I wanted to execute it quickly in live action. The manual certainly met my needs in that area. So there is a learning curve. It's been 15 months (birth of our first-born) since I bought it and I'll be returning to the manual for a refresher on those infrequently used features which could be helping me and I've simply forgotten.

Overall, the camera is easy to adjust and get into the action quickly. I personnally dislike having to make a party wait for the camera man to adjust his (complicated) camera. I didn't want to be that camera man. This camera has been an excellent fit.

I know the 3CCD is a major innovation but I don't remember much about it - but it takes great videos and pictures. I certainly recommend it, but I
can't give it 5 stars for the orange tone management. Probably a 4.5!!

Sony 4.0MP Handycam High-Definition Camcorder with 2.7" Widescreen LCD - Silver

...

for the AVCHD format. I tried convert the Video in mpeg but it does not play on quick time or Windows Media player, I think I may be missing a codec, but it has no way to save on standard codec, hence I cannot put videos on web as mpeg.

Sony 4.0MP Handycam High-Definition Camcorder with 2.7" Widescreen LCD - Silver

...

for the AVCHD format. I tried convert the Video in mpeg but it does not play on quick time or Windows Media player, I think I may be missing a codec, but it has no way to save on standard codec, hence I cannot put videos on web as mpeg.

Microtek ArtixScan M1 Pro Scanner

...

for the AVCHD format. I tried convert the Video in mpeg but it does not play on quick time or Windows Media player, I think I may be missing a codec, but it has no way to save on standard codec, hence I cannot put videos on web as mpeg.

Sony 4.0MP Handycam High-Definition Camcorder with 2.7" Widescreen LCD - Silver

...

expect from AVCHD. It is a highly compressed format so using this camera in low-light conditions is going to produce pretty "grainy" results. In good lighting AVCHD output from this camera can produce some really great looking results in HD but don't kid yourself into thinking you're going to get professional HDTV quality. This is a point-and-shoot.

This is a great camera if you use a Mac but you will probably find it very frustrating if you use a PC...

I use both Macs and PC and I have to tell you that you that PCs suck for AVCHD - you will waste a lot of time and pull your hair out. I'm sure PC video software vendors will address this eventually, but seriously folks if you want to do this the easy way get an Intel-based Mac (caveat: only Intel based machines using Leopard support AVCHD) and use either iMovie or Final Cut Express 4. Both of these programs (iMovie 08 and FCE4) just LOVE this camera (and Canon HF10 and hard disk-based Sony AVCHD as well) and they work like a charm. Video making has never been this easy. FCE4 lets you mix AVHCD, HDV and SD video on the same timeline and save in whatever format you want so it's worth the $200 if you want to do that or have more exacting control over your videos. It is basically a (lightly) stripped-down version of Apple's excellent professional video software (Final Cut Pro) and it is very good. For most home videos iMovie 08 (which comes in iLife 08) will be just fine. No, better than fine. You will LOVE how easy it is to create great movies with iMovie 08 and how easy it is to save them in a variety of formats and sizes and share them with friends and family. It is a piece of cake to edit movies in iMovie 08 and then put them on a Mac Web Gallery (at up to 960x540 which is higher than DVD quality) for family members to see or dump them out on a DVD (using iLife 08's iDVD) for your family members who are less tech savvy. You can even dump them out to 1080p Quicktime movies if you desire. I enjoy sticking movies of the kids on my wife's iPhone so she can show them to her friends.

I've had no problem transferring the movies directly from the camera but you do need to have the camera plugged into the AC to do it. You can avoid plugging the camera into your Mac to transfer the files by getting a memory stick reader. You can get a Transcend M5 reader here on Amazon for under $10 and it works great with the Memory Stick Duo Mark2 cards.

The video camera is just acting like a USB reader when you connect it to your Mac anyway - it is the file layouts that the software recognizes. When read in and converted to Apple Intermediate Codec at 1920x1080 they will balloon in size. If you want to store the raw video in a more compressed way you can simply copy the root directory of the card to another directory and copy it back again later. If you're working with AVCHD you need to buy the biggest hard drives you can afford. 60 minutes of video will use up something like 50Gb of storage on your Mac when converted to 1920x1080. If you just want great looking home video to show on your HDTV, but don't want to go broke on hard drives, Apple offers to import the movies at a slightly lower resolution (960x540) which takes up a LOT less space with very little drop in quality. I have been making home videos and showing them on an Apple TV at that resolution and they look stunning. The quality difference between that resolution and full HD isn't that big of a deal.

If you want to try to get truly professional-quality video you should avoid AVCHD cameras and stick to the HDV format concentrating on cameras with larger sensors. But this is great camera for HD home videos at a great price.

The user interface on this camera is better than the Canon HDF10 for reviewing your video but sucks for adjustments on the fly. Adjusting exposure manually is a pain in the butt and the UI for it obscures a lot of the picture. I wish they had added a dial or button set for adjust exposure and/or backlighting control on the camera. In bright light the screen gets washed out enough that it is hard to tell if your exposure is really that great or not but I did find a neat trick. In bright sunlight the screen is easier to see if you tilt it at an angle forward rather than trying to keep it straight up and down. This is where a viewfinder would really help. But these are minor nits because the camera does a good job at exposure control on its own.

Still photos absolutely suck on this camera. Get a proper still camera if you care about stills. This is true of all of the video cameras - don't count on them taking decent stills unless you want to use them at very low resolutions. They're going to be better than the camera on your mobile phone but that's not saying much :)

As I said earlier this is a very compact point-and-shoot camera that shoots HD video and for that it's excellent. The beautiful thing about this camera is that it fits comfortably in your pocket. No other HD video camera out yet (as of 28-May-2008) can make that claim. For that reason you'll probably take it with you more often and pull it out for a quick video here and there. To me that makes it worth the price of the expensive memory cards because your memories are priceless - especially of your kids growing up.