video is terrible, really noisy

Like others I got this on a previous woot. Mine didn't work when I got it. It would turn on but when went to turn it off it would either lock or go to a gray banded screen that stayed lit. The only way I could turn it off was remove the battery.

At first I called the 800 number on the bottom of the box for tec support. They did not seem very knowledgeable. The first thing the guy said is yea they do that sometimes. I said I could not turn it off unless the battery was removed. I let it sit for 10 min to see if it would auto shut off but it wouldn't. After a few rounds of being on hold they finally said I could send it back for repairs. That would have taken a week at the earliest so I decided to send it back to Woot. They took it back with an RMA no problem. I didn't expect great video but I did expect it to work. I never did get to try the video out so I can't speak to that part.

Would this be considered a flip camera?

annoying buzzing noise during playback, I would NOT recommend it.

mattlscc wrote:Would this be considered a flip camera?

I think of "Flip" as the brand name for FlipVideo brand cameras, which produce a MUCH better product, IMO.

Just received from Woot's prior sale a couple of weeks ago... Broken.

From the videos I've seen I think I'll stick to my DROID 1 camera for videos. It can't zoom while shooting, but at least the video is crisp and it handles lighting better.

I never was a fan of Sylvania. They seem to be another company that rebrands electronics they buy cheap.

After all of this, I hope mine is either fully functional of defective.

For $40, I am expecting functional, meaning, crappy video and average audio, and no freezing. The crappy output quality is to be expected, but the actual fail to function is unacceptable. Any company that produces a product with a high defect rate is just shooting their brand in the head.

Does anyone know how much time each gigabyte of storage can be expected to hold?

if this is NOT a good camcorder, can somebody recommend a good one for around $100? I'll be shooting in a somewhat low-light area (not dark, but not bright either). suggestions?

Man. I bought the popehat version, gave it to my wife, and she used it last night to film my 2 year old son unwrapping Christmas presents.

I didn't see all the grainy video, low-light suxors, popping audio, and all-plastic construction during playback... I just saw my thrilled son having fun!

One of the best $40 I've ever spent. Thanks, woot!

I too bought this on the 10th and the audio feedback issue is too much of a problem to recommend it to other Wooters. Yes it's cheap, but then again you can score a cheap video cam (think "COBY") at this point at any major retailer...which gives you opportunity to at least handle the product before buying.

Anyway, I just ordered the Kodak Playsport ZX3 bundle off of Amazon. Yeah, it's four times the price w/tax & delivery. But sometimes, a bargain isn't really a bargain. Refurb'd Sansa's that are still working three years later? That's a bargain. This new Sylvania "HC" video cam? Not so much...

jgalvin12 wrote:video is terrible, really noisy

The video is noisy? Or do you mean the audio is noisy? (I don't know of many cameras with a built-in mic that are not noisy.) Noisy video usually means something like "snow" or pixellation, and I didn't see that.

Does anyone have what they consider "good" video we can compare? The samples linked here appear to be about what one would expect from a cheap video camera; if there is another camera under $100 that has better video quality, I'd like to see samples.

Peaty wrote:
At first I called the 800 number on the bottom of the box for tec support. They did not seem very knowledgeable. The first thing the guy said is yea they do that sometimes.

did he say " Hello, my name is Peggy.....please hold."

Seriously though I bought a few of these for Christmas gifts for teenagers in my family. I hope they don't break right away or I'll feel like crap!!

It works and you get what you pay for!

It's cheap and it feels that way too.

The start of all the videos that I have made are all rather choppy and shot at a very low frame-rate...but it jumps up to a nice frame rate after a few seconds...

derekio wrote:... woot, is the absolute WORST shipper on the net. They are slow to ship, and then use the slowest shipping method known to man..UPS MI, or Fed EX smart post. absolutely horrible. BUYER BEWARE!

Granted you don't get your Woot item the same week you made the purchase... but you will eventually get what you ordered. Actually Woot is not the WORST shipper on the net (believe me there are a few that make Woot seem fast.) Woot is known for its great bargains (some better than others), it has never been hawked as a place to buy stuff and get it lighting fast.

NET: If you want something fast for a birthday, anniversary etc., and the event is 3 weeks away or less, then shop Amazon or your local brick and mortar and save Woot for those times when time is not of the essence.

Thanks for the owner feedback. After reading all of the (somewhat) negative comments, I'll have to pass, even at this low price-point. I was considering it as an everyday camera for my dad, but he's better off just using his digital camera for videos...

R&D wrote:Come-on Woot. This product is terrible; for the record, we're all sorry you got stuck with a warehouse full of this junk. Please stop trying to dump it on us and move-on. Donate the junk now. I'm sure there are some very deserving Latin American families that can put these video cameras to good use and you can get the 2010 tax benefit....

"Very deserving Latin American families"? Seriously?? You don't even know what a "Latin American" is dude...

I bought one of these the last (first?) time they offered them. (12/10) I'm still waiting for it. 'SmartPost' finally got it to the USPS sorting facility yesterday (12/19), so I might actually get it today or tomorrow. Probably tomorrow, as it hasn't shown up in the USPS tracking yet.

jolator wrote:CLASS 6 SDHC!!!

If you want more than a few minute of 720p video, you'd better get a SDHC card for this cool little camera.

If you want the video to be worth a darn, you'd better make sure the SDHC card is CLASS 6 or higher. Class 6 means it can record at least 6MB per second. A low end SD card will not capture all the data necessary for that 720p high def sweetness.

No, a class 6 card will NOT help with what's wrong with this camera. The video is only about 1.5 MB per second so a good class 2 card should do. With a class 6 card, I'm still seeing every other frame duplicated, and then every second or so there are 6 to 8 duplicated frames in a row. The camera is just crap; it can't capture anywhere near 30 fps.

I bought this in the Woot Launch for this product. I would say it's easily worth the $40, but that's the best I can say so far. It feels pretty cheap, it's plastic and very lightweight. You need a lot of really good natural lighting for the best video. As was mentioned, it comes with VERY little internal memory. You have to provide your own SD card.

Ok people I bought one of these last week. I didn't expect it to be a super high quality video camera, it was $40.00. There are pleanty of $1,000.00 super high quality video cameras out there. has everyone forgoten the old addage " you get what you pay for". Seriously though the picture isn't that bad also the freezing problem you guys are having is most likely caused by using the wrong type of memory. The manual tells you to use SDHC class 2 or 4 using anything other than that can cause skipping freezing etc... This is a great camcorder for my kids to do their youtube stuff with. I may get a coupple more so they don't have to share.

Really difficult to set up and use. Have never been able to get it to work.

I just sent two back for buzzing noise. So, zero for two plus other complaints means these are faulty. Thanks again Woot!Don't you quality control this stuff??? It might save you some money with the returns and slow sales.

Bought it for the software which costs $59.99 by itself. I've made great slideshows of my kids' photos using the old version of the software.
The camera, thus, is a bonus...

I believe others have stated that this camera will not support a card over Class 4. Since this is not ~really~ HD, class 4 and below should suffice, and probably would help with the image problems since the camera is unable to write to the card that fast. How backwards is that? Nowadays, it's usually it's the card that can't keep up with the device.

Seriously, Woot, I am disappoint. I, too, bought this at launch. Quite frankly, I was hoping Woot was sort of a test market for these cameras hence the low price point for what looked like all of the features. Perhaps we were, and if so, FAIL.

So some of y'all don't get why we would be whining since it was only 40 bucks? You know what I don't get? People who think throwing away their hard earned cash (even if it IS only 40 bucks) is so awesome. I bought this for my kid, who has had a year from hell, so I would like him to have a decent Christmas and I know he will be unhappy with this thing. What I expected for 40 bucks is, at bare minimum, that the device is functional and the description was accurate. Anything less is just not right.

Here's hoping mine comes with the same functionality issues as the rest (looks like chance is with me on that one!) so that I, too, will be able to return.

Got three last time; one for me and the wife, one for each child for Christmas. Arrived last Wednesday or Thursday (can't remember), first use on Friday at my daughters Gymnastics competition.

Well, I added a 4GB SD card, and my observations are this:

1. Shaky. Granted, in order to get all the events, sometimes I had to hold my arm way up, which would have been bad enough without rotator problems in my shoulder. Some stabilization would be nice, I'll have to try to fix it with my video editing software.

2. Still image pictures look terrible. No better than a bad cell phone camera, but they tell you this up front (that's it's for video with single photo capability, but it's not meant to replace any decent camera).

3. The sound in the recordings actually came across nicely.

4. The camera has sound effects (on/off) that can't be turned off. Didn't matter at the event I was at, but at a wedding or something could be VERY annoying.

5. No optical zoom... digital zoom sucks, just don't bother zooming and you'll be fine.

Windows XP recognized the camera without installing any extra software and my wife was able to transfer everything... but it was slow as can be. Might actually only be using USB1.1 or something. My Linux install (latest Ubuntu) would not recognize the camera, but will read if you take the card out and use a card reader or put it in another camera.

Honestly, for $40, I think this was a pretty good deal... I mean, come on, it's got quite a lot of limitations, but 720p for $40? Given that it's just for having fun and not professionally recording weddings, and you don't mind if you break it, I think it's not a bad deal at all.

Ordered a couple of mini HDMI to HDMI cables so we can plug right into the TV, and SD cards, and I think it'll make a fine stocking stuffer for the kids, but they each have an inexpensive still camera that's worlds better than these for still images. Plug-and-play video for them, though, I think they will like it.

itszig wrote:Previous woot

I bought it last time around. Buyer beware, it's absolute crap. It's nothing more of what you would expect for a $40 video camera and everything less.

You all were warned. Sylvania is just a dead name tacked on a piece of cheap Chinese crap. Ditto RCA, Magnavox, Argus and Bell & Howell. (All dead names from a time when Americans actually MADE things!)

I've had better results with DXG and, of course, FLIP. You get what you pay for.

tallgu66y wrote:These sold a few weeks ago. Look at the last comments on these, from the 17th after everyone got theirs delivered. Terrible. Grainy picture. Freezes.

I bought this last time, scheduled to arrive today, so I can't comment yet. But, as to the "Freezes" - what type of SD memory were you using? Should be class 6 or higher for any video recording. And if it was a class 6 purchased on eBay, it may not have really been class 6.

comlogic wrote:Gifts for VERY young kids (6 to 10) is about all this is good for (would have loved to have something like this as a kid), but that is about it. It has grainy video and buzz in sound. I bought for my 13 year old, and won't even give it to him. I'll probably just use it for a webcam.

I great way to spoil a kid's interest in video is to give them a crappy video camera. They will think the poor quality is their fault and lose interest in making movies. There goes the next George Lucas!

gfxguy wrote:...

Honestly, for $40, I think this was a pretty good deal... I mean, come on, it's got quite a lot of limitations, but 720p for $40?

Well, one problem (of many) is that the 720p is faked (interpolated) from a sensor that doesn't really have 1280x720 resolution. I suspect that the chip in this thing was originally designed for 640x480 video @ 15 fps, but of course these days few people would buy a camera with those specs, so the 720p @ 30 fps has just been faked in the firmware. I'd call it false advertising, but fraud is probably more accurate.

yeej3903 wrote:The video is noisy? Or do you mean the audio is noisy? (I don't know of many cameras with a built-in mic that are not noisy.) Noisy video usually means something like "snow" or pixellation, and I didn't see that.

Does anyone have what they consider "good" video we can compare? The samples linked here appear to be about what one would expect from a cheap video camera; if there is another camera under $100 that has better video quality, I'd like to see samples.

When the term "noisy" is applied to still or motion images, it means that there are visible artifacts in those images.

Image noise

cjpowers wrote:I bought this last time, scheduled to arrive today, so I can't comment yet. But, as to the "Freezes" - what type of SD memory were you using? Should be class 6 or higher for any video recording. And if it was a class 6 purchased on eBay, it may not have really been class 6.

I tired mine with a 4 GB SD card (class 4) and without, using the internal (64mb) memory and got the same results. It would record in both cases but when I hit the power button the unit would shut down then freeze at a banded gray scale back-lit screen and stay there. If I tried to turn it back on with the button sometimes it would get to the boot screen and freeze and other times it did nothing. Removing the battery (which indicted a full charge) was the only way to get it to start again.

Bought one last time. Giving it to my 13 yo niece so I think for $45 it will still be a good gift. It's not like I spent a couple hundred bucks and expect some great video quality. As long as she can have some fun with it for a few months or year. She can get something better when she's older.

bought one last week, and it never worked, and the company isn't responding to my requests for help -- DON'T DO IT

I haven't gotten mine yet either, and I'm not looking forward to it

R&D wrote:Come-on Woot. This product is terrible; for the record, we're all sorry you got stuck with a warehouse full of this junk. Please stop trying to dump it on us and move-on. Donate the junk now. I'm sure there are some very deserving Latin American families that can put these video cameras to good use and you can get the 2010 tax benefit....

Perhaps you are not familiar with how Woot works. If they had to actually take posession of the inventory, they could not keep the prices so low. It is drop-shipped from the manufacturer or distributor, so they are not "stuck" with anything. The more they sell the more they make, so I am assuming that these sold well 2 weeks ago (when I got suckered in :-)

I am witholding judgement until mine arrived.

Returning mine to woot .. got it 2 days ago .. sound recording sounds like a concrete mixer .. constant rumbling .. now I am going to be constantly grumbling .. not really 1st woot return for me

cjpowers wrote:Should be class 6 or higher for any video recording. And if it was a class 6 purchased on eBay, it may not have really been class 6.

No, you don't need class 6 cards for 720p video -- even REAL 720p, which this camera isn't. I have three Canon point-and-shoot cameras that shoot high-quality 720p at 24 megabits per second (3 MB per second), so a good class 4 card is sufficient. This Sylvania seems to use about half that bit rate -- about 1.5 MB per second -- so even a class 4 is overkill. Using a card that can accept data faster than the camera can produce it doesn't do anything useful.

cjpowers wrote:Perhaps you are not familiar with how Woot works. If they had to actually take posession of the inventory, they could not keep the prices so low. It is drop-shipped from the manufacturer or distributor, so they are not "stuck" with anything. The more they sell the more they make, so I am assuming that these sold well 2 weeks ago (when I got suckered in :-)

I am witholding judgement until mine arrived.

Then why do my Woot purchases ship from Texas?

GBT wrote:Don't do it. I bought it on the last woot and the video quality is garbage.

You've been warned.

Same here. You really DO get what you pay for in this case.