Interesting camcorder. VHS quality, I would say no. The noisy image sensor seems to be the biggest bottleneck. They did execute it half-decently for the technological and budget limitations they had, but for $500 you would be way better off getting a digital videotape or MiniDVD unit.

My family was still using the hand me down VHS-C Palmcorder until like 2010, this would have blown my mind lol

Dang thing has an external mic. I'm actually impressed by that.

Nice little collector's item. I might pick one up since my check comes in today.

Hey that's a nice house garden you got there! Do you make any video of your plants?

Back in the early 2k's most all digital cameras & camcorders had crappy sensors. The few that actually worked, didn't last. A prime example of this was the Canon PowerShot S1 IS. The sensors in these were actually quite good for a 3.2 megapixel job, but none of them lasted...

In Europe this kind of flash camcorders were very popular. There is a german brand - Aiptek that produced many of them. They were cheap alternative to DV camcorders which were expensive and hard to use, mostly because of the FireWire interface. The AV-in is a cool feature because it allowed people to easily digitize theirs old VHS recordings, of course if they knew that this can be done this way and had a big SD card.

as of 2023 they still exist they focus on flash memory(usb, memory cards) and accessories

I had a DV-4500 DV camera from i'm gonna say 2004 that shot mpeg 4 video onto SD cards. The video was 352x288 at 30fps and was in the .asf format playable in windows media player. I still have that camera and it still works bit the battery door broke so I have an elastic band to hold it closed. I could use a camera that recorded full quality video from the A/V inputs. I have my new PC but i'd like something portable that does the same thing.

It's not bad for 2003, but I'd say 12 bucks really is about all it's worth. Not saying it's a cool little piece of the past, but I'd be a bit disappointed if I spent 500 bucks. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the review. I always enjoy your review!

Not terrible. It reminds me of my Aiptek camera I had for a few years ago. I got that as a birthday present in 2005.

Now 5 left, heh heh heh great camcorder for my grandsons! Thanks, Don

i remember an old not so expensive camera that could also record video. it was pretty decent. i had that one in 2007

I use Windows Vista Movie maker to this day under Windows 7.. It is a fantastic Editing software.. By far the best part of Windows vista.

I could definitely hear more compression in the audio when you used the external input.

Hi All; I saw about the Red Led and Green Led, but I didn't see anything about time, So Thank You.. Also, Thank You for letting me know about the correct Memory card, It would be interesting to see what kind of time it can Record with 2 GB, instead of the 256 MB it came with.. THANK YOU Marty

this verry entertaing i love youre videosss

Pretec (or Pre-Tech), wonderful chosen name. They suggest they where the first just by the chosen brandname for their products. Or stands pre for previous? ;-)

I suppose it is pretty much VHS quality. I'd say it's closer to a medium grade general purpose tape recorded on a 2 head VCR.

13:56 I'm watching this video on Windows Vista on my Dell Inspiron 9400. One of those laptops Vista runs well on.

That camera really is a joke, they should have stayed with DV or Hi-8 until solid state digital recording got a lot better. This thing makes actual VHS quality look like HD!. I had a look at the 1994 Sharp Slimcam VHS camcorder on your other channel to compare it, and the quality from that camera looked miles better than this one

The SD Card holder is (or was) pretty standard here in germany. We have like 6 of those :D

What a horrid sensor! Fascinating as always, though. Thanks.

Ah, the video quality isn't too bad for what it is. I like the idea of being able to record from a video source onto the camera, and it's too bad more cameras don't do that! I'd like to dub some things from videotape, but so far I can't find equipment that will actually work on my computer. Have you tried out Mr. Photo? It might actually be a decent photo editing software. I used to have something called Photo Explosion that came with an old scanner, and it turned out to be very useful (it doesn't work anymore though, now that I so-called "upgraded" to Windows 8.1"). The Windows 8 version of WMM and WMP could probably play and edit the file; they accept a lot more formats now (even though the awful new WMM layout makes editing videos a horrible chore).

19:38 for some reason I thought that was really funny xD "clipped it onto the flap"

do u have a power Macintosh 5300c power supply

Am I the only one who notices the dell optiplex? Why is it there?

Hi All; I got mine and I am wondering about How long does it take for the Battery to charge up the first time ?? And Can I plug into it a Larger (Memory holding capacity)and Newer Memory Card ?? THANK YOU Marty

Not bad for a $12 camera, I have seen some modern cams that sux even worse!! Interesting that it states its a *mass media* device, which then should be accessible on most modern computers with out the need of any special driver....

neat camera, but not so great for the money back in the day.

I order one..

Hard to believe how bad quality some my first videos were compared to todays they have really come on.

I dont remember 512mb SD-cards being THAT expensive back in 2003, i think they were about $150

What's the music at 15:00?

Can u take the sd card out and put it in an iMac

Seeing this actually makes you wonder what if there would have been D-VHS Camcorders? Ok maybe D-VHS-C :O

Why did you record this in 4/3?

did you buy it used or new

For someone who doesn't have a lot of money, it wouldn't be too bad to grab one today, just for home videos. My DVD player has a USB plug, so videos could be xferred to a thumbdrive for viewing on a TV that way. ;) For the cost, I expected it to be worse than it was. I wonder how large an CD card it could take? Oh, did you find out how long the battery for it could last?

VHS quality, that is very bad marketing

"superb VHS quality"....isn't that an Oxymoron?

The quality of the image is like an old VHS tape, just digitalized, and over-compressed. For short: it's a "big" piece of crap... But unfortunately, Sony camcorders were VERY expensive at that time.

Hi All; My Mistake, I said it came with a 256MB, But it really is a 64MB, so the time would be even greater.. THANK YOU Marty

"VHS quality" hmm, 320x240 mp4 vs noisy low bandwidth "480i" TOUGH CALL! ;)

Hey what's the song title t about 15:00? Thanks!

Dude, my machine runs Vista Ultimate and it works fine...

I am 2 months older than this camera. But I absolutely hate selfies and have a lust for tape based camcorders, particularly those from Sony, even though I've never owned one.

The build quality / materials used are as I can see much worse than sony's.

I'm curious of your motivations to own this old tech. Curiosity? Collector? Think they will be worth something in the future? Just to make YT videos!? Either way, I enjoy your vids, but don't understand your motive for collecting this old stuff. It's not like real vintage stuff which has charm, this item above is defunct, has no real charm or likeability.

if you tried to sell 500 MB SD card for $500.00 today you would get laughed at! I bet those Earbuds sound horrible!

And these days even a 32 gig card can only record for around 2 hours and 30 min in full 1080P 50 video. The fill up real quick now.

VHS third generation copy quality.

Yeesh, bad quality camera. The sony one from 1998 had the better quality..

I hate it.

It's crazy to think that my iphone shoots better video then a regular camcorder like that..

chinese crappy camera

Dude, my machine runs Vista Ultimate and it works fine...