[Anthony]

I have started a review on this camera. It should be here one day next week. I am excited about this camera because of the High Definition video with audio that it advertises. Lets hope the trigger times are a bit higher than other snipers we have tested.

I just bought myself a 52" sony LCD high def TV so I know just the place to biew these videos... I have seen one preliminary video floating around on the internet and I was impressed.

I am just wondering how I can put HD video on the internet for people to watch if it a really large file....

http://www.chasingame.com/index.php?id=131

[egbertdavis]

Try www.vimeo.com. But those viewing it would need an HD monitor to get the full effect, so photobucket would be a viable alternative.

[MBK]

Wondering the same thing as far as posting HD clips. One thing is not
everyone's video software supports the MP4V codec. So some will
need to use other viewers. I'm been scouting around the web trying to
find the best viewers floating around. They vary greatly as far as how
smooth they play the video. IE: some, like the quick time player are
pretty jerky. Others do much better. I think one of the best free players
I've seen so far for MP4 HD video is probably VLC media player. It seems
to run fairly smooth for most. The Sony PMB software seems to do pretty
well too, but not many are going to have that. If I had to guess, most
people that click on a HD video would probably play them using either
quicktime, or Real Player, which neither seem to be very smooth.
But part of that may be that I need more puter horsepower. My box
is getting a bit aged and could use an upgrade.
I've watched some of the HD videos on youtube and even some of
those can get choppy. It's the players and puters, not the actual
video itself. The video is smooth.
This is the VLC player.. http://www.videolan.org/
So far, I think it's about the best of the free HD players I've seen, and
it will play just about anything. But... I've found that although it's
pretty good for MP4V video, it's not so good for my MP2 DVD type
video. I prefer PowerDVD for that..
Here is a short clip of a yard rat I took in HD using the W290. I was
using zoom in that shot, so the normal view would be much wider
than that one.
http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/yardrat.mp4
If any have trouble playing that, or it looks choppy, try the VLC viewer.
It should do ok assuming one has enough puter power. Mine is not so hot,
so if I can play it ok, anyone with a modern multi core box should do ok.
The W290 can connect to an HDTV, but you have to buy an extra
component video cable for it.
I'll take a look at the vimeo software later to see how it plays.
You want the desktop res at at least 1280xwhatever to see the full
screen.
Another option is to convert the MP4 to one of the other formats.
I've tried it and it works pretty well, but it's not the same as the
full HD res.
Here is another one that I thought is kind of neat. HD video of an
aquarium which is at the nursing home my mother is in. :/
I don't think I used any zoom in that video.
http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/fish.mp4
Naturally one would want broadband to d/l those. The first is about
15 MB, and the second is about 29 MB. But those are the original
clips straight from the camera.

[Anthony]

I too noticed that when I played the original samples with Windows media player they were jerky but when I used Apple Quicktime they were smooth.

[MBK]

Quicktime may well be the route to go for web use as I think
you can embed quicktime videos. I guess I just need a bit more
power for those. I'm using an older P4 machine.
The MS media player I have doesn't have the codec for MP4.
Maybe I better check for updates for that.

[Anthony]

Everyone:

We had closed this review a few days ago, feeling we had explored all we could with this camera. We then recieved an email from a technician at StealthCam with a firmware update attached. We loaded the firmware update and tested the flash range on the camera in both photo and video modes.

We were pleased to see some improvement in photo mode and a good improvement in video mode. These are preliminary tests so we will continue to test this camera and provide more updates and photo/video samples.

This update was designed to improve flash range and not trigger speed unfortunately. I do feel that if we can get night video range to an acceptable level this will become a unique option especially in the realm of video because of its HD format and excellent sound recording.

Too bad the trigger time was not improved but I guess its too much to ask to have everything in one camera.

So please dont count this camera out yet. Give it another look as I accumulate some more samples on it.