Product Description

If you are looking for high-definition image quality and real ease of use, you have found it with the Small Wonder HD digital camcorder. This sleek compact camcorder provides high definition recording to internal memory or to an SD Card. View your videos on the large 2.4 inch display, and record yourself with friends and family using the flip-out lens. When you are finished recording simply connect the device to your TV with HDMI or AV cables for simple viewing. Don¿t forget about Memory Manager, this intuitive software provides options to quickly view, edit, save or share your videos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7823 in Camera & Photo
• Color: Black
• Brand: RCA
• Model: EZ300HD
• Dimensions: 9.45" h x 1.42" w x 6.69" l, .95 pounds

Features

• HD Quality Video Resolution: 1280 x 720 in H.264 format at 30 frames per second.
• Still Photo Capture 5 megapixel resolution still photos.
• 2GB Internal Memory with SD card slot Holds up to 1 hour of video clips in HD mode, or up to 6 hours in YouTube Capture Mode. Up to 16GB memory
• View & Record Large 2.4 LCD Display, and a flip out lens for self recording
• Built in HDMI and USB Connect to your HD TV using the built-in HDMI connection, And a convenient USB arm allows quick connect to PC or laptop

Customer Reviews

Great little camera. Works with Mac with some tools.
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2UB83XCIGZSR This video is my unboxing of the RCA EZ300HD from my blog.

Its great for the price.
Upsides:
* Price to features is much better then the Flip Video Camcorder: 60-Minutes (White) (the original) and about par with the Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black)
* Simple, simple, simple!
* Mini HDMI port
* Full and Mini SD Card slots
* 3 recording modes


Downsides:
* Mono microphone that sorta sucks.
* Can't turn off onscreen display when using video out on RCA or HMDI (WTF?)
* Packaging from hell!

Some issues though for macs but they are solvable.

The h264 encoder encodes in h264 but the built decoder for quicktime from apple doesn't like something about it and the audio codec used in the audio stream is a microsoft based one (based on WMA).

There are two solutions that work wonderfully.
1. use an updated version of VLC
2. to play the videos system wide install:
a. FLIP4Mac - for the Microsoft Audio Codec)
b. Perian - for an FFMpeg based video codec for quicktime - http://www.perian.org/ -
I did a full review, sample videos, and unboxing of the product at:
http://zbowling.com/blog/2008/10/08/rca-small-wonder-ez300hd-review/

Great camera, more than what I expected!
Well I just received my EZ300HD last night and I am thoroughly impressed after only having taken 2 videos, at night, in artificial light, indoors. So looking forward to see what it can do in the day and outside.

First of all, maybe this "second" batch of cameras (I had to wait a while for mine after they sold out initially) has been upgraded because some of the complaints I read in other reviews are not present in this camera at all.

I received the camera and installed the software without issue. It also already came with the DivX codec you need to run the raw .AVI files and that installed automatically as well. The software then proceeded to update itself through the internet. I run Windows Vista on a pretty new laptop.

I took 2 videos, one in my living room with only a lamp on and the other in kitchen with overhead recessed lighting. The video in the living room was definitely grainy with vertical stripes lightly visible, but not dark enough to where you couldn't see the objects in the shot. It wasn't great, but acceptable given the lighting conditions. Under the brighter lights in my kitchen, the clarity was superb and all the colors were very true and vibrant. No haziness or pixelation there.

I played the video on my 46" Sony Wega through the supplied composite video cable (RCA jacks) and looked good. My next purchase will be an HDMI cable with the mini jack on one end. I also downloaded the video to my computer without issues and used the simple software that came with the camera to trim the clips and save as a combined video.

The raw footage is in .AVI format and requires the codec to view in Media Player. On my laptop LCD the HD video looked great, definitely crisp with a lot of resolution and I was happily surprised to see no frame shakes or drops at all. The video was smooth with no blurriness. Not too bad considering I was chasing my 9 month old around. The sound is mono, so nothing fancy, but sounded fine.

The saved or edited movies are recorded in Windows .WMV format, which are pretty easy to share with anyone for viewing on any computer. I think my DVD player will even play these files. The difference is that the quality is definitely less and it changes the widescreen video to normal 4:3 aspect ratio. Maybe there is a setting to change that, since it appears to just squeeze the picture in, but not a big deal as I plan on investing in some video editing software to edit the raw footage and burn higher quality video on DVDs.

The camera option is nice because it can get you out of a pinch when you need a still photograph. The picture was okay, but don't rely on it as your primary digital camera, especially for aciton shots with lots of movement. It is possible to grab frames from your movie video too, so that may actually produce a crisper image.

The camera itself is very lightweight, even with the battery installed, so that was nice. It fits comfortably in my pant pocket and is about the size of a standard Blackberry device. The camera was a gift for my wife and she thought it was great, probably for the same reasons a lot of other people buy this type of camera:

- small size
- easy to use
- don't want to tote around a regular camcorder

Because of these reasons I really see us using this a lot, especially with a growing baby.

I am going to a car show this weekend and will have a lot of fun filming with this new camera.

Overall, I am very pleased with this purchased, but I also knew exactly what to expect from this camera. Even then I was very pleasantly surprised.

Lots of software problems...
OK the thing works and the video looks good but thank God for a free download called "Any Video Converter" because XP and Vista hate this thing. On my new Vista home premium, the videos cause the player to crash and on XP I have to plug in the RCA via the USB and find the video clips then using the video converter program, convert them to MPEG 2 and then they play fine and look good. I ordered the Flip Ultra and tried to return this RCA but good ole "Blue Proton" wont let you send back ANY electronic device so beware of Blue Proton. The Flip Ultra runs circles around this RCA, no comparison. The Flip has better everything and is smaller and very well built. The only thing I like better on the RCA is the swivel lens but other than that I would strongly advise you to avoid this RCA and get a Flip Ultra, sure it cost a little more but its really worth it. The software programs on the Flip are great, the software on the RCA is buggy.