D'zign Digital Video Camera - DV5

by NHJ

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• ASIN: B0009MI01A
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,321 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 17, 2005

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You get what you pay for, November 29, 2005

By 

G. A Wheeler "gramix" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: D'zign Digital Video Camera - DV5 (Electronics)

I disagree with the previous reviewer who panned this item (and also didn't seem to find the 640x480 resolution video mode). For the price it met expectations (and was smaller than I expected). You aren't going to get briliant results with a pocket-sized mpeg4 realtime codec and fixed focus lens. This camera will not replace your DV tape camera - and I don't think that's its intention. It is really compact and lightweight and fits easily in a pocket, and that is its real strength.

Rather than comparing this to tape-based cameras (or even the much larger and more expensive Panasonic HD-based cameras), this camera should be compared to products like the Aiptek range of CF-based cameras. And, having owned an Aiptek previously, I must say that this is much better. The video results are way better than the Aiptek cameras (which use CMOS sensors rather than the more expensive CCD that this camera has). I found the still photo results mixed - when I took photos indoors under strip lighting I needed a very steady hand to prevent blurring, but photos taken outdoors came out well.

All in all, I think that this camera fits well in a niche between the totally crap CMOS cameras, and tape-based video cameras. It won't replace the latter, or your still camera, but if you want a video camera that you can just keep in a pocket or handbag and have accessible all the time, this is about the best one available right now.

You can see a short video and still photo I took with this camera <a href=http://www.bradygirl.com/DV-5>here</a>

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It works but I'm very disappointed, November 20, 2005

By 

R. Drew "robayd" (Morristown, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: D'zign Digital Video Camera - DV5 (Electronics)

Update****
Here is a video I shot on Christmas Eve 2005 at me mums.
http://www.robdrew.com/ce2005.wmv

**If you are going to by this device, make sure you buy a spare battery and keep it fully charged. The unit will not stay powered up by the usb port while working with it to transfer files to or from. My recommendation is that you give it a full charge after shooting video for more than 2 hrs. Then with your fully charged spare, transfer your audio or video files to your HD. Depending on how many files you have on the unit, transfer times could take up to 20mins via its usb 2.0 port.

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I spent a lot of time searching for an actual user review on this product but had no luck. So I volunteered to be the sacricial lamb. I bought this unit as a secondary throw it in my pocket cam. Folks, do yourselves a favor and forget about buying this camera. The video resolution is very poor, the LED flash is a joke and the pics come out blurry 95% of the time. I had really high hopes for this cam but I knew it was too good to be true. The company does a good job of marketing the unit. The presentation on their website makes it seem like the best thing since sliced bread, but it's all just hype. Let me put it this way. Most digital cameras with a movie mode take better video than this unit, which was really designed to be a dedicated DV recorder. It does have an MP3 player and voice recorder and they work ok, but that's not why I bought it. I paid $149 for the unit and would love to return it but the fact is the unit works, just not very well. Checkout my site for actual video and pics taken with this cam. http://www.robdrew.com/gadgets/dv5.html

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Idea - Hope for firmware update, February 16, 2006

By 

E. S. Derstine "Scott D" (Coventry, RI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: D'zign Digital Video Camera - DV5 (Electronics)

For what I paid for this unit ($179), I shouldn't be disappointed. There are a bunch of great features on this camera; I love the 2gb hard drive, the handy size, the belt-loop case, the built in MP3 player, the usb charger (yes, the battery charges just by plugging it in to your computer or laptop). What I am not satisfied with is the picture and video quality. Outdoor day-time pictures work pretty well when the lighting is good. You can take a ton of high quality pictures (about 2000 in the 2048x1536 mode). Unfortunately this camera is about worthless in normal indoor lighting. The color is distorted and washed, and there is about a 30% chance to get a focused picture. The flash is at an awkward place (I keep putting my finger over it when I grip the camera), which doesn't matter, because the flash doesn't help the indoor picture problems anyway. I'm hoping that the NHJ comes out with a firmware upgrade which fixes the low light issues. I'm confident the camera is mechanically capable of taking good pictures indoors, because every once in a while I can get a decent photo.