Customer Reviews

Panasonic SVAV30 MPEG4 eWear Digital Camcorder/Still Camera w/ 64 MB SD Card & Docking Station

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Sorry guys... I saw this gizmo and thought as many do.."wow.. a video camera and digital camera in one and in a small package" (I didn't really care about the mp3 player and voice recorder).

I was/am willing to sacrifice some quality because of the size but this thing is ridiculous. Unless you are in DIRECT sunlight taking a picture of something 2 feet in front of you then this thing is worse than anything I can imagine (and even then the pictures are terrible).

The video camera recording/reproduction is useless...I have never got a decent recording.

If you have to use the flash (which seems like all the time) then all you get is bright white pictures.

I can't express how disappointed I was with this product. A friend of mine just got a digital camera for 25% the price and the pictures are 10 times the quality and it is only slightly bigger than this.

The only positive things I could say is that it is a great conversation starter at bars..etc.. since it is a cool package and draws a lot of attention (but dont try actually show it off by using it because it is pathetic) and that the software isnt "terrible" (although has failed to work a couple of times on XP but pretty solid for the most part).

My opinion---a waste of money--novelty wears off after 24 hours and then you look at what you have which is picture quality 10 times worse than a picture booth and a video camera that you can't use.

Sure - its not 3 megapixels and not regular handycam...but, it is exactly what it is advertised to be. Very cool. I'm glad I bought it. A 512 flash card will record an hour of video at the highest quality, which is plenty considering you can always carry more than one with you.

I bought a flash card reader to go with it which makes it easy to connect to your recorded stuff as if it were a drive on your PC. The process for importing MP3's is a bit odd, but works fine. Make sure you read the manual. Battery life is good.

Like many others have said, if you want to take pictures to print and hang on the wall - look elsewhere. If you want to have something that you can slip in your shirt pocket so that you dont miss moments that you otherwise might, this little doodad is perfect.

If you don't have an MP3 player, digital camera, digital voice recorder or digital video camera, this one device will do it all. If you have all those separate components, this baby is still great to have. Sure, the still and video camera don't have the resolution of the larger and pricier cameras, but hey, it fits in the palm of your hand with room to spare and weighs just a tad over two ounces. And you can pop it into its cradle and record video from an external source. The frame rate is only 15fps but I was still able to enjoy an episode of Seinfeld while waiting for a flight. And everybody who saw it had to know what it was and what it did.

Ok, when I bought it the guy from the store (in Miami) told me that the picture quality was about 3MP which is a lie, If you want an mp3 player (I never used this function, so I don't know if it's good), with other functions this is for you, as a camera or a movie clip recorder is not very good, don't get me wrong I loved the size an the slick design but I was after a little more that a casual digital camera.

The still pictures are always blurry, and poor quality, it doesn't have red eye reduccion, the flash is very bad, I use to have a Sony DSC-P20 2MP an it had infinetly better picture quality, we had the camera for 2 months, and we had fun with it, but after a while we started to really get tired with the picture quality so I sold it to a friend that was marvelled with the size and funtions (SUCKER!!), if you want something more seriuos but with all the advantages except the mp3 player try looking into the Minolta Dimage Xt (very small, 3x optical zoom, and also records movies with sound),the Canon S230, Sony DSC-P72/P10 this cameras blow away the panasonic.

But if you want a gadget that happens to be small, plays mp3 and takes pictures keep this.

PROS:
Size, Design, Mp3 player, records movies as long as the memory card allows.

CONS:
Picture Quality, Flash, not very flexable in the camera settings.

When reading these reviews prior to purchase, I got nervous that I would recieve a piece of garbage that didn't live up to the curiousity surrounding it.

I was wrong!

This is a great gadget for on the go, making home movies, anything. When taking a picture, if you are too close with the flash on, all you will see is a flash of white light. Just don't take it less than 1-2 feet away from the object.

I was very impressed with the video aspect. The sound was very impressive and I was able to watch the videos immediately after taking them, and the picture quality is impressive considering how small this is.

Overall, I'm really glad I bought this. The voice recorder is reliable, I haven't checked the Audio player, but I mostly bought it for three out of four purposes. It is absolutely worth it, especially to slip in your pocket and make videos/take pictures on the go.

TIP: The SV-AV30 comes with a 64MB Memory Card. If you are planning to use this full-time, or are taking this on a trip, buy an additional card. 64MB is really not a lot of room, especially if you will be using all of the options offered (Voice/Audio/Camera/Video). The memory cards are somewhat expensive, but if you invest in a high MB card, it will last you for a while.

I really wish I had read some of the reviews before buying this camera. It is small, has tons of features, and is really fast, not to mention makes everybody around you, strangers or not, stop to look at it and ask questions. But the pictures it takes are just not a high enough quality to make it worth it. You could buy a cell phone that can play mp3's and take pictures as good as this camera, and thats a phone too. The zoom was terrible and lost all focus when used, and the mp3 player would be cool if there weren't so many restrictions on how to get music on there. All in all, I was really excited to receive, and really disappointed as soon as I tried to print my pictures, so I returned the product.

Before you buy Panasonic, check out their customer service number at (800) 221-7262. My experience with Panasonic Customer Service is very poor starting with an average of 26 minute wait times (6 attempts). I bought a Panasonic SVA V30 that had a internal battery charger problem. After waiting for someone at the Panasonic call center to answer, I was referred to All Electronics Services in Bozeman, Montana for warranty repair. I sent the camera to them in April. In June I spoke with Josh there who said he was working on my repair after he had all the accessories. In July, Josh told me they sent the camera to Panasonic and he would check the status. In August, Josh told me All Electronics was no longer working on this camera, that there were many problems with it, that they had 20 bad returns and that Panasonic had returned my camera back to All Electronics. He indicated he was sending me the camera back without repair and told me I had to deal with Panasonic.
After several long waits, Panasonic told were checking the problem and that they needed their rep to see if the camera could be repaired. Bottom line is I still do not have the camera. Panasonic may make good cameras but their customer support is terrible. Their customer service reps were rude and indignant that I was bothering them with my problem.

I just received the panasonic sv-av30 5 days ago and I would just like to say that it holds up to 14 musics on a 64mb card with 4-5 minutes per song, the voice recorder is great it is able to recored voices up to 10 feet away, the picture is ok but if you use the zoom on the camera, when you upload the picture that you zoom in, it wout be that clear, i recomened not to zoom in on pictures you are going to take. The software that came with this is ok, it just has the basics, the mpeg4 video is ok, it's not that clear but able for you to recognize the person or thing. My final review is that it's GOOD not GREAT but GOOD this 4 in 1 camera, mp3 etc. is good if your on the go. You can bring it with you everywhere.....just in case something unexpected comes up while your walking or driving and you want to take a picture of it or want to record something.

This has been a perfect buy for my wife and I. She wanted an easy-to-use, easy-to-carry digital camera. Well, I found exactly what she wanted, plus a digital camcorder (it records/plays MPEG4 clips), an audio recorder, and a MP3 player --all for the price of an entry-level digital camera!!

The video editing software that comes with this baby is not ideal, but it handles the basic tasks of viewing and deleting files. I also wish I could use the device as a webcam. But other than that, I've had so much fun with it, including recording instructions for my wife on how to use it!

This is a great little stealth camera for snapping shots for blogging or other purposes, and the mpeg video capture is pretty simple to operate. I don't like that the audio player function seems to not work with anything other than their proprietary format, so putting audio onto these for listening isn't as simple as it is with the legacy audio players.

The software works well, was easy to configure, and the overall product is a five star.