Toshiba H30 Camileo Camcorder
I am a youtuber. This is something I love to do for a hobby and hopefully, as a job to. But being a youtuber means you have to provide a nice line of content in good quality. The camcorder I was using before I even thought about buying this thing, was an old RCA home video camera. The only problem was, without A small VHC tape, I couldn't record anything unless hooked up to a capture cord. To be honest that was more of a hassle than it should of ever been. So after all the annoying steps I had taken before hand, I had looked into purchasing a new HD camcorder for cheap. Of course, wal-mart being the main store to go too down here in the south, I started there. When I got to the store I was amazed to see this small handheld looking camcorder. I looked it over and said "What the heck." and bought it. To this day, I think I should of looked around a bit longer.
Now after reading that you may be thinking its a bad camcorder. Not at all. The only problem with this camcorder is that, it encrypts the video files to where you have to use the software provided. Now let me tell you, ArcSoft has to be one of the worst video editing software's to this day. I couldn't work with it, I felt like I was limited to the options that was provided. I couldn't do a whole lot of editing. I felt like I needed Sony Vegas, or at least After Effects back. Now the only problem is this, I will not be able to use those software's with this camcorder. But I do have another program that will work with it. When you buy this camcorder, be prepared to laugh at what you have to work with if you do not like the ArcSoft software. You will be working with..... *GASP* Dun dun duuuuuuunnnnununununn. Windows Movie Maker. As for Imovie, (for those mac users) I am not to sure yet. I will be once I get a hold of the software. But Windows Movie Maker is your best bet with this software. Of course not the old edition. It has to be Windows LIVE Movie Maker. Worst software, but better than ArcSoft.
Before we go into video quality, let me start off with the audio quality. If you do not have a noisy environment, meaning no loud noises in the backgrounds, no dogs running around, no family members complaining, then the mic on the camcorder will work perfectly for you. However, if you live in the household that I live in, then prepare to do repeats of the same video, over and over and over again. The best recommendation I can give you is this. Once you have time to record your video and you have noise in the background. Get on your laptop or desktop computer and record your voice while recording the video. You can hide your mic to the best of your ability. I have a clip on mic, so a lot of the hiding is how good I can snake the cord in my shirt. The on-board speakers on the camcorder suck. I am not going to lie. I had this thing plugged into the charger, one power outage and the speakers blew. Nothing happened to the microphone or anything else on the camcorder. Heck, the touch screen even worked like a charm still. Just the speakers on the camcorder itself was screwed up.
Now onto the important stuff. Video quality. First of all, I have to say the grainy texture you would get in a very low light area is still a problem. However in a very well natural lit room (Or outdoors) there is not a lot of grain to it. But seeing how I can only record at night without a lot of interruption, grainy texture is somewhat of a problem. Now if you where just using the camcorder for youtubing or heck, facebook videos. Then this camcorder is for you. But you need to make sure where you are recording at is well lit and at least in a good zone to do all of it in. However if you are trying to do a game review like AVGN, I would suggest into investing in a much better camcorder. There are expensive ones out there. Thats no lie. But trust me, this one is for the basics.
Some other notes to look at is the touch screen on the panel. Its smooth and somewhat responsive. There are times where I have a hard time getting it to react to my touch. But it doesn't happen as often as you would think. Hooking it up to your computer is easy. Either use a USB cord or just plug in the sandisk card to your computer or laptop. That's another thing I forgot to mention was the battery. The battery is rechargeable and does have good battery life. I could record up to 3 hours of footage with out a lot of problems. Do I ever use the full 3 hour footage? Hah, I wish. Overall, if you are a youtuber and know how to work with the file format, and can deal with editing with windows movie maker (Or IMovie) then this is a must buy.
Price: (Just Camera) $135 (Bundle) $150
Where to buy?
(Bundle) http://www.walmart.com/ip/Toshiba-Camileo-H30-HD-Camcorder-w-Bonus-Accessories-Value-Bundle/17472904
(Regular) http://www.walmart.com/ip/Toshiba-5-x-CAMILEO-H30/14234985
Now as an added bonus, I will compare the quality of the Toshiba camcorder, with a standard Kodak EasyShare Digital Camera. Enjoy!
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Ryan Cruey