Toshiba Camileo HD Camcorder

I have used dv camcorders for quite some time, Producing wedding videos etc on a professional basis. I have been looking to transfer my opperations to HD format soon this will be the format to supply the vast majority of clients.
This little baby is a great little camera it records in a max of 1440 x 1080 format which is not full HD of 1920 x 1080 yet still the clarity is superb in normal lighting conditions. Recording indoors or in low light conditions is not so good,unlike the higher end market, which you pay £££££`s more for. I consider this tiny beauty first class for my holiday camera. daylght recording is excellent and still photos are also good in daylight conditions. Its size is less than a pack of fags....(yuk) and smaller than some mobile phones.....All in all a great little camera ease of use picture quality and hey you can carry it any where....no worries

I'm not a video camera expert - bought this one to try out making some films and was very pleased with the deal. With a 8GB card you can record an impressive 7-8 hours and with 16GB almost a whole episode of Big Brother!

It's very light, fits in a shirt top pocket and is very simple to use. As you might imagine, with a 3x zoom, you've got to have a steady hand whilst filming (and make sure that you don't catch the buttons - I had several films of the grass as I walked along intially)

Controls are neatly placed on the back and the flip out screen turns the camera on. Batteries and chargers are available [£9 for 2 batteries and a mains charger rather than plugging the camera into a USB port) It's a quick start up so you can start recording within a few seconds and the batteries do seem to last well (I filmed heavily over 2 days)

The controls bring up a menu to choose the camera mode (either still, video, voice recorder or reviewing files made) and its simple to choose between them (no need to read the manual!) Camera mode is meant to be 8mP but didn't come across as well as my SLR digital (although a lot less bulky to carry around)

The sound is picked up from the body of the camera so tends to pick up the operators voice, the wind and any breathing rather than the subjects voice! I believe there is a Mike in socket somewhere that you could use to improve this situation - the camera does try but often just amplifies the sounds you don't want so that the final soundtrack is a bit uneven in volume.

What are the drawbacks- well, I'm not sure if this is the same with all cameras but the Camileo films in a format that isn't directly read by your computer and I had to search the Internet to convert MP4 files to AVI video clips to actually use them (You can watch them with the software provided but this is a bit limited). These can then be pushed into Movie maker to be edited and made into a film (as long as your DVD burning system works , which mine didn't from Movie maker!)

Alternatively you can plug your camera directly into a DVD recorder or TV to watch/record the film.

All in all I was very pleased with the camera's performance and thought it was a good little starter system (it allows you to record in Black and white or sepia if you want to make "Kill Bill 3")