Review: Creative Vado HD
Usability
In the category of cheap, compact video cameras, priority number one is about ease of use. The target market for this device is undoubtedly for the everyday person, not someone who does their research online, studies competitors, and compares prices. This is really Creative’s first attempt at a user interface not designed for the extremely powerful media device, but one that, despite the ability to do much more, is simple and performs basic tasks easily. In the majority of ways, they have succeeded. The interface for recording is very intuitive: push the big red record button on the back to start and stop recording. The zoom (more on that later) involves pushing the up arrow to zoom in, and the down arrow to zoom out. Playback of media is very simple, just push the play button to play the most recent recording. To skip through the various recordings, hit pause during playback and then hit the left and right arrow buttons. During playback, the only option is to increase or decrease the volume. You can also delete the files on the device without a PC. Just navigate to the file and hit the trash can. The settings option is hidden, however. From the home screen, the settings menu is accessed via pushing both the Play/Pause button and trash button at the same time. There aren’t very many options- just the basics.
Settings
In the settings menu, there are six options, and only four of which you really have an option to mess with. In addition to the Language, Time/Date, and TV System settings, there are options to change the quality, the instant recording feature of the device and the anti flicker settings.
The most important of these is the video quality settings. There are three options- HD+, HD, and VGA. The HD+ is obviously the best filetype, as it will pump out a 1280×720 video at 8471 Kbps. But there have been numerous reports of older PCs having difficulty with using those files, as the bitrate overloads the processor/GPU/memory specifications of the PC. Two seconds of HD+ footage takes about 2.2 MB. The HD mode is very similar, outputting at 1280×720 as well, but instead only outputting at 4324 Kbps, meaning that there is quite a bit more compression occurring on the device. Two seconds of HD video takes about 1.2 MB. The third and final option is standard VGA, which is what the cheaper Vado does. VGA mode is 640×480 at 2188Kbps, and taking only 627KB over two seconds. This is important because, while HD and HD+ are far superior modes, if one goes on an extended vacation with plans for a certain amount of video, VGA will run out after 8hr:15mins, as compared to the 4:20 in HD and 2:15 in HD+ modes. Remember, however, that 640×480 is simply atrocious video quality, and you should always shoot at HD when not in an emergency. Those horrid YouTube clips where pixelation is a problem are taken with 640×480 cameras. Just don’t do it. For the rest of us.
Instant recording is one of those features that once you turn it off, you’ll want it. The bootup of the player, however, isn’t slow, and keeping instant record on typically will only succeed in draining the battery more. Anti flicker, the fourth option is just for those of us who have an odd fancy for filming extremely rapidly moving objects, such as a computer screen. You probably can’t even tell the difference in this short video comparing the two features. I can’t. Note: this video was transcoded from the HD setting on the Vado HD to WMV HD by Windows Movie Maker. The fourth and fifth options, TV System and Language, will be a set it and forget it. But for those interested, the Vado HD offers output through the North American NTSC standard as well as the PAL standard. As for languages, the player offers English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Video below in “High Quality”, rather than “High Definition”.
Score: 94/100- It’s (dare I say it) more intuitive than the vaunted ZEN user interface. Since it is more intuitive, however, there are hardly any settings or options that Creative fans are used to tweaking. In the budget pocket cam industry, though, this is a definite winner.
- Introduction
- Specifications
- Included Schwag
- Design
- User Interface
- Video Quality
- Video Quality 2, Audio Quality
- Software
- Conclusion
- View All
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Mary
