Review: Creative Vado HD
Creative’s been long known for its superb audio products, ranging from the still relevant SoundBlaster PC sound cards to the venerable and powerful ZEN line of digital media devices. The first evidence of life in the visual department over at Creative came with the introduction of the Zen Vision:M. Anyone who has spent time with the best device to come out of Creative’s facilities knows that the video quality was absolutely superb. The widescreen Vision:W, which I still use daily, was also amazing. Now, however, Creative adds to the mix a rather different device: one that comes in soley to capture life- this version in stunning high definition. Before you begin this review, let me preface it by saying this: I have not played with, tested, or otherwise touched a Flip camera, a Kodak Zi6, or any other competitor in this sector, so don’t ask. There are plenty of other, wealthier people who have done so- you can use the tubes and Google to find them. But I suspect that very few other people who are in the market for this type of device have very little background with a competitor’s product, and thus will be with me as a ‘virgin buyer’ of pocket video cams. All videos embedded currently have the YouTube HD embed hack enabled, so all videos should playback in HD by default. For full size videos, click through the videos to their YouTube page.
Continue reading for the ten page review.
Specifications
Before I begin the official review, I’d like to provide a few facts about the camera I’m about to review. This chart illustrates the specifications of the Vado HD’s two main competitors, the Flip Mino HD and the Kodak Zi6, as well as its standard definition brother, the original Vado.
Additionally, here are all the specifications Creative have on their web page. Not included here is the warranty length, which is 12 months of their standard limited hardware warranty.
Contents
Let’s start with the box. The box is very typical of Creative players of late- much more plasticy. It’s a good size, however, and fits nicely in a suitcase in case you don’t have the time to open it up before the trip.
Inside the box is a surprisingly full accessory set. There’s the camera, a USB extender cable, the silicon case, a HDMI cable, a battery, and two short instruction guides. The instruction guides are only useful if you’re an absolute novice with technology, as the interface on the camera is extremely basic and easy. This accessory pack is actually quite good for such a basic camera. The HDMI cable is probably a $15 accessory by itself. I think it may be a better option to include the RCA cables instead, as there are more TVs with RCA inputs than HDMI ports, but it does look better to pull out the pocket camera and connect it to a HDTV than a standard def one. Perhaps they could have compromised and put a component video cable to satisfy both types. The silicon case is just a basic case, designed to protect the unit from scratches and bumps. Unfortunately, as with all silicon, it is a dust magnet, and needs to be taken off in case the camera needs to be shown off. There is no AC charger in the box, but there is a $30 add-on available at Creative’s website.
Score: 92/100- While there is everything needed to get up and going, the lack of an AC adapter/charger in the box can be a problem for a family on vacation. However, the limited storage space will make a laptop or PC a necessity for extended trips anyways. The few points lost there are made up with the inclusion of the HDMI cable.
Camera Design
The camera itself is a very sleek, refined piece of technology. The only downside, however, is the lens, which does stick out from the front. Luckily, the lens is firmly mounted and feels solidly attached to the rest of the camera. The body of the camera has a solid, but hollow feel to it. Whilst holding it, the camera did feel solid and very well made, but almost too light for the size of it. The metallic ring around the outside gives a nice contrast to the stoic black of the body, and works well with the design of the rest of the body. If the user has moderately greasy fingers, the device becomes visible with them, though only at certain angles. Generally, though, it felt nice and at home in my hands.
The button design on the back is extremely simplistic- only two buttons in addition to the d-pad are visible from the backside. The power button is intelligently hidden in the right side, and it’s very difficult to power on the device by accident. I feel like they should have added a dedicated settings button, instead of requiring the pressing or both the play and trash buttons to access the menu. But the two buttons on the left are very symmetrical with the d-pad on the right and make the back simple to use. The speaker is in a good spot, but it’s very underpowered and weak in comparison to the ZEN X-Fi’s. One of my favorite features of the camera is the front light, next to the lens. It glows red when recording, which is something that I definitely would have overlooked when designing a budget camera.
The ports are placed in the typical places, with the USB flexi-cord on the bottom and the video ports on the left hand side. The USB flexi cord is accompanied by the tripod mount on the bottom. I don’t really care much for the flexi-cord, as it’s awkward to use when not using it on a flat surface where the camera can lay sideways. On my tower PC, where the USB ports are on top, it sits funnily and occasionally falls out. That’s what the extension cord is for, but it’s bothersome to have to go find it.
I did not perform a comprehensive battery test. However, Michael at epiZENter.net did, and he also made a spiffytacular graph, which you can see here. When I used the camera, I found that battery life was not an issue whilst using the device on a daily basis.
Score: 88/100- It’s not a pretty ZEN. It’s a solidly built, lightweight camera and it shows. Creative’s design department went with the professional, cold look. While it definitely doesn’t shine like the glossier MinoHD and Zi6, the relatively fingerprint proof casing seems to have a more professional business about it. The material also seems like it will hold up better in the long run.
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.
Video Quality
I can’t help but feeling I have the most washed out backyard in the world. Below, you can listen to my rambling as I walk throughout the backyard. The backyard is just as it appears in the video: dead and dirt-filled. You can see noticeable bounciness as I walk around and move the camera around. However, the image quality is astounding.
Below is a video as I walk to the mailbox to pick up my new Watchmen book. Again, the bounciness is nearly all from my inability to glide across the ground. This is where it’s almost unacceptable, but the image itself is of extremely high quality.
Here’s an indoor one, where the Vado HD really shines. It looks almost professional quality here, aside from (again) the fairly slow response time when moving fast images.
Nighttime is a very different beast though. This was taken in the backseat of a car on the way home from Watchmen. It’s a fairly good distance away from the shopping centers, but a few landmarks are evident, better than I anticipated.
You may not have been impressed by those videos on the previous page, mostly because I was moving while filming. Here are a few in prime form- standing still, outside, in the daytime. This is where the Vado HD really shines.
Score: 91/100- As you can probably tell from those clips, the Vado HD is a simply amazing video recorder while standing still. The videos on these page indicate the camera is best indoors with adequate light or outdoors during the daytime. However, the camera’s great image quality is significantly degraded when the cinematographer begins to move, but it’s not unexpected on a camera of this type. But when conditions are good, and the camera is still, the amazing video quality really shines.
Audio Quality
Score: 86/100- The quality of the audio is pretty good for a budget camera. It’s definitely one of the weak spots of the camera, but it’s a passable replacement for a normal video camera in this sector. You can hear from the videos in the previous page that the spoken word is clearly audible in the ones where people are speaking. It won’t be featured on Head-Fi as a top notch audio device, but for the rest of us, it works just fine.
Vado Central Software
The software has traditionally been a weak spot for Creative. They make fantastic players only to be let down by the mediocre software. Luckily, the Vado Central software is a step above the Creative Centrale program. It’s extremely easy to upload to YouTube- almost too easy. Plug the device into a PC’s USB slot and Windows will ask what you want to do via an AutoPlay menu. Click Vado Central, and the software will begin to load. Once there, browse through the videos you took. The software allows for a preview as the video was taken- in HD or not. After you find the video you want, return to the home screen, click said file, then hit the YouTube button in the corner of the software. It’ll ask you to insert your YouTube username and password, then it will authenticate your login and take you to a details screen. On the details screen, you can do nearly everything that is offered on the YouTube upload page. Easy as can be. It will upload the whole file to YouTube, so it will take a few minutes (or hours) for YouTube itself to process it. This is crucial, because while YouTube may not have the HD version right away, after it is complete processing, it will give you the option to view in HD. (Click on the image for a bigger, more detailed image)
Video editing, however, is very, very basic. The only real feature is the ability to cut the movie clip into sections. Included is a movie maker option, but this is only just a demo of the muvee software. The demo allows for three movies, one music file, and thirty pictures to be edited without problem. After those limits, it requires a $17.99 upgrade. It’s definitely not worth it. Every PC has a free alternative, though. It’s Windows Movie Maker, available at download.live.com, and everything that muvee can do, Movie Maker can do for free. Simply import the video through Movie Maker by browsing to the Vado HD removable disk in My Computer. You’ll have to leave the Vado plugged in throughout the duration of your editing, unless you copy and paste the video onto your hard drive. Below is a demo video that I created with the muvee software. It’s got everything at default, but you can change the title and ending.
Score: 78/100- For the average user, this software is all that they’ll need to go directly to YouTube. However, the mom or dad who is trying to add a soundtrack to the family vacation to Hawaii will definitely need to import the file to Windows Movie Maker and mess with it there. Professional projects still need Vegas, Premiere, or Ulead.
In many ways, this is the exact opposite of what happened to the company in the MP3 market. Creative sold one of the first, if not the first, commercially available digital media player for the masses. Apple came along and began their return to the top by borrowing from the idea that Creative had and improving it. Creative is doing essentially the same thing to the pocket video cam market. They were definitely not the first ones to the party- it’s fairly evident that Flip beat the Singapore company to market, but what Creative has done here is nothing short of astounding. By no means is the Vado HD perfect, but it’s simply blow-you-out-of-the-water video quality makes it among the elites in this growing market.
Score Review
- Included Extras: 90
- Design: 88
- User Interface: 94
- Video Quality: 91
- Audio Quality: 86
- Software: 78
Quick Rundown
- Superb video quality while standing still
- Decent feature set
- Generally good design.
- Gracious accessory pack
- Wide lens gives a much more realistic feel for the area
- Simple, but woefully underpowered, software
- Very easy interface
- Poor in bad lighting and while filmer is moving
- Extremely new users will be frustrated with no step by step directions
FINAL SCORE: 90/100
As a camera itself, it earns a high B by itself. However, once the video comes off the camera and onto YouTube or a DVD, it’s simply stunning how a camera of that size can produce such amazing images. The video quality by itself pushes the player into the A range. Just be sure to be standing still.
Buy it now at Creative by clicking here or the image below!
More Reviews…
Below is a YouTube player featuring all videos seen in this review. In this format, you’ll have to manually enable the HD mode.
- Introduction
- Specifications
- Included Schwag
- Design
- User Interface
- Video Quality
- Video Quality 2, Audio Quality
- Software
- Conclusion
- View All
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Mary
