Creative Announces "Do It All" DiVi CAM 516

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=118&subcategory=309&product=15440' target='_blank'>http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=118&subcategory=309&product=15440</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Creative Technology Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products, today introduced Creative DiVi CAM 516, a stylish mini digital camcorder offering video recording in the latest MPEG-4 format and video playback on TV in addition to practical functions such as a 5.1 Megapixel digital camera, MP3 player, voice recorder and webcam - all at an affordable price of S$249.00. The small and trendy Creative DiVi CAM 516 fits perfectly into the palm and comes in 3 stylish colours of Black, Silver and Light Blue. Creative DiVi CAM 516 is able to record high quality videos in VGA (640 x 480 pixels) resolutions up to a maximum of 30 frames per second. Users can also play back the videos captured on any TV to share with their friends and families."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/prod15440_hdr_1_6_1.jpg" /><br /><br />The price for this converged device comes it at around $161 USD doing a direct conversion, so odds are it will go for around $199 USD if I were to hazard a guess. I've yet to see a review of a device like this that has anything positive to say, so I can't imagine this device would be all that impressive either. But hey, I could be wrong...

[Vincent Ferrari]

I think these types of devices get a bad rap. The quality isn't the greatest, but hell at that price they're pretty close to disposable.

Reviewers tend to forget they're reviewing a $200 device when they look at something like this. I loved the Mustek ones. Sure I wouldn't shoot a great feature film with it, but the convenience of having a relatively good video cam everywhere is great.

[Jason Dunn]

I guess the question is though, if you want to take video on a vacation or whatever, do you want to trust your memories to the $200 device? I guess it boils down to me not being a part of the target market - maybe these are cool for teenagers who want to have fun and put up lip-synching videos on YouTube? ;-)

[Vincent Ferrari]

BINGO! :-)

Or someone like me who does lots of street photography and may wanna catch a gritty video every now and again (can't do that with a Rebel XT)...

I think the market is exactly what you said. The YouTube crowd. Great way of putting it!

[stephman]

Even if I was part of the youtube crowd, I would be very dissapointed in this product. The max SD card size you can use is 1GB. At least for me personally, I like to get the largest memory card as possible so I don't have to worry about if I have enough room left on my card for anything unexpected.
I hate it when companies limit the max size memory card you can use in a device.

"Integrated 32MB and SD/MMC expansion slot (SD card up to 1GB)"

[Jason Dunn]

Makes you wonder what the 1 GB limit is all about - there's no logical reason for that from a card size/FAT type limit...

[Vincent Ferrari]

It's so creative can come out with the 516 Big Edition two months from now, which will work with bigger cards. :lol: