Kodak PlayTouch Video Camera (Black) NEWEST VERSION

I bought the PlayTouch and spent a few days comparing it to a borrowed Zi8. I shot a couple of hours of footage in different situations and at different resolutions with the two mounted side-by-side. I thought a quick comparison of the two might be useful for others that are looking at the PlayTouch.

There were certainly some improvements in the PlayTouch over the Zi8:
* The device itself is smaller and sleeker. I think it looks a bit better than the older model.
* The low-light performance is better on the PlayTouch. Neither camera is great in low-light, but the PlayTouch would get a picture in a dark room when the Zi8 would only record black.
* The PlayTouch had a much wider angle lens. My kids always seem to come close when the camera comes out, and the wider angle of the PlayTouch was much better in these situations.
* MP4 file format (vs. MOV on the Zi8). The MP4 files from the PlayTouch played back much easier on my Windows machine than the equivalent MOV files from the Zi8. MP4 and MOV are just the container for the h.264 video inside, but for some reason everything works better in Windows with MP4. My editing software (Sony Vegas) chokes on the .MOVs created by the zi8, but works wonderfully with MP4s. Obviously QuickTime rocks if you're on a Mac.
* The PlayTouch has some nifty "effects" for your video. I don't think you'd ever use them in real life, but they're fun to play with for a few minutes and maybe kids would like them.

There were a few key ares in which the PlayTouch lost out to the Zi8:
* The video on the PlayTouch had WAY too much contrast. In a normal outdoor shot with the sun overhead and some light shadows from trees, half of the frame was blown out from the sun while the shadowy parts looked completely black. The Zi8 handled these situations with aplomb.
* The user interface on the PlayTouch was much slower and less responsive than the Zi8. Everything, from the menus to the time to start recording after pressing the button, felt much more sluggish on the PlayTouch.
* The video displayed on the screen while recording is tiny and lagged by about 1/2 a second. You'd think with a bigger screen, the video displayed while recording would be bigger, but you'd be wrong (The PlayTouch does display the video bigger on playback in landscape mode, though). The Zi8 video display didn't lag at all.
* The video on the PlayTouch didn't look as good as the Zi8 at any resolution. I don't know if it's due to a lower bitrate or something else in the compression, but the video from the PlayTouch had a lot more blocking and jaggy artifacts.
* In anything but bright light, the PlayTouch video was extremely noisy. Much worse than the Zi8.
* The PlayTouch seemed to heat up when recording 1080p video. It didn't get burning hot, but it was hot enough to cause me some concern.
* The PlayTouch crashed occasionally requiring a reset.
* Battery life was around 1 hour 5 minutes on the PlayTouch, while it was about 1 hour 30 minutes on the Zi8.

To me it was no question: I returned the PlayTouch and bought a Zi8. Perhaps some of the shortcomings of the PlayTouch can be fixed in future firmware updates, but the fundamental image quality problems cannot be fixed in firmware -- they are intrinsic to the CMOS sensor Kodak chose to put in the PlayTouch. I could overlook the crummy user interface for the low light improvement, wider angle lens, and MP4 container format, but the serious step down in video quality makes it impossible for me to the consider the PlayTouch.

This item is an EXCELLent caera/ video recorder. It has simplistic instructions that anyone can follow, a set of touc-screen options that are so easy to understand that it makes me wish all my itesm would come with set-ups like this, and it makes for great keepsakes. Considering the size of the thing, you also have a cool streaming piece of electronics that takes 11 5MP photos on normal with its internal memory and takes around 30 seconds of video with the internals. Thats nice and only has one downside that I noticed and I'll not later (I say that because I am being objective and I want this to be noted but not too take away from the camera/ recorder).

I think the first thing I should note is that facebook, twitter, and other sites are not my noraml routines. Still, this hooks with them easily and I say that being a novice on the sites. I also saw how easily the thing is to program and send video and pictures in emails to people, and that astonished me. It just plugs into the computer and it is gone.

Speaking of computers, this has to be one of the easiest plug and go options on the planet. It does most of the work for me and it has a lot of idiot-proofing to go along with it. I am not a person that likes to read a lot of instructions and likes to learn on the fly. This is designed for that type of person BUT has a great set of prompts that allows you to read OR look at pictures. Also, it has a lot of language variations in its paper insert (which I note because some people are not good with computers at all and do not like their instructions on a file).

As far as features, you have a few things you can do with the film that are really awesome and that come with a lot of things now. That includes film differences, zoominging, facial finding software, and so much more. This is all done with the ease you find in so much touch streen stuff that doe not have that many options, only this does so much. Its just easy to udnerstand and seems to be designed by a person that planned on using it.

You have glare guards, the ability to fix your pictures, review and fixing abilities, ways to crop, and ways to clean up the images. That is good if you take bad photos, or if you are in a rush. I noticed I could set this to take great stuff in the light or in the night, and that home or outside are all great and easy. Honestly, I would see this as a great gift potential, allowing someone from a pre-technolgoy generation to place their stamp on whatever day they want.

The one downside to this is that it does not have an SD card with it. It DOEs have internal memory, but no SD card makes it a little confusing. Still,t his is simply a note and not a flaw. You are treated so good here that it seems like a hand-out is expected. Even the bag is sooo soft that I would use it to clean glasses - you sort of get spoiled by the thought of what could come next.

The charge last a long time, too, and I was surprised by that. I charged it and was playing with it for three days and it did not give me any problems. I simply plugged in the stuff it said, starting with the battery that was clearly shown in a picture, and then hit the switch on the side that looks just like my power icon on my computer/X-box/ a million other things. And then I used the big button that seems like the natural option to get me going. Everything else sort of came together and within two hours I had done everything I could with the intructions - and that is not a slight on this machine.

It is amazingly good. I have played with other things, the Flip and whatnot, and they are nothing compared to this. Other pieces seem like toys setting on a table with an electronic device.
This EASILY deserves the 5 stars because it is HD, blows images up where you can play, has a mic that you can adjust to get sound from (these are hard on that one thing and I always seem to think they are all a little low), and it responds to tilting. Icons like to go where I am going and i like it a lot.

Thank you.

This camera is excellent. Ive experienced freeze-ups a couple of times but this camera is excellent and more than capable of shooting quality footage. Completely upgradeable with camera lights, microphones and wide lens. I had the zi8 and its pretty much the same thing except for the touch screen feature and the ability to trim videos on the camera itself. I love it and have already put it to good use. I definitely reccommend this product.