VIVITAR DVR-200 Digital Video Camcorder - Digital Camera

Rating:
Summary: better than it costs
Review: I have a VHS-C camcorder and an Olympus Digital Camera. I wanted a small digital camcorder and was exploring Amazon looking to see what was available. I ran across the Vivitar DVR-200 and it looked like it would do what I wanted it to do. Similar products had reviews that complained about the quality of the pictures in low light and other similar issues. I have only used this one for a short time but it does exactly what I wanted and the price is right. Yes, in very low light, the picture is quite dark. You can do some adjustment with your computer's software. Outdoors or in good light, the picture is quite acceptable. Because of the slightly slow number of frames per second, you do have to be deliberate in your panning. I was very impressed that the camera automatically was able to adjust to an object that was in very bright sunlight and in a second or so adjusted itself to show the object in proper color. The 2.0 megapixel digital camera is the same as my Olympus and it is really good enough for most shots. I never really need to print a picture larger than 8x10. I bought a 256 mg smart card and according to the manual I should get several hunderd pictures or about 45-60 minutes of video. I will also get a combination of video and pictures. Uploading into my pc was easy and the software that came with the camera seems improved over my existing software and I deleted two of them. The camera is tiny, works well and is quite a bit better than I feared.

If you are expecting a professional level camera or camcorder, look at the price. You won't get professional level or bells and whistles. If you want a decent digital camera, a decent camcorder with no need for tapes at a very decent price, this is a good deal. And did I mention it is about the size of a cellphone? One last thing, I decided that I didn't need an MP3 player or voice recorder as similar products have but wanted to have a product that was devoted to the photography part.

Rating:
Summary: Vivitar DVR 200
Review: Poor product. Even at very fine setting for recording, the videos are quite poor-almost like watching somoene on a computer's video camera. It uses an incredible amount of power, even lithium batteries burn out fast...very fast! Very disappointing.