Kodak MC3 Portable Digital Camera/Camcorder and MP3 Player - 64 MB

Kodak MC3 Portable Digital Camera/Camcorder and MP3 Player - 64 MB
Manufacturer: Kodak
Product Type: Photography

Editorial Review:
Product Description
The Kodak MC3 is the coolest pocket player out there. Catch all the action, wherever you go. It lets you shoot digital video or still pictures. Download and play your favorite MP3s. Share your memories over the Internet. The Kodak MC3 is one of the only MP3 players to offer a reflective preview screen, so you can use it even in bright sunshine. In music mode, you can view the artist's name, song title, and album.With Kodak MC3 there's no end to the fun! Plug the ear buds in for listening to music on the go. There are no moving parts, so skips are eliminated. With a removable Memory Card you can collect, display, record, download and play music, videos, still pictures and anything you want. Perfect for the active lifestyle, the Kodak MC3 is small, pocket size, and you can use it with one hand. The MC3 was designed with the Internet in mind. Quickly and easily download your favorite music and transfer your videos and pictures to your PC.
Amazon.com Review
Think of Kodak's MC3 as the Swiss Army knife of electronic gadgets. This sleek handheld unit functions as a portable video camera, digital still camera, and MP3 player. We found the device to be well designed, easy to use, and, most importantly, a lot of fun.

As a video camera, the MC3 captures QuickTime format movies with sound at a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. Users choose from two settings--a high-quality 20 frames per second (fps) mode captures more detail, but fills the CompactFlash memory card at a rate of 15 MB per minute. A more e-mail friendly mode shoots at 10 fps and uses greater compression. This mode makes movies a bit choppier, but still looks fine for most applications and only consumes around 2 MB of memory per minute.

A 1.6-inch color LCD screen on the back of the camera lets you see exactly what you're filming and can also play back footage you've recorded. While most manufacturers use illuminated LCDs, Kodak has opted to use a reflective display instead. In a reflective display, the traditional backlight is replaced with a mirror. This arrangement is thinner, uses less energy, and is less expensive. It's also easier to see when you're outdoors. Unfortunately, it's more difficult to see in low-light situations--seeing what you're shooting in a restaurant will be a challenge.

The videos you create aren't as detailed as those from a camcorder, but the MC3 isn't designed to replace those traditional tape-based devices. Although the movies can be viewed on your TV (with an optional connecting cable), they're really designed to be seen on a computer screen, saved on your hard drive or CD-R, and shared with friends via e-mail.

Though it's not designed primarily as an MP3 player, the MC3's musical abilities are quite good. You get the full set of standard controls (including cue and review within a song), plus several equalizer settings, shuffle mode, and repeat. In addition, the LCD shows artist and title information, plus system settings. The built-in speaker (included primarily for audio playback of your movies) can also be used to play music, though sound quality is much better with headphones. Standard MP3 song files are transferred from your computer to the MC3 via a USB cable, using included software. There's no copy protection, so if you have a dedicated CompactFlash card reader, you can even transfer files directly to and from the memory card.

As a still camera, the MC3 is just OK. Resolution is 640 x 480 (0.3 megapixels), which looks fine on a computer monitor but lacks enough detail to create photo-quality prints, even at snapshot sizes. Photo capabilities are simple to the point of crudeness--there's no flash, the lens is fixed focus, and everything is completely automatic. Still, it works fine for outdoor snapshots, which is where Kodak thinks you'll be using the device most often.

Kodak's software suite that comes with the MC3 adds a whole new dimension to your creativity. The simple-to-use VideoImpression program lets users blend footage and stills with their favorite songs, letting even absolute amateurs create professional-looking productions in a matter of minutes.

Instructions come with the MC3, but it's so well designed that they aren't really necessary. Using the device is as easy as sliding the four-position switch on the back to the appropriate mode (MP3, movie, still, or playback) and turning on the power. When you're ready to try the more advanced features, a screen-based menu system makes it easy to find your way around. Battery life was good, allowing us several hours of MP3 playback and lots of video recording and playback before we needed to replace the three AAA cells. The use of three batteries is a bit odd--most batteries and chargers are sold in twos or fours, so you'll either need to get your batteries 6 or 12 at a time, or use rechargeables and find a charger that lets you charge just three cells.

The MC3 uses standard Type I CompactFlash cards--the same type of cards used by many digital cameras and some PDAs and MP3 players. The device comes with either a 16 or 64 MB card, depending upon price, and cards are currently available from a number of manufacturers in capacities up to 256 MB. Our sample unit came with a 64 MB card, which gave us around 27 minutes of lower-quality video, 4 minutes of high-quality video, 65 minutes of high-quality MP3 music, 500 still pictures, or any combination in between. For our tests, 64 MB was ample, letting us store a dozen songs and leaving enough room for about 12 minutes of lower-quality video. When we started to run out of space for movies, we just deleted our least-favorite songs and started shooting again.

Public reaction to the MC3 has been incredible. Whenever we took it out for a test, strangers stopped us to find out more about it and try it for themselves. Something about the design--its sheer simplicity or its friendly design, perhaps--brings out users' creative sides. We found ourselves compensating for the lack of zoom by thrusting the camera closer to the action and shooting videos of scenes we'd never captured with a camcorder. Sure, the MC3 is more of a toy than a tool, but it's an extremely fun toy. It's not much more expensive than an ordinary MP3 player, but the added fun is immeasurable. Kodak has a hit on its hands.

Pros:

• For about the same price as an ordinary MP3 player, you also get a video camera and digital camera
• Well designed, with quality construction and simple controls
• Lots of fun to use

Cons:

• Reflective LCD panel hard to see in dimly lit areas
• Power choice of 3 AAA batteries is a bit awkward

Average customer rating: 5.0 This is a very, very good monitor! near perfect Diamond Picture Great monitor if you can foot the bill for it.

NEC DiamondPro DP2060U Flat 22" CRT Monitor Manufacturer: NEC-Mitsubishi Product Group: CE Binding: Electronics ASIN: B00005AASQ

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Customer Reviews:

This is a very, very good monitor!.......2003-03-23

When I fired up the Diamond Pro 2060u, I was not particularly impressed with the screen brilliance. Yes, the screen was color accurate and sharp throughout, but there was very little intensity. I had the contrast at 100%, the brightness at 35%, and the color temperature at 9300K. I could turn up the brightness and the light areas of the screen did become brighter, but the black level was then destroyed and blacks became dark greys. I was so upset that I nearly gave up.

I then stumbled on the RGB color controls that allow one to dramatically intensify the beams. Where the 9300K setting would set the RGB color sliders to around the 50% levels, I cranked them up to 90%. Suddenly, the monitor became a brilliant, beautiful display! It is PERFECT! It is brilliant, color-accurate, and extremely sharp with a perfect black level. Once adjusted, the convergence is perfect throughout and there are no noticeable moire patterns even given the worse dithering. Of the dozens of monitors I've looked at under 1K, this is by FAR the best.

There are two tiny flaws to the screen, both are side effects of the aperture grill and evident on all monitors using that type of mask: one is that there are two very faint horizontal gray lines crossing the screen at the 1/3rd and 2/3rd distance from the top/bottom edge. These are horizontal dampeners that stabilize the aperture grill's vertical elements. These faint lines don't bother me, and compared to LCD dead pixels, they are no big deal for certain. The second imperfection is a barely perceptible pixel shimmer throughout the screen. This is heat-of-expansion-derived kinetic energy transfered to the aperture grill via the electron beam as it passes by (most of the kinetic energy is eliminated by the dampeners already mentioned). The shimmering effect is extremely subtle and is actually difficult to see much less notice during regular use. I don't think anyone would find it distracting.

near perfect.......2002-05-06

UNIFORMITY
It's purity is nearyly perfect, even though I have a huge non-shielded subwoofer about 2 feet from it. It's geometry was near perfect out of the box and is correctlable, if needed, with the multitudinous adjustments. It's text is clear everywhere. Moire is present only in very fine stripe patterns (like those in calibration screens). I don't adjust this unless I have to since text will get very slighlty fuzzy.

COLOR/BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST
Very good, though very slightly washed (especially blacks) out compared to sony at 1600X1200. At lower rez, it looks much brighter. The contrast/brightness can be increased by increasing the RGB colors (together will result in more white), though increasing it too much (~90) will result in color bleeding.

FLATNESS
Not as flat as sony, but not curved by any means, hence NF (natural flat).

STABILITY
Image stability is great. I've notice that with ANY aperature grill, when looking very close to the screen, a flicker or a moving moire like effect occurs. Shadow mask don't display this. This is just a general note about AG, not the dp2060u. Also, larger monitors show this more than smaller monitors. Perhaps, the filaments quiver ever so slightly. No dancing pixels are noticed at all.

CONTROL EASE
Too many buttons to navigate...but who cares? The image is everthing!

BOTTOM LINE
The best monitor I have owned. My only wish is an absolute flat screen, but no one notices but me. It's rated by displaymate as second only to the sony gdm f520 which costs twice as much!

BTW, I coating is the same type as sony's. If you touch it, it will show irridescent streaks.

Diamond Picture.......2001-12-29

Text & Graphics:
I did some research before getting it because it seems that most 21"+ monitors have focus and geometry problems. I am very picky because I need lively graphics colors, correct geometry, and at the same time crisp text. Some people don't care about text because their main purpose is graphics design or playing games. I do that in addition to writing code and reading a lot. Most monitors in this class have some convergence problems, where text looks crisp in some parts and blurry in others, even if the dot pitch is uniform across the grill.

This monitor is ace both at text and graphics. It even has an option where you can optimize it for Text, Normal, or Graphics mode. Text is crystal clear in all areas of the screen, even at very high resolutions.

Configuration & Geometry:
This monitor has more configuration options than any nag-ass might ever want. You can get the geometry almost perfect. The geometry out of the box wasn't correct. The easiest way to fix it is to choose your ideal resolution and refresh rate, apply the auto-correct mode, and start adjusting from there. The screen surface is 100% flat; Mitsubishi calls it Natural Flat (NF), which means the optical image beam is corrected before it hits the screen surface.

Other nice features:
I was impressed with the screen coating. Other monitors, especially Sony, have a smudgy coating. This monitor has a "dry" coating, where you can clean the screen without creating "rainbow smears." It also has a built-in USB hub, and you connect the data cable vertically, so that you can flush the monitor to the wall. The monitor is also remarkably light and has a small footprint. It has almost the same weight as my old 19" Sony monitor. The visual area of the screen is 20", bigger than that of most other 22" or 21" monitors, which is 19.8".

Cons:
The On Screen Menu (OSD) controls are a bit more awkward than other monitors. It also doesn't have BNC connectors, which is a bummer for a monitor of this quality. But the data cable that comes with it is sturdy and isolates EM interference very well.

Conclusion:
If you're looking for a 21" or 22" monitor, with a perfectly flat screen, with a uniform .24mm dot pitch grill, with excellent text, graphics, and geometry, then you should seriously consider this monitor.

Great monitor if you can foot the bill for it........2001-07-12

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