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Panasonic's SV-AV10 is a digital camera, audio player, voice recorder and mpeg-4 camcorder squeezed into a tiny box.
The maximum resolution for pictures is 640 x 480. Despite the flash, which has to be manually enabled, you'll get the best results in daylight and, sadly, there is no zoom function. Framing the picture is easy as the image appears on the 2in LCD screen, which neatly folds out.
Mpeg-4 movies are small in size and jerky, but adequate if you just want short clips which you can email. Our 20-second movie took up 620Kb of space on the supplied 8Mb SD (Secure Digital) card, so the most you'll be able to store is six minutes. There is a small microphone at the front, along with the camera lens.
As a voice recorder it's hard to fault, but then it's quite difficult to get this feature wrong. You can fit up to 25 minutes of speech onto the card.
Transferring files from SD card to a PC is straightforward with the included USB reader/writer, which appears as a drive in Windows Explorer.
The SV-AV10 scores well on digital audio. Real Jukebox lets you rip music from CD onto the PC hard drive and transfer it onto the SD card. We found it tricky to use. The device can play back MP3 or AAC files, and Panasonic recommends the latter as they take up less space.
Storage is the main problem with this product, as the 8Mb card just isn't large enough to store audio. We could only fit six AAC tracks, and that was at the very low quality rate of 32Kbits/sec. To use this feature properly, you'll need to invest in a 64Mb card, costing around £65.
Price: £260 (£221.28 ex VAT)
Specifications:
640 x 480 resolution images
2in LCD
MP3, mpeg-4 and AAC support
8Mb SD card
USB SD card reader/writer
Real Jukebox and SD movie stage (mpeg-4 video editing) software
Weight: 98g.
Contact: 08705 357 357
www.panasonic.co.uk
See also:
The DZ-MV230E is easy to use and records onto DVD discs - but can you play them back? 04 Oct 2002
Toshiba names its latest camera after a motorway - and it's in the fast lane. 05 Jul 2002
The PDR-M81 is a very competent product with a big price advantage over its rivals. 16 May 2002
Much improved and powerful digital camera that produces very good results. 01 May 2002All Digital Cameras
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