For Christmas this year I got a Kodak Zi6 high definition video recorder. My plans with this blog see video included sometime in the middle of the year and with YouTube now streaming high definition videos I thought it was a good idea to take the plunge and ask for one. Since it only cost £88 I was hopeful!
First impressions are great, the device has a great looking body. I was pleasantly surprised for a sub £100 high definition recording device. The Kodak Ki6 is slightly smaller in length than my iPhone and roughly double the width, but it generally fits into all my pockets so carrying it around won’t be a hassle. It even comes with protective carry case to stop scratches. It came with 2 rechargeable batteries and charger although they did have to be plugged in for 12 hours before use. How annoying!
NOTE – Having a few issues with WordPress at the moment so will insert images shortly.
Once I had the batteries in and had inserted my SanDisk 8GB SDHC card
The device is user friendly enough with 5 simple control buttons on the front, these control everything to do with the device with the added advantage over other rival models that you can rewind and fast forward videos you have recorded.
You’ll need a steady hand to control the camera in every day situations though, walking will in most cases make the video quite jumpy. The device however has a tripod screw at the bottom so you can attach it to something slightly more steady for better images.
I’m using an Apple Mac and as per usual the software supplied was Windows only compatible. Plugging the device in brings up an external hard drive on your desktop so its just a simple case of dragging and dropping the files. The simple test window below was knocked together with iMovie.
Once I had loaded my recorded videos onto my Mac and watched them I was astonished by the fantastic quality of the high definition (720p) footage that was captured. The device offers you the choice of recording in HD format (30fps), HD60 format (60fps) and standard VGA format. The Kodak Ki6 even offers a picture taking option, although as expected the quality is not fantastic.
The video below was taken using the HD60 setting and edited in iMovie. It was exported in QuickTime format but I had to reduce the quality ever so slightly as this video was 300MB. Make sure you click ‘watch in high definition’ to get the correct version.
Click here to see the high definition video test on YouTube
All in all I must say this has to be one of the best sub-£100 high definition video recording devices out there for the casual user or someone who likes uploading videos to YouTube. If you are going to be recording anything serious then you will be looking at devices in the £400+ bracket but for me its perfect.
Buy the Kodak Zi6 HD video recorder from Amazon.co.uk
