Vivitar has introduced its DVR 690HD waterproof pocket camcorder for underwater recording, safe up to 10 feet deep — with a 4xdigital zoom, included microphone and speaker that shoots 720p 30fps video onto a standard SD or SDHC card. Captured video (which is in Motion JPEG format) can be directly output to a TV using an included AV cableor transferred on to a computer.
Other features on the camera include a two-inch TFT LCD display, standard-definition options, a rechargeable battery pack and a low suggested retail price tag ($60). The unit is offered in a wide variety of colors and comes with Windows software for easy uploading to various social media and photo storage services such as Myspace, Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube and others (Mac users can use iPhoto, iMovie or image capture to transfer, edit and upload video from the camera).
The use of M-JPEG as a format is somewhat unusual, as it consumes more space on storage cards than the more popular MPEG-4 format. Users should assume roughly one gigabyte of storage space for every five to six minutes of video. The camera will be available both directly from Vivitar online as well as through retailers such as Target, Wal-Mart, Staples, K-Mart and RadioShack.
