Kodak Zi6 Camcorder Review

H.264 has surpassed MPEG-2 as the compression of choice for budget camcorders and some cameras recording video, because it offers more efficient data storage. Many higher quality camcorders also apply H.264, albeit in a much more powerful and visually pleasing manner.

There are three compression/quality settings to choose from here, a feature that sets Kodak apart from the rest of the pocket camcorders. The HD setting records 1280 x 720 video at 30 frames per second (fps). The HD60 setting is the same resolution, but at an increased 60 frames per second.

The specs do no state the bitrate of these three settings, but we can only guess that they are quite low.

Media (6.5)
The Kodak Zi6 records video to a meager 128MB of internal memory, or to removable SD/SDHC cards, which range up to 32GB capacity. As you can see from the table below, the internal memory is all but useless for storage. We highly recommend buying a memory card before going home with the Zi6.

Editing (6.0)
Pocket camcorders may excite too many expectations when it comes to video quality, but the Pure Digital Flip editing and YouTube upload process dead simple, so the clones are expected to follow suit. The Kodak Zi6 does its best by including a software bundle called ArcSoft MediaImpression Light, which allows you to import video clips, upload to YouTube, and perform some rudimentary editing to stitch a home movie together.

Let's take a tour of the software. Below is the welcome screen that greets you after the software is installed. The options here are to browse clips, import video from the camcorder, or upload to YouTube. Notice that there are no other video hosting websites offered here. If you prefer Vimeo, MetaCafe, or any of the myriad of other hosts.

Welcome Screen

Choosing Browse or Import will bring you to the same screen. All your clips appear as thumbnails.

All your video clips

Let's say you want to upload to YouTube. First, you are prompted to log in. If you don't have a YouTube account, you'll need to open your browser and do that yourself.

First, login to YouTube

Next, the software will insist that you complete a bunch of information about each clip, including a title, category, and description. You cannot advance forward without first completing this info.

Tell us a little bit about your video clips.

Then, hit the Upload button and wait for the magic to happen. That magic is actually the re-compression of your video, squeezing what scant video quality you started and making it even worse. This is just something that YouTube does, and there's no way stop it. Your best bet is to start with the highest video quality possible.

The other major task of the ArcSoft software is creating home movies, which is very limited. Essentially, you can select clips, place them in a specific order, and choose from a few pre-set transition effects. Then you can throw a soundtrack on top and add opening and closing titles. There is no option to actually edit an individual clip. If you have even modest filmmaking aspirations, or are trying to encourage one in your kids, you should invest in more powerful software. There are plenty that can be found cheaply.

The editing screen (not much there)