Multi-function seems to be the buzzword these days for pretty much any piece of PC-related equipment, and Genius's latest is a case in point. Described as a 'portable media player' rather than a digital video camera, seven functions have been crammed into one slimline, lightweight package.
In total, what we have here is a digital video camera, an 11-megapixel digital still camera, TV / video recording and playback facility, a USB 2.0 Web-cam, a digital voice recorder, an MP3 player and a mass storage device. Everything is viewed through the 2.5-inch LTPS LCD display which can be rotated through 270 degrees and has a resolution of 882 x 228 pixels. It's a stylish touch that flipping open the LCD also turns the camera on or off.
The control system is managed via a selection of direction and enter buttons on the main spine and a manual switch on the side of the lens that alternates between macro, Portrait and Normal modes. Once you access the menu, it's simply a matter of scrolling down the various settings, which include no fewer than nine sharpness variations as well as four for white balance, an essential motion stabilization option and seven exposure compensation values.
Movie resolution ranges from 640 x 480 (1.8Mbps) to 320x240 (500Kbps) at 30fps, while still camera resolution spans from a maximum 11-megapixel to a lowly 2-megapixel. The built-in memory is only 32MB so a 1GB memory card (SD or MMC) is vital. File formats supported are JPEG and AVI. The G-Shot uses MPEG4 compression so you can store over three hours of video on a 1GB SD memory card.
You do have an 8x digital zoom but zooming out in particular seems very jerky. More impressive is the Two-in-One mode which combines two snapshots into one frame, Multi-Snap (five continuous pictures) and the software supporting DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) which makes printing pictures very easy.
Talking of software, the supplied CD contains the DV Driver plus a user-friendly movie editing and capturing package (Ulead Video Studio) and Ulead Photo Express to organise and enhance your photos (it includes 800 special effects!) as well as a multilingual User's manual.
The main selling point for this camera, though, is the AV-in function that enables you to record over three hours of video content directly from a TV or DVD player, using the supplied AV lead. MP3 files can also be played back or stored in the camera's memory and separate sound recordings can be made either as stand-alones or attached to movie files.
Finally, you can adapt the camera to be a Web-cam for chatting or Web conferencing via the supplied USB 2.0 lead.
