Vosonic 8360 road test

Just got the vp-8360 and thought I would post a quick mini-reiew.

I ordered mine from Jal digital in Australia. It was back-ordered, but only for a couple of days. Remarkably once shipped only took 2 days to get to Massachusetts. I ordered the 80 gig (5400 rpm, have not opened to check HD brand). It was US $468 but included a spare battery and car charger. 30 dollars shipping (fuly insured). About the same price as my digital discount in the US.

It came in a very nice box with about a zillion cables for hooking up to pretty much anythin you can imagine. Also included a remote control which I have not used yet. It is about the same size as an epson p-x000 but slimmer and lighter. Screen not in the same class but pretty good (looks as good as a typical camer lcd IMO). Overall I'd say the unit is very pretty and well put together (for a piece of plastic). I am a little afraid I will eventually lose the battery compartment door which completely detaches. I'll put links to a couple of photos below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/90004016@N00/168889916/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90004016@N00/168889913/

First things first, plug the unit in and charge it up. Took 3.5 hours for that first charge. It also charges off the USB port with the suppiled cable, but I have not timed that. Once charged, the unit is very easy to navigate and use. Good thing cause the manual could use some work!

I filled a 1 gig CF card with about 10 JPEGs and 90 or so RAW files (Canon 20d, Sandisk 1 gig Ultra II card) and time the file transfer. I first tied to set the transfer speed for both the card and HD to ultra. Nothing copied. I then tried the CF card on ultra and the hard disk on high. Everthing copied but the files were corrupted and could not be opened. Put both settings on high and it copied fine. Took 3 minutes 45 seconds for the file transfer or about 4.4 megs/second. After the copy the device shows you the transfer speed and it also said 4.4 megs/second, so I quess it is accurate. I then tried to wear out the battery by doing multiple copies, but got tired of this. I copied the same card five times and the battery indicator barely moved. I think it will not be difficult to copy 20 gigs pretty easily. Not sure what the impact of frequent reviewing of the photos will be yet. BTW, to back up photos on the device it seems like you need to be in the main menu when you insert your card or it won't automatically start the backup routine. If you insert the same card 5 times it will create a new directory each time (CF0001, CF0002, CF0003, etc.) If you insert an SD card it will create a new directory with a SD prefix (e.g. SD0001).

The transfer speed to my PC was very fast, 1 gig transfered in 1 minute 45 seconds.

I also loaded on some mucsic from my iTunes directory and it layed rather nicely with both the supplied headphones and my Sony earbuds. I thought it sounded pretty good. Certaainly not as easy to navigate as an Ipod, but just drag and rop your music into the Music folder on your device and you can then navigate to it and easily play. It won't play music purchased from iTunes (at least I couldn't make it do so!).

I like the unit very much and hope it is reliable.

Feel free toa sk questions. I'll check back and answer if I can.
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Rich G.

Sorry for all the spelling mistakes!
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Rich G.

Very helpfful ... where you are how does compare pricewise with Epson p2000 or p4000.
oes anyone know how the screens compare.
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Tom Bell
Dartmooor
Devon
UK

Priobably depends on where you buy them. The p-2000 is currently $399 (after rebate) at B&H in New York and a comparable 40 gig VP-8630 is $399 at my digital discount in New York. Where it starts to divide is as you add larger hard disks. The p-4000 is $609 after rebate and I paid about $468 for my 80 gig unit. You could also get a 120gig VP-8360 for a lot less than an 80 gig epson p-4000. .I believe file transfer on my 8360 is about twice as fast as the p-4000, but perhaps not as fast as the new p-4500, if it ever comes to our shores ( I got tired of waiting).

I've had a chance to work with a p-4000 and the screen is stunning. Other than that I prefer the vosonic where the screen is really pretty good, it's faster, and it is a little bit smaller and lighter. It also displays pretty much all current raw formats (so does epson).

Of course a lot of people on this board would neber pay this much for storage at all, but I have a 2 week trip to Africa coming up, wanted to be able to review my shots in the evening and di not want to lug around my laptop. There are weight limits and I am trying to maximize how much camera gear I bring!

Rich G.

Did you receive at your Massachusets home by mail or FedEx? Did you have to pay US Custom fees? I am flying to USA (I live in Brazil) the next 10 days and am thinking of buying from your Australian indication and give my Hotel addresses for delivery in Chicago or NYC, if this will be possible.
Best regards.
Ciro Saito.

I think that would a smart idea if the hotel will allow it (most big chains will). I bought my 8360 from JalDigital and I did not have to pay customs fees. I'd say, grab it while you're here in the States.

My experience continues to be great with the 8360. Yes, the screen is not as nice as the Epson's, but price, size, and storage size matter a little bit more to me. Frankly, I'll be using a big screen to view, edit, and use my workflow with any of my promising pictures. The Vosonic (or Epson) in my opinion are more storage tanks with the added advantage of being able to see the pciture ad metadata. The overall quality of the screen isn't super important.

I also wanted to add that my experience has been the same as RichyG's as far as download speeds. It's not blazing, but 4.4 isn't bad and is faster than the Epson's.

I appreciate RichyG's comments. Thanks. I think we need to continue to praise this product so that Vosonic can reap the benefits and continue to produce great devices in order to compete with the big boys.

Unfortunately, I've been without my 8360 for the past two weeks because it was stolen. But, as luck would have it, it returned to me this week and I'm now working with it again. I will be updating my blog review on the device very soon too.

-Freeheel
http://www.joshbrankman.com/page1/files/category-6.html

Fedex and no customs fees. I did pay extra for the shipping insurance.
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Rich G.

It would also be a good idea to contact JAL and make sure it is in stock before you order. When I ordered it said it was in stock on the web site but it actually wasn't in stock for about another week. JAL do answer e-mails very promptly. I think they are in pretty high demand as they seem to be backordered frequently. Also try mydigitaldiscount.com in New York if JAL is out of stock. I think from reading his previous posts that Freeheel has had good experiences with them. I know they answered my e-mail questions pretty quickly which is not always the case with these companies.
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Rich G.

Thank you all for the given help.
Ciro.

Great reivew, i'm really looking at purchasing the 100gb one.

How is the video handling of the unit? Can you just load a divx file from the net and it'll play it without any dramas?

Also, how does the unit handle widescreen divx when outputting to a tv? Does it play with proper aspect ratio or does it squash it to 4:3? And finally does it compensate for overscan when the video is outputted to a tv?

I realy would like this to be a good "all round" multimedia unit that i can bring to work, otherwise, i'll just get the hyperdrive/pd70x.

Cross-posting: had started a new thread before I spotted this one. Sorry

Just got the Vosonix 8360. the wait while the battery charged up was intolerable (no longer than they say in the manual - it just SEEMED like forever). Cool toy. Photo display is very good - just tried JPG, till need to try RAW. Optional display of EXIF info and histogram is great, as is ability to zoom in.

Radio works well, as does voice recording, even using the built-in mic (although this pick up hard disk sound when disk is shutting down).

Copying photos from cards seemed a little balky. CF card worked as promised: system automatically brought up options. SD card worked so-so: took three tries at inserting card to get that menu up, and there doesn't seem to be any other way to get to it - anyone have suggestions?

Started fooling with MAGIX Media Suite that comes on CD with product, but I can't get it to do ANYTHING except take me to menus where I am offered the option of upgrading. Is this purely a demo product with no capabilities at all????

If the MAGIX software that came with unit is not functional, can anyone suggest good software to copy (and compress?) DVD content so it can live on the 8360?

thanks

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SS
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SS

Should have added: I also ordered from JAL digital for US delivery, which was very efficient and painless, with no extra customs fees.

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SS

I haven't tried any video. I have used an SD card (Lexar, 80X I think) no problem whatsoever when the unit was set on high/high.
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Rich G.

I've had good results with cards, both reading from PC and copying to Voisonics unit. I think the issue I had with inconsistent response to cards plugged in is an undocumented limitation that requires system to be at top menu to respond properly to card being mounted. The device is pretty good; the manual sucks.
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SS

So much for early results. I'm now having multiple problems with the device, bith in reading CFs and in dsplaying images.

See this thread:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1023&thread=19044487

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SS