Christmas Holiday Video Greeting Card - 2.3" LCD Video Player - 2 Minutes of Recording Time

After countless Amazon purchases, I've finally deigned to write a review. This video greeting card EXACTLY suits my needs. I had first looked for a card that would simply allow me to record about a minute of audio (of my 4 year old granddaughter singing a Carol). I wasn't too happy with that search, but finally came across this gem. Curiously, its ad extols the video capability but never actually mentions that audio records with the video. I had to confirm that this was the case by going through customer reviews. Incidentally, one reviewer harped about how his audio kept ending up out of sync with his video; I had NO such problem. I quickly made a video, mainly of photos, to go along with my prized audio. I made it in .wmv format, which worked fine. The product's box says that .mov, .m4v, .mp4, and .wmv are all acceptable inputs. Somewhere on the site or on the packaging I noted that a frame size of 320 by 240 would be used on the card, so I specified this in the Sony editing software I used to create the video with sound. My bit rate was just 256 kbps at 30 frames/second, but it looks great on the card's little screen. The audio bit rate was 32 kbps, 2 channel stereo, and for me the sound is perfectly acceptable. The length of my video is 1 minute 21 seconds, and its size is 2.1 Megabytes. Since I'm running Windows 8.1, I worried that the card's software might balk, preferring Windows 7. But, again, there was no problem. When I plugged in the USB cable, the card was promptly identified as two drives -- E: and F: in my case. As soon as I went to File Explorer and clicked on This PC, I saw the 2 drives. The E: drive's icon was a film reel, and I doubled clicked on it. This initiated the card's software. After a minute or so, its dialog box indicated it was ready to have a video file dragged to it. I dragged over my video file, and the card uploaded it while providing a percentage complete as it worked. I thus installed a first version of my video onto the card, and, after I disconnected the USB, both the audio and video were in sync and played without a hitch. I then made a slightly modified version of my video, reconnected the card's USB, and when it was ready, dragged this second file over. I assumed incorrectly that it would overwrite the first file I had uploaded, Instead, it simply added the second file right after the first. To my surprise, there was room for both files, i.e., about 2 and a half minutes of video with sound played to the end. At this point, I noticed that my files were actually being stored on what was designated as the F: drive. So I went to File Explorer and directly deleted both uploaded files from F:, which was then empty. Using the same steps as before, I then uploaded my file in its final form (with the attributes described above), disconnected the USB, saw that it played through perfectly, and declared the card ready for snail mail. (Obviously, I had verified along the way that the card can indeed be reused.)

I will say that the manufacturer has been somewhat responsive to my technical problems, but they are still not fully solved. I am trying to upload a PowerPoint presentation on this device. I have reduced my video quality to 64 bits, but I still have to literally chop the presentation up into a bunch of 30 second maximum pieces. I have tried all kinds of settings on my video recorder. It says it can hold a 2 minute video, but I have yet to find that true for what I am doing without cutting up the 2 minutes into 30 second pieces. I have purchased multiple copies of this product, but have the same problem. The manufacturer tells me they have no problems recording videos on their iphones and downloading them to the device. I wish they would try to do what I am doing, which is a screen recording, and see what happens. The problem I am having is that the in-built conversion software separates my audio and visual feeds, so that the timing always gets off on the video. When I play my video on my computer, it plays fine, so it is something with how their software is shrinking my video to put it on the device.I keep buying them because all other versions of this type of product cost 3 to 5 times as much.

If I could give this fewer stars than 1, I would. I purchased this item for the electronic guts since it was a cheaper alternative than building it myself.The card itself was just fine. I had attempted to power the device on and when nothing happened, I carefully removed the electronics from the card to see what was going on.Upon closer inspection a few problems became evident.1) The battery compartment was gross with leaky battery gunk all over the batteries and terminals. The included batteries had shuffled off their mortal coil. Attempting to clean the terminals resulted in the wiring detaching.2) The USB cable provided was about 5" long. I don't know about you, but my PC case sits under my desk and my USB ports are located in such a position that plugging in the card and attempting to use it was impossible. Thankfully I have longer USB cables.3) Once I got it hooked up to my computer, my computer sees it only as a CD drive. Because of this, I can't run the included software.4) If you attempt to go to the link provided on the packaging for more instructions, all you get is a 404 error.I'm going to attempt to load the micro sd card onto a spare cell phone, plug THAT into my computer and mess with it that way. Which is RIDICULOUS.Luckily I have the background in electronics and computers to be able to get a workaround. But for a casual user? This is a terrible product.I'm running Win7 natively and WinXP in a Virtual Box. NEITHER OS could talk to this device. But I will NOT be defeated by a greeting card.

This arrived quickly but did not work. Turns out the batteries were bad, you could tell from all the acid that leaked out of them in the battery compartment. Also, there was no insulating tab to remove from the battery compartment, despite the instructions saying to remove it. I believe I was sold a return or refurb instead of a new unit since a new one would have the battery insulator described in the instructions. Once I put new batteries in it worked fine. But I gave it a medium review do to the crud I had to remove from the battery compartment and because they sold me a used unit and claimed it to be new.