Website that can be useful for evreyone

[Numnum]

all of us here have the same problem +/-, I found this website today - very nice.
Its called Viewscore.
look like it has almost every camera and a list of all the reviews for any specific camera.
it's gives you the score by calc. the score from each review...
nice & easy ...
Very helpful !

Give it a try : http://www.viewscore.com

Numnum.

* It has sevral more categories by I didn't checked them at all.

[Rex914]

Uh, how did they actually come up with a numerical quantity for Jeff's reviews? He doesn't give ratings...

[Numnum]

That what I found:
http://www.viewscore.com/about.php

I checked some major reviews from DCResource & Imaging Resource, seems that It works pretty well.

It really made my life easier, instaed of looking for all the reviews, of each model I thinking to buy, on google.

[judge9847]

Couple of things. First, a simple scoring method just doesn't work for people want to spend time reviewing cameras. It's just too subjective. Get your hands dirty and read reviews, ask questions, decide. Maybe it's useful but without an explanation of how it's done, there's no way I'd be paying attention to it.

Secondly, there are direct links to this site and I suggest that's opposed to Jeff's policy which appears at the bottom of every page and I quote "Reviews and images from this site may NEVER be reposted on your website or online auction."

Maybe he wants to have a closer look at what's going on or confirm he is happy with these actions.

[gary_hendricks]

all of us here have the same problem +/-, I found this website today - very nice.
Its called Viewscore.
look like it has almost every camera and a list of all the reviews for any specific camera.
it's gives you the score by calc. the score from each review...
nice & easy ...
Very helpful !

Give it a try : http://www.viewscore.com

Numnum.

* It has sevral more categories by I didn't checked them at all.

It's an interesting website - but I would still prefer the likes of www.dpreview.com or Steve's Digicams. The reviews there are so much more detailed.

[aphonic]

they are not reposting , they are just deep linking to DC.
this is the basic of WWW.

[Rex914]

There's nothing wrong with linking to somebody else's site. Is somebody reading more into this than I am?

[judge9847]

they are not reposting , they are just deep linking to DC.
this is the basic of WWW.
Oh, tut, tut. 1 - Read what I said. 2 - "Grandmothers" and "sucking eggs" comes to mind. I'm suggesting that Jeff doesn't allow that sort of thing presumably because it gives rise to unexpected bandwith demands. It's his choice though.

[Numnum]

I think that Rex914 & aphonic are right in this case .

[Rhys]

Oh, tut, tut. 1 - Read what I said. 2 - "Grandmothers" and "sucking eggs" comes to mind. I'm suggesting that Jeff doesn't allow that sort of thing presumably because it gives rise to unexpected bandwith demands. It's his choice though.

I see nothing wrong (as a web admin myself) with putting somebody else's site or a page from their site into a frame. Similarly, I don't mind if somebody uses pages from my site (as long as they're not copied and as long as they're attributed).

As far as bandwidth goes, I have a 2gb per month cap (which I can raise if I wish) but for the moment I have no need to raise the cap. My pages are all fairly small and the heaviest month drew only 1.6gb.

[KoolBreeze]

all of us here have the same problem +/-, I found this website today - very nice.
Its called Viewscore.
look like it has almost every camera and a list of all the reviews for any specific camera.
it's gives you the score by calc. the score from each review...
nice & easy ...
Very helpful !

Give it a try : http://www.viewscore.com

Numnum.

* It has sevral more categories by I didn't checked them at all.

I find that any website that is down substantially to be close to worthless.


that and a "numeric" value assigned to something such as a camera is minimal.

[Digideb]

After a quick perusal of this "viewscore" site, I'm quite UNimpressed. I'm sure glad I didn't try to "shortcut" my camera shopping/research by using this site. It's like everything else in life, you have to put in some effort to get something worthwhile. ;)

[gary_hendricks]

After a quick perusal of this "viewscore" site, I'm quite UNimpressed. I'm sure glad I didn't try to "shortcut" my camera shopping/research by using this site. It's like everything else in life, you have to put in some effort to get something worthwhile. ;)


Agreed. The reviews are linked from other websites! And assigning a number to a camera is not considered a good review IMHO. How can u just quantify a camera like that? :confused:

[Digideb]

Yes, shortcutting your camera research is cheating yourself out of alot of important info. I think this is especially important for those just starting out. ;)

[aphonic]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Viewscore's vision is that users will prefer to start their online shopping at a web site offering the most meaningful, simple and objective information about the products they intend to buy.

Viewscore simplifies the complexity of assessing product quality, features and functionality. Viewscore provides a much needed service, currently lacking in the price comparison market.

ViewScore collects product-related content from top review web sites and converts each review to a Score. As these reviews are written by professional experts, they represent the best informed, objective and independent opinion available for each product. Scores of each product review are then combined to form the Product Score via ViewScore's TextScore™ technology.

ViewScore.com is the result of our efforts. We have dedicated ourselves to delivering the ultimate shopping starting point, where people use the power of information and technology to make the most educated shopping decisions. We launched the web site on February 2005, creating the world's greatest shopping research experience.

Viewscore's Mission

Viewscore.com is a privately owned company. Its mission is the development of an innovative product ranking system for online shoppers.

Viewscore believes that shopping is a three-step process:

"What to buy?" - select the specific brand and product model out of hundreds of brands and models with similar features and price tags

"Where to buy?" - this decision is based on price and vendor credibility

"Buy" - Either online or offline

Viewscore's Service and Technology

At the heart of Viewscore's service is its patent pending TextScore™ technology. This artificial intelligent technology allows:

Fast and accurate parsing of a product review text
Conversion of text into a Review Score between 0 and 100%
Normalization of score: each review source usually uses a different scale. TextScore™ provides a unified basis for comparison
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
they rank everything, in order to use them you have to filter the search attributes....(DSLR - price limit - Resolution.........)

they are just collect every review from the internet but they also translate it to numeric score.....

i think it can help narrow the search for newbie users.....

[Numnum]

I really think that no one of you really understand what Viewscore is all about.
They don't score the products by they own exprience or private decisions !

They give you the score that each reviews gave to the sepcific camera and show you the avg. rank.
They don't judge by themselfs !

I DEFINITELY think that Viewscore.com its the best start point for any buyer !

instead digging in goolge for each and each review - just type the model and they give you the full list of reviews !
you can't ask for more then that ! by they give you alot more !
they rank the sources so you know which source in the most reliable.
Is that not the reason all of us check DPreview and DCresource often ? becuse we trust them!

Viewscore does not manipulate the score - they just collect all the data for us ! the consumers ! and gives us a very sleek interface.

and again, it's importent to understand viewscore agenda. they don't want to compete with DCresource, I think they are more like a portal.
Like MSN.com is the your portal for news or nba.com is the best place for NBA news - Viewscore is great portal for us, Cameras buyers .
try look at them as a portal.

[Numnum]

After a quick perusal of this "viewscore" site, I'm quite UNimpressed. I'm sure glad I didn't try to "shortcut" my camera shopping/research by using this site. It's like everything else in life, you have to put in some effort to get something worthwhile. ;)

I don't think that Viewscore idea is to save you time by not reading the reviews !!!
They save you time by giving you only the relevant information !

Ofcourse you better read the reviews (atleast the good ones like DCresource and DPR).

That what I understanding after reading the FAQ and About us pages.

[Rhys]

Reviews are useful. I read them to pick up on possible problems and the possible good points on specific cameras.

I completely ignore ratings as they're so utterly meaningless. I used to mark English grammar coursework and comparing my marking with that of other teachers proved one thing only and that was that everybody marked in a different way and saw different things. Also, we wouldn't necessarily giv ethe same coursework the same mark the next day. Just as English tutors give different marks, reviewers give different marks. It does indeed mean that marking for exams etc can be quite suspect and so it is. The only mathematically precise marking is for maths exams because an answer is either correct or it's wrong.

As far as ratings based on compilations of reviews, I don't regard the result of that as being at all useful.

Personally, I feel the idea behind a review is that it gives tips on the things to look for when you're looking at a camera. Other than that it's entirely down to the user to see what's there and to make his own decision with the camera in his hands.

[ReF]

i see the point of the site, but it can also be misleading. some people might be confused into thinking that the exilim s100 at #2 is better than the other cameras below it. the problem (with the camera section at least) is that they are not seperated into catagories. maybe if there were rankings for lets say all the ultra zoom cameras, then that would be more meaningful. still, i personally don't believe in a ranking system. let me give you this example:

Panasonic z3 VS Canon S1 IS

panasonic has a better zoom range and overall better optics/picture quality.

canon has excellent movie mode, is AA based, uses cheaper memory, and has a rotating flip out screen.

now what if the panasonic ranked higher (it usually does) but what someone really wanted was a good movie mode, flip out screen, and a AA based camera? see, a ranking in this situation would be meaningless and actually unhelpful. buying a camera is almost like buying clothes, as everyone has different needs and tastes.

you must listen to what others have to say in this situation and think about making some changes because although you, the creators of this viewscore site have a certain understanding/viewpoint about your site, the responses you are getting indicate that a vast majority have a different view/understanding. imagine that a movie is screen tested and the audience didn't understand the plot. now imagine if the director decided to keep the movie as it is because he understands the plot perfectly and he feels that it is the fault of the audience for not "getting it." do you see what i am getting at?

[aphonic]

i will try sending them a messege....

[jamison55]

I definitely question the accuracy of the scoring system. For example, if you look at the review page for the Canon 20D, they attribute a score of 82.2 to DCresource. Reading Jeff's review it says "I'll be blunt: the Canon EOS-20D is the best reasonably priced digital SLR that I've tested" and "Trying to find fault with the EOS-20D is a difficult task." How does this translate to a rating of 82, which to me indicates "good product with lots of room for omprovement"...?

[aphonic]

if you will open review with viewscore link you will see a voting interfase that give you the option to adjust the score....(i tried voting twice but you can't)

i thinnk that it will never be 100% accurate but it can norrow my search.

and have a look at the big picture:

20D is ranked first in the category.

http://www.viewscore.com/category_page.php?categoryID=3

[judge9847]

if you will open review with viewscore link you will see a voting interfase that give you the option to adjust the score....(i tried voting twice but you can't)

i thinnk that it will never be 100% accurate but it can norrow my search.

and have a look at the big picture:

20D is ranked first in the category.

http://www.viewscore.com/category_page.php?categoryID=3
Any scoring system is subjective. A review by a trustworthy source is objective, even if two contradict each other. You follow a scoring system of any sort at your peril. Equally, failing to take note of any trustworthy (i.e. not a manufacturer's) review really is a no-brainer.

Scoring systems aren't even a starting point. Just compare reviews of the same camera in a number of magazines to prove what I'm saying. And a reader will miss loads of information if he/she say starts at a score of 90 (or whatever) and higher.

And if I can alter a score as is suggested, it's immediately discredited to the point that I'd consider it a joke!!

It's not for me.

[aphonic]

no one is telling you to buy the camera that is ranked above 90....

a person like me that read reviews will continue to read reviews and i will use viewscore becose they are giving me direct links to all the relevant reviews on a silver platter.(like search engine that is giving you just review data)

i would not buy a camera just becose it is with X score but it can help me narrow and focus my research.

just my thoughts............

[kimnicho]

It's a great idea but my only gripe is that they seem to weigh cnet's reviews more heavily. While Cnet/Zdnet's ratings are generally great, I personally feel that they do a POOR JOB when it comes to reviewing digital cameras. For example, how does the Sony W1 rate so highly with everyone else (90+) and only "Fair" with Cnet.com ? Just my 2 cents.

[aphonic]

the site is still in beta and they are online for just 2 weeks.

regarding CNET ranking i think you have to give more helpfull votes to reviews in viewscore website in order to change the ranking.

[judge9847]

no one is telling you to buy the camera that is ranked above 90....

a person like me that read reviews will continue to read reviews and i will use viewscore becose they are giving me direct links to all the relevant reviews on a silver platter.(like search engine that is giving you just review data)

i would not buy a camera just becose it is with X score but it can help me narrow and focus my research.

just my thoughts............
Surely you must realise I'm not suggesting that anyone is telling me to buy the camera above 90, or any score for that matter, so why even say it?

And are you saying that a score system can help you to decide which reviews to read? Surely not ...

Sorry, but like most of the responses here, a scoring system, pretty much based on a few simple criteria amongst many that the item in question can or can't do, just doesn't even begin to hack it for me. No way.

But it's your money and you can waste it in whatever way you want.

[aphonic]

Surely you must realise I'm not suggesting that anyone is telling me to buy the camera above 90, or any score for that matter, so why even say it?

And are you saying that a score system can help you to decide which reviews to read? Surely not ...

Sorry, but like most of the responses here, a scoring system, pretty much based on a few simple criteria amongst many that the item in question can or can't do, just doesn't even begin to hack it for me. No way.

But it's your money and you can waste it in whatever way you want.
what camera do you own ?

[Rex914]

It's a great idea but my only gripe is that they seem to weigh cnet's reviews more heavily. While Cnet/Zdnet's ratings are generally great, I personally feel that they do a POOR JOB when it comes to reviewing digital cameras. For example, how does the Sony W1 rate so highly with everyone else (90+) and only "Fair" with Cnet.com ? Just my 2 cents.

I won't vouch for all of Cnet's reviews, but it's a matter of what they consider important. They really hate anything that degrades image quality, and they found that the W1 did have problems (and it does). Anything with image problems won't get anything above a 7.5 (they rarely give anything above 8 to begin with). Just make sure you know what a magazine's scale is before making judgements about their system and the products they review. "Fair" really means "good" or "above average" for CNet.

If you think Cnet is bad, I find PCWorld's reviews the worst. They pay absolutely no attention to image quality and offer really cursory comments. Not to mention that they seem to review the least models despite what that site says. PC Magazine's reviews are decent, but I feel that they are a little too methodical (in a bad way) with their reviews. They throw around the resolution test, always mention so and so lines, but never really say anything solid about image quality. They are also really finnicky on certain things.

[judge9847]

what camera do you own ?
I own two cameras: one is a (now) fairly elderly Fuji 6800zoom which I've had for nearly 4 years I suppose and which I use because it has a great macro facility. The other one is a Panasonic FZ10 which I bought last April when it finally hit the shores of the UK. I often use it in conjunction with a Raynox 2020 lens which I'm not that impressed with. Why do you ask?

[judge9847]

I won't vouch for all of Cnet's reviews, but it's a matter of what they consider important. They really hate anything that degrades image quality, and they found that the W1 did have problems (and it does). Anything with image problems won't get anything above a 7.5 (they rarely give anything above 8 to begin with). Just make sure you know what a magazine's scale is before making judgements about their system and the products they review. "Fair" really means "good" or "above average" for CNet.

If you think Cnet is bad, I find PCWorld's reviews the worst. They pay absolutely no attention to image quality and offer really cursory comments. Not to mention that they seem to review the least models despite what that site says. PC Magazine's reviews are decent, but I feel that they are a little too methodical (in a bad way) with their reviews. They throw around the resolution test, always mention so and so lines, but never really say anything solid about image quality. They are also really finnicky on certain things.
Thank you for that. It's the detail that supports what I've been trying to say. Scoring is simply a method of describing what a reviewer feels, and is generally based on just a very few things that the camera does. A review, sensibly written by an independant reviewer, covers most of the things (if not all) that the camera can do. And you can read different reviews of the same camera to get the overall impression a buyer surely wants.

Read Jeff's reviews here, or Steve's at Steve's Digicams or those at other, high reputation sites. They are FULL of detail and actually give an opinion on what the reviewer found when time had been spent with the camera. That's far, far, far more important to me than reducing that opinion to a number of some sort.

Add to that the user reviews of cameras that are available in different places like this forum and altogether, there's a huge volume of facts a buyer can take into account, if they want to do that.

[aphonic]

I own two cameras: one is a (now) fairly elderly Fuji 6800zoom which I've had for nearly 4 years I suppose and which I use because it has a great macro facility. The other one is a Panasonic FZ10 which I bought last April when it finally hit the shores of the UK. I often use it in conjunction with a Raynox 2020 lens which I'm not that impressed with. Why do you ask?

Fuji FinePix 6800 Zoom
http://www.viewscore.com/product_page.php?productID=393&categoryID=3&str=6800



Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ10
http://www.viewscore.com/product_page.php?productID=661&categoryID=3

what do you find wrong or misleading in the review data ?
it seems that your camers are not top notch today but this reflects the reviews in the internet.

have a look at this page....
http://www.viewscore.com/ranking.php

i still find this site very useful

[judge9847]

Fuji FinePix 6800 Zoom
http://www.viewscore.com/product_page.php?productID=393&categoryID=3&str=6800
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ10
http://www.viewscore.com/product_page.php?productID=661&categoryID=3

what do you find wrong or misleading in the review data ?
it seems that your camers are not top notch today but this reflects the reviews in the internet.

have a look at this page....
http://www.viewscore.com/ranking.php
i still find this site very useful
You know, try as I might, I can't even begin to figure what it is you're trying to prove or suggest. Please, for my edification, if not for others who might read this, could you try and explain why I should read reviews for cameras I already committed my money too a long while ago? If there's a useful purpose to it, I'd be more than happy to hear about it - though you might have to shout a bit of course - but honestly, I don't understand.

I really do think you miss the entire point I'm trying desperately to make to you, but I suspect that's not unintentional. Oddly though, I seem to have made others understand even if they might not agree with me.

If it's of any interest to you, when I bought the Panasonic I read as many reviews as I could about the camera as I was also considering one of the Olympus long zoom lens cameras at the same time. Around that time Canon also introduced it's S1 IS camera.

For all of the cameras I had an interest in I looked on the internet, at Steve's Digicams and at DP review. I read as many user posts about them all as I could. There were other sites as well. I also looked on this forum. I read reviews in several print magazines and eventually, having done all of that, I made my decision. But I can promise you that not once, not ever, did I pay any attention to any artificial scoring system that any site or magazine had made up to summarize their views about the cameras in question.

If you'd like a genuine example of what happened, I can tell you that I was put off the Canon because some on-line reviewers made comments that the camera produced images that suffered from high levels of CA, particularly in areas of high contrast. I also saw evidence of that in some of the test photographs that were published at the time and so it came off my list. There's NO WAY that would have been included SPECIFICALLY in any scoring system. At best it would have brought the "picture quality" score down - but that downward mark could easily have been negated by a higher one for, I don't know, something like jpeg compression. It's just not objective enough.

For your information, I understand that the cameras I have are not "top notch" though I must say I do find the comment rather insulting. Would that they were but the pressures of family and being on a limited budget do play their parts. Perhaps one day, you may find that out for yourself.

As I said before, it's your money to lose. You do your purchasing your way and let us who prefer to trust our judgements based on real, objective reviews, do it ours.

[D70FAN]

Fuji FinePix 6800 Zoom
http://www.viewscore.com/product_page.php?productID=393&categoryID=3&str=6800



Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ10
http://www.viewscore.com/product_page.php?productID=661&categoryID=3

what do you find wrong or misleading in the review data ?
it seems that your camers are not top notch today but this reflects the reviews in the internet.

have a look at this page....
http://www.viewscore.com/ranking.php

i still find this site very useful

Actually both cameras (6800Z and FZ10) are still "top notch" especially by todays declining standards of mediocre sensors and crank-em-out-the-door marketing in an attempt to build the "Volks Kamera". Having 2 dSLR's at the top of the list, followed by several all-in-ones, is just sensless.

While it is a starting point, it's not a GOOD starting point.

So anyway, which camera(s) do you own?

No critiques will be rendered. Just curious.

[Digideb]

As a camera newbie, but experienced shopper, I found the "User comments" to be very helpful while reviewing cameras. I'm still recalling handy hints I read, even now that I have my new camera. ;)

[ViewScore]

Good day to you all,

With your permission, it has come to our attention that there is somewhat confusion about the service that ViewScore was created to deliver and the many ways that different types of users can benefit from it.

Bob,
The process you described when buying your camera is clear, but you must remember that most users don’t have the knowledge to do the same, ViewScore among other things gathers relevant professional and unprofessional (Consumer based) information regarding the products, so novice users can reach this important content that was unreachable to them without ViewScore, Remember that most novice users don’t even know where to start their research, but they usually do know their budget and sometimes what simple attributes they expect to have in the product they are looking for, such as what size of camera they want or other superficial attributes, so and this is an important thing that some of you missed, the user should refine the results by the attributes he desires and only after some refining the ranking is actually meaningful for him.

The second step is to explore the results (let’s even ignore the fact of the ranking for a while), you now have some potential products suited for your needs that you can start exploring, each product page contains all and only relevant information in a way of friendly links to professional sources (such as this respectable source) which utterly their opinion is the most objective and reliable. For advanced users we save the process of searching the information in search engines and fishing it out from blend of irrelevant or unprofessional information. For novice users we first save the process of asking in forums or friends in order to figure the starting point for research and find suitable potential products, secondly we not only save time but we also assist them reaching important content which they could not get themselves (for your information even logging onto a forum for assistance is something not all users have the knowledge to do). For both advanced and novice users, it is a fact that the process takes significant amount of time with results not always satisfying.

Now about our ranking system, we believe it does reflect the combined conclusion of all the professionals, and with the desired attributes refined a user can find the best product suited for his needs and budget in a matter of seconds. For novice curios enthusiast to advanced users such as your self we offer an easy and friendly way to find and explore relevant information with an advanced and smart set of tools.

We invite doubtful users to put ViewScore to test, we believe they will eventually figure that our solution can dramatically reduce the time of making a smart purchase.
Notice, we currently run a beta version, any further comments are more than welcome.

Thank you,
ViewScore.