The Blog for Video 2.0
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Sony releases three new HD camcorders for consumers, no budget filmmakers
Sony continues their push to win over the consumer HD camcorder market by release three new HD cams.
The HDR-CX7 ($1200 MSRP), is their first to record exclusively to a removable flash media, Memory Stick PRO Duo. Also announced today were the HDR-SR5 and HDR-SR7, two new hard disk drive high definition models. All new models use the new AVCHD codec, which is an implementation of H.264 encoding for hard disk and memory card based camcorders.
This brings the total number of sub-$2000 Sony HD camcorders to seven, over three times as many as Panasonic or Canon currently offers. Five of the seven utilize the new AVCHD codec.
It will be interesting to see if these new cameras gain acceptance in the low budget indie filmmaking market, where manual control is just as important as image quality.
The HDR-CX7 ($1200 MSRP), is their first to record exclusively to a removable flash media, Memory Stick PRO Duo. Also announced today were the HDR-SR5 and HDR-SR7, two new hard disk drive high definition models. All new models use the new AVCHD codec, which is an implementation of H.264 encoding for hard disk and memory card based camcorders.
This brings the total number of sub-$2000 Sony HD camcorders to seven, over three times as many as Panasonic or Canon currently offers. Five of the seven utilize the new AVCHD codec.
It will be interesting to see if these new cameras gain acceptance in the low budget indie filmmaking market, where manual control is just as important as image quality.
Labels: avchd, camcorder, hdv, high definition, sony
Sunday, January 28, 2007
The slow but inevitable death of MiniDV
At the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the big three (Sony, Canon, Panasonic) camcorder manufactures continued a big push away from MiniDV in their consumer camcorders. Direct-to-DVD models are now taking up most of the higher end options for consumers.
There has always been a question on how many point-and-shoot users will edit their footage. It is definitly the minority of camcorder users. Most people want to pick up the camera in auto mode, shoot some footage of the kids and then view the footage in the easiest way possible. This is why DVD-based models have gained in popularity. Most people don't care to edit down their footage into the best bits. They will scan through tons of bad video just to find those few good clips.
My issues with shift away from MiniDV are not about editing. The bigger issues, as I see it, are the elimination of a very good means of archiving and the loss in video quality. DVD-based models begin and end with MPEG2 video. MPEG2 is a delivery format that was never intended to be used for capture. It is much more highly compressed than DV, and therefore much of the information (video quality) is being lost due to compression.
The next issue is storage and archival. The footage created from DVD-based camcorders is very difficult to edit on a computer. Therefore, if the disk is damaged your video may be lost. While this could also happen to MiniDV tapes, DVDs are much more easy to scratch or become misplaced.
As we look toward the future, Sony and Panasonic are pushing AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec for High Definition) for consumer models. AVCHD is based on H.264 and MPEG4 and will probably yield excellent video quality for consumers. But these cameras used hard drives, DVDs or flash memory (SD) cards to capture and store your video. Again, a safe, inexpensive and effect way to archive our footage is missing.
What happens to users who shoot video onto an SD card and then forget to backup or move the footage to their computer? How do consumers keep gigabytes and gigabytes of hard drive space available for all their footage?
MiniDV tapes still provide the best storage method for consumers. The tapes take up very little physical space, are extremely affordable and the DV format provides excellent SD video quality for consumers (when a good midrange camera is used).
I am not sold on flash, hard drive or DVDs for video capture and storage. I worry about how many lost births, soccer games and birthday parites will result from consumers not having a good backup due to the lack of a physical tape. Time will tell. But, my next camcorder will probably be an HDV model, recording to good old fashioned MiniDV tapes.
There has always been a question on how many point-and-shoot users will edit their footage. It is definitly the minority of camcorder users. Most people want to pick up the camera in auto mode, shoot some footage of the kids and then view the footage in the easiest way possible. This is why DVD-based models have gained in popularity. Most people don't care to edit down their footage into the best bits. They will scan through tons of bad video just to find those few good clips.
My issues with shift away from MiniDV are not about editing. The bigger issues, as I see it, are the elimination of a very good means of archiving and the loss in video quality. DVD-based models begin and end with MPEG2 video. MPEG2 is a delivery format that was never intended to be used for capture. It is much more highly compressed than DV, and therefore much of the information (video quality) is being lost due to compression.
The next issue is storage and archival. The footage created from DVD-based camcorders is very difficult to edit on a computer. Therefore, if the disk is damaged your video may be lost. While this could also happen to MiniDV tapes, DVDs are much more easy to scratch or become misplaced.
As we look toward the future, Sony and Panasonic are pushing AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec for High Definition) for consumer models. AVCHD is based on H.264 and MPEG4 and will probably yield excellent video quality for consumers. But these cameras used hard drives, DVDs or flash memory (SD) cards to capture and store your video. Again, a safe, inexpensive and effect way to archive our footage is missing.
What happens to users who shoot video onto an SD card and then forget to backup or move the footage to their computer? How do consumers keep gigabytes and gigabytes of hard drive space available for all their footage?
MiniDV tapes still provide the best storage method for consumers. The tapes take up very little physical space, are extremely affordable and the DV format provides excellent SD video quality for consumers (when a good midrange camera is used).
I am not sold on flash, hard drive or DVDs for video capture and storage. I worry about how many lost births, soccer games and birthday parites will result from consumers not having a good backup due to the lack of a physical tape. Time will tell. But, my next camcorder will probably be an HDV model, recording to good old fashioned MiniDV tapes.
Labels: avchd, camcorder, dvd, hdv, minidv
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