Sanyo VPC-HD1 First Impressions Camcorder Reviewby Matt CullerPublished on Jan 7, 2006 10:00 PM
|
Advertisement
|
||||||||||
|
Compression
The Xacti HD1 captures still photos in the JPEG (DCFI, DPOF2, and Exif Ver 2.23) format. Video is captured in standard MPEG-4 compression, and JPEG (DCF, DPOF, Exif Ver 2.2). This video is compressed much more than that of MiniDV tape, which will no doubt affect its quality. MPEG4 camcorders traditionally over compress video to make it look really bad. The decent flash and hard drive camcorders on the market, including Panasonic's SDR-S100, use MPEG2, not MPEG4. Also, the next-most-expensive HD camcorder, Sony’s recent HDR-HC1, captures video with MPEG-2 compression to fit onto MiniDV tape. We've also mentioned that the data rate is a third of the Sony. After watching some of Sanyo's booth demo video, although it's not a formal test, it confirms that the video doesn't look great and is highly compressed.
Media
The Xacti HD1 records all of its data onto SD Memory Card, which is perhaps one of the biggest drawbacks to the camcorder. We all know how expensive 2GB SD cards are, and a full 2GB SD card can only hold 28 minutes and 45 sec of highest quality HD video. Recording to SD also seems to be what is limiting it's data rate to such a slow speed.
Editing
A highly successful method of editing HDV footage is certainly still in the works, though progress is being made every day. Unfortunately, for a camcorder that records HD video to SD card, your footage might be a bit harder to be easily incorporated into the editing scene. Editing capabilities for camcorders capturing HD footage onto tape will probably be tackled first. And also, though the video and manual control are pushing the limits, this cam is designed for point-and-shooters (read: those who won't edit their video) which makes it even more unlikely that a good workable editing solution will soon be found.
|
Advertisement
|