Sony HDR-UX1 First Impressions Camcorder Review

In mid-May, Sony and Panasonic jointly announced their cooperation on the development of a new means of recording high definition video to the 8cm DVDs used in standard definition DVD camcorders. This is analogous to the HDV format, which compresses high definition footage onto MiniDV tapes, though the technologies are disparate. It's also important to note that the Blu-ray (Sony-led) vs. HD DVD (Panasonic-led) battle in the home video and data storage markets has little relation to AVCHD. At present, no plans to develop Blu-ray camcorders have been announced due to technical constraints, nor is Sony likely to pursue them in the near future. AVCHD discs are compatible with Blu-ray playback devices, including PCs, going forward.

High definition video is not new to the consumer camcorder market. HDV was developed years ago, and prices for HDV camcorders have recently dropped enough to bring within reach of the consumer market, led by Sony’s HDR-HC1 (Specs, $2295) and HDR-HC3 (Review, Specs, $969.99). Unlike AVCHD, HDV is tape-based, and tape-based camcorders have lost favor of late to DVD and HD media. Consumers want high definition, but they also crave the convenience of DVD media. AVCHD is a response to this demand.

AVCHD uses one of the most promising MPEG-4 compression schemes, AVC (Advanced Video Coding) otherwise known as H.264. Perhaps best known as the codec Apple adopted as the native video iPod format, its efficient data encoding led Sony and Panasonic to select H.264 for high definition compression to DVD. They also recently expanded AVCHD to store video to hard disk drives and flash media cards (SD cards and MemorySticks).

AVCHD sounds like a promising technology because the video we’ve seen compressed with other H.264 flavors is very good relative to the degree of compression. At the moment, however, we have yet to see AVCHD footage and are especially curious about how it will compare with HDV. AVCHD has a maximum bit rate of 24Mbps, but the maximum bit rate for the HDR-UX1 is only 12Mbps, far from the codec's potential. Standard definition DVD and hard disk drive camcorders have lower average bit rates of 8.5 – 9Mbps. While the AVCHD’s current bit rates strike us as low, AVCHD is a completely different codec from the MPEG-2 compression used in current DVD camcorders, so quality assessments will have to wait until we get the HDR-UX1 in the lab.

We do know that the HDR-UX1 has four high definition quality settings and three standard definition settings. The HD settings are: 12 Mbps, 9 Mbps, 7 Mbps, and 5 Mbps. Standard definition settings, which use MPEG-2 compression, are: 9 Mbps, 6 Mbps, and 3 Mbps. All bit rates are averages rather than fixed. The SD bit rates are identical to those on previous Sony DVD camcorders.

Media
In addition to being the first DVD camcorder capable of recording high definition video, the Sony HDR-UX1 also breaks new ground in recording media. The camcorder records to dual layer DVD+R DL discs, a new format that enables 60 minutes of high definition video storage on one disc. This development doubles the HDR-UX1’s high definition recording time over SD DVDs, which maxed out at 30 minutes in high quality mode. In addition to DVD+R DL, the HDR-UX1 supports DVD-R/DVD+R and DVD+RW discs. There are no special, new DVD media for AVCHD, which is a welcome surprise for consumers weary of contantly shifting tides in the industry.

Editing
While the HDR-UX1 has many attractive higher-end features, editing remains a big question mark. Options for editing standard definition DVD footage have been limited, due more to obtuse file structures than anything else. The AVCHD file structure has not been shown to us yet, but we do know that Sony and Panasonic have aggressively pursued licensing agreements with NLE manufacturers, including Adobe, Uead, CyberLink, InterVideo, Nero, and Sonic Solutions. Sony's own Vegas 7 will also accomodate the format.

Sony has also stated that all Sony and Panasonic hardware that can read standard DVDs will also be able to read AVCHD, including the upcoming Sony PlayStation 3. As for your home computer, Sony stated that any PC that can play regular DVDs will be able to play AVCHD once some included software has been installed. You do not, we repeat, you do not need a Blu-ray player. AVCHD works on the traditional red-laser system that you find in all your old playback devices.