It is not Super 8 but....

Post by **The Swede** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:40 am

After looking around it seems that the streetprice in US will start at around 800 USD and you can get a 2 GB SD card here in Sweden for about 100 USD and of course the prices will be lower as time goes by.
2 GB will get you about 42 min to record.

I would say that getting a progressive scan HD for around 900 USD is VERY good regardless of any mpeg 4 problems and as Mattias say there is also the component output.

Cheers

Hans

Post by **tlatosmd** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 11:46 am

So it does 60fps at 640x480, right? That's not even PAL resolution. I'd be prepared for bad news because there's no framerate listed for HD resolution. It's a problem you also have with lots of 'miniDV' camcorders sold on eBay not accepting tapes, as soon as you get the device you find out it only runs at 15fps or so at max.

Post by **The Swede** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:22 pm

http://www.sanyo.de/produkte_eng/digita ... D=8&ptyp=2

It would also be good if you had a look at the link provided by Mattias to actually look at the clip!

You can look at this tread aswell

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=58228

Post by **tlatosmd** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:47 pm

The Swede wrote:It would also be good if you had a look at the link provided by Mattias to actually look at the clip!

I'm sitting on a 3.06GHz PC with a Matrox Millennium P650, Windows Media Player V.10 and a rate of 8,192 KB/s when playing the clip, and it looks like about 2-3 fps.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:49 pm

reflex wrote: Out of interest, are there any good (nearly) lossless compression algorithms for video that might appear in prosumer-level gear in the near future?

I dunno. We get so many requests about HD for telecine that I've been researching ways to deal with it. As a result, I decided recently to take the plunge and ordered up a brand spanky new edit suite with Premier 2.0 that is wrapped around the CineForm codec for editing. My understanding is that Vegas Video is going to do the same down the line so, my purposes, this seemed like the way to go so I can experiment. I have the Sony HDVZR1U (can't they use simpler names for their cameras?) which transfers into the Premier system via firewire where it is converted to an AVI in the CineForm codec. What I have seen so far looks pretty damned good, for consumer level HD. I'll try to post some stills after I get the system this week. I'll try to post what the original looked like and after it goes through any color correction/post processing. It's pretty amazing that they can produce something this good on a miniDV tape, that's for sure. It will only get better. What's even crazier is that my new HD edit suite costs only a fraction more than my SD edit suite did 3-4 years ago. Maybe they'll be free, soon. ;)

Roger

Post by **jean** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:52 pm

that's impressive 8O

I should get a job at those folks, and sneak in a product with some neat options into the portfolio! I quit as soon as i have the first prototype *g* These sanyos have a lot of potential, here's my wishlist for a perfect one - at least for me:

- variable framerate 1-60 fps
what is the reason behind those framerates, 15, 30, 60? Is there something that prevents 24,25 or other framerates? Would 60fps work like slow motion, or is this different than in film?

- turn off sharpening
ah, just a tiny hack in the firmware..

- a bigger sensor
that's probably just me, but I like selective DOF

Post by **tlatosmd** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:56 pm

http://www.sanyo.de/produkte_eng/digitalimaging/camcorder/produkt_techdata.asp?IAD=0&AID=0&P_ID=8&ptyp=2 wrote:Videoclip Frame Rate
30 frames per second

15 frames per second

60 frames per second

I see, again no mentioning of framerate for the HD mode. How do you know it's not 15fps?

As of now, this model is even inappropriate for PAL in general. It has neither the resolution nor the framerate. Have you ever tried to convert 30p to 25p or 25i?

Post by **jean** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:57 pm

BTW, clip plays fine on a very conservative 1,5mhz notebook without any additional extras.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:58 pm

mattias wrote:found it. looks ok. not fantastic but i'm almost convinced.

Yeah, it's getting pretty close. Mattias, perhaps you might know the answer to this. Am I right to assume that the color limitations for consumer HDV is basically the same as SD? In other words, even though I am getting a higher resolution image on my 3CCD Sony HVDZR1U hi-def camcorder, the color really won't be any better, in terms of color depth, than my SD Panasonic DVX100a because they are both using the same color sampling? (this is not my area of expertise, so don't make fun of me if I aske the question wrong) ;)

I know that in film the larger the image area, the better the contrast and, therefore, also color fidelity but I wasn't really sure if the same thing applies with SD vs HDV. Is the increase in resolution going to also affect color fidelity? I'll ulitmately just do an experiment when I get the system set up but I was trying to wrap my mind around this question. What do you think?

Roger

Post by **MovieStuff** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 1:06 pm

tlatosmd wrote: I see, again no mentioning of framerate for the HD mode.

More importantly, I see no mention that those frame rates represent SD only. The frame rates are listed as 15, 30 and 60fps without disclaimers so I am quite positive that they are in HDV. It would be pointless to offer anything less since all their competition would have to do is offer just one speed in HDV and blow them out of the water. They'd never sell a single camera at 15fps only, regardless of the resolution.

Roger

Post by **npcoombs** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 2:11 pm

I (sort-of) understand the interest in this camera, but what is everyone getting so excited about? How would you use this camera - to take nice family and friends video? Location scouting? Investigative reporting?

Just curious.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 2:27 pm

npcoombs wrote:I (sort-of) understand the interest in this camera, but what is everyone getting so excited about?

It's not so much this camera, in particular, but that it represents the beginning of a dramatic drop in price for entry level HDV. I mean, if you are going to shoot video, wouldn't you rather shoot HDV than SD?

npcoombs wrote:How would you use this camera - to take nice family and friends video? Location scouting? Investigative reporting?

I thought that's what super 8 was designed for. ;)

Roger

Post by **reflex** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:05 pm

Here are the framerates from a preview at camcorder.info:

In HD mode, 1280 x 720 (30 fps, 9 Mbps) and 1280 x 720 (30 fps, 6 Mbps) at Super High Quality and High Quality HD video, respectively.

In SD mode, the camcorder can capture video at 640 x 480 (60 fps, 6 Mbps), 640 x 480 (30 fps, 3 Mbps), 640 x 480 (30 fps, 2 Mbps), and 320 x 240 (15 fps).

Heaven knows what "Super High Quality" means. It's as meaningful as having a car that can drive at "Super High Speed." The preview pointed out that previous incarnations of this camera line have had problems with motor noise being picked up by the mic whenever you zoom.

tlatosmd wrote:I'm sitting on a 3.06GHz PC with a Matrox Millennium P650, Windows Media Player V.10 and a rate of 8,192 KB/s when playing the clip, and it looks like about 2-3 fps.

I had the same trouble when watching with Media Player - it looked like about 10 fps. I then tried the free DivX player and it looked much better.

Post by **reflex** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:10 pm

MovieStuff wrote:I dunno. We get so many requests about HD for telecine that I've been researching ways to deal with it. As a result, I decided recently to take the plunge and ordered up a brand spanky new edit suite with Premier 2.0 that is wrapped around the CineForm codec for editing.

Excellent! I forgot that you'd probably be somewhere out there on the bleeding edge. Just out of interest, how long does it take to convert video into AVI in the CineForm codec? (I'm assuming this is a batch process, not real-time).

Post by **mattias** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:14 pm

jean wrote:- a bigger sensor
that's probably just me, but I like selective DOF

well, it's already bigger than most consumer and prosumer sensors, but the bigger the better for several reasons. did you notice the lens is f/1.2?

the color really won't be any better, in terms of color depth, than my SD Panasonic DVX100a

well, the limiting factor for color is the image sensor and not the recording format. no image sensor can produce as many colors as the dv and hdv formats are capable of reproducing. hdv and most flavors of mpeg-4 is 8 bit 4:2:0, the same as pal dv, if that's what you're asking. it has very little to do with the quality a camera can produce though. after all you can shoot film and transfer to dv, or downconvert hdcam footage, and get much better color and depth than a dv camera recording to the same format can do.

/matt