Sony's HDV 1080i Consumer Camcorder

An anonymous reader writes "Sony has just announced a high-definition video camcorder that records in 1080i. A site was just created with a lot of information about the camcorder. The camcorder uses the HDV spec which records to standard MiniDV tapes. It includes 3 CCDs and along with the announcement it appears Apple and Adobe are now supporting the HDV standard. The camcorder carries a steep price at $3,700 though. See the original press release as well, though it doesn't contain much information."

How much is enough?

[MikeMacK]

while the Sony shoots 1080 lines of resolution at 60 interlaced frames per second.

I don't know, do I really need to see every pore on my family's face in home movies?

I will be impressed when

[the_2nd_coming]

-I get a piece of brand new tech for 500 dollars.

-I get a digital camera that uses the X3 sensor and has a true 8MP CCD, not this 1.5MP x 3 garbage that you see.

Re:I will be impressed when

[dthree]

Whats the point of 8mp when HD is less than 1.5MP? DV is less than 0.5mp! High pixel counts are for stills. (and marketing brochures)

Re:Actually, not THAT expensive

[uradu]

That's what I was thinking, too, especially when I saw the 3 CDD mention. It's hard to tell how much of the price is due to high-end frills that have nothing to do with HD, and how much due to the HD tech. It will be interesting to see what price point they reach once they add HD to more mundane single CCD camcorders, the Wal-Mart specials.

Re:Finally....

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems that should have been modded up instead of down. Porn is often the main driver for video technologyes.

Re:I don't understand 1080i

[otis wildflower]

Am I missing something?

Cost. Look at the bandwidth requirements of 1080p, 'til recently satisfying that on a consumer screen was pretty much more than anyone was willing to pay, given the dearth of HD programming. The cost balance was forged at the beginning of ATSC deliberations.

Hell, try driving UT2004 at 1920x1080 on your widescreen computer monitor with less than a Geforce FX5900!

I submit that if you use a progressive computer monitor and deinterlace 1080i it'll look OK, but I also submit that very few people here have a home theater that has a 1080p monitor. If you're very lucky you have 720p and can convert cleanly (or run a nice line processor).

Hell, I still have an analog TV, and won't consider digital until I move since I don't have enough room for a 60" screen yet!

Re:Very nice

[tsangc]

think that we are stepping into a creative boon as a result of this.

The idealist in me wants to agree, but realistically, what we'll see is more crap:

-More angsty rich kids making "indie films" that make no damned sense.

-More HD/DVD wedding videos filled with tacky transition effects and shaky handheld underlit shots.

-More slanted special interest group propaganda, filled with hate, revisionism or evangelism.

Now, all of you are probably sharpening your keyboards, saying "who are you to judge"? If publishing a book, presenting a scientific paper, writing a screenplay twenty years ago had one merit, it was the fact you had to get it through some sort of editorial process. Someone did judge, and usually it was someone in the know. You couldn't spout hate on digital video and expect it broadcast on community cable. You couldn't make up pseudo science and have it published to an audience because real scientists would review your paper. But today, there is no review. You're free to host PDFs of your cracknut theories of science, or stream videos of you in your bedsheet over your head burning people at the stake.

Part of me wants to believe that the result of today's technologies (desktop publishing, digital video, the web) means that stories that are underrepresented will be told, that we'll all benefit, but for the time being, I suspect all we'll get is more trash.

Re:HDV recording, saved as MPEG2???

[Ironsides]

MPEG2 supports bit rates of up to 80 megabits/second. This is very high. The Cam is using up to 25 mbits and this is sufficient for HD. To give you a comparison, 8 mbits MPEG-2 is higher quality than you see on your standard TV. Besides, the only way to record it is to use some form of compression if you want a tape to last more than a minute. And MPEG-2 is better than some I could think of (think Redmond). Besides, MPEG-2 hardware compressors are very cheap compared to anything else, and MPEG is more versatile for this. Besides, since MPEG-2 is a SMPTE standard, they can garuntee that the files will be compatible with any program out there for editing them.

Oh puleeezzze

[Anonymous Coward]

On a serious note. I have been thinking about things like this for a while. It's not exactly a highly original thought, but more and more of high end hardware/software/electronics/mechanics are becoming available to the normal joe. This has been widely known and considered with apache/linux/mysql/php/etc., but it is happening in many realms other than software.

Oh come on, this phenomenon has always been happening in most all fields. Look at cars, a $30000 Subaru WRX can stomp a pure bred race car from even 10 years ago. Look at motorcycles, a Suzuki GSRX can compete with Gran Prix bikes of just a few years ago. Pro versions of things filtering down to the consumer is a daily occurance, and yet this concept of "creative boon" still wants to come up like having a triple chip 1080p uber camcorder is somehow going to make someone more creative than a $200 vhs camcorder. If you can't come up with beautiful poetry with a pencil, having a beowulf cluster isn't going to help either.

Re:Actually, not THAT expensive

[timts]

I dont think people really care about what they make that much. Without a HD player which can play HD in a disc, where can they store their video clips to? Just divx/xvid clips in HD which is only viewable through computer?

is there's no disc replacing dvd to promote HD, the future of HD isnt that clear yet.

for example, NBC broadcasts olympics HD signal of previous day's stuff, instead of the current day's stuff on the non-HD channel. :( that just makes me sad, very very sad

HDV - Nice format, weak cameras

[TheSync]

I've shot with the JVC HDV camera, and my impression of it is that the resolution is excellent (as is to be expected), but the real quality differentiator between it and a "real HD" camera is the quality of color and image delivered by the whole system, not just a high resolution imaging chip.

This is not suprising - I have always found the image and color quality of DV cameras to be much lower than even medium-end pro cameras (such as the elderly SVHS Panasonic Supercam). The prosumer cameras do not have $3,000 lenses. They do not have the amazing amount of color DSP going on as the pro cameras.

But at the same time, HDV cameras are better than nothing, and certainly good for "riskier" shots where a $100,000 HDCAM camera being lost would be a problem. You just can't skydive with a full-size camera, for instance...

One other issue is that 25 Mbps is really limiting for MPEG-2 HD (heh, so is 19.4 Mbps, but that is another topic).

If you are into a lot of action with lots of uncorrelated motion vectors, you might be better off with upconverted DV, as 25 Mbps is fine for inraframe coded DV.

Re:Finally....

[Gondola]

Porn is what runs most of the internet.

Unfortunately, porn in high res it not the panacea you imply. Even on DVD I can see waaaaay too much detail. (think: sores, pimples, rashes, bruises, and surgery scars)