Sanyo has announced some ‘A’ revisions to their existing FH1 and HD2000 cameras, which add a new “iFrame” mode. It appears this is an i-frame only h264 mode, at a reduced 960×540 resolution. It’s a very interesting idea – if other manufacturers adopted it as an optional setting, and if NLE manufacturers supported it, it could turn H264 into an edit-friendly format. Right now, editing H264 is hamstrung by the extremely long GOPs and complex interframe relationships. Going to i-frame only makes it essentially a more advanced version of a codec like DV or DVCProHD.

Interestingly, the bottom of the press release mentions that

“The iFrame logo and the iFrame symbol are trademarks of Apple Inc.”

That’s news to me. One wonders if Sanyo jumped the gun on a release, or if this is just a format that Apple uses internally in tools like iMovie, which Sanyo has co-opted. I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes open for an Apple announcement about “iFrame.”