Camcorderinfo has yet another good review, this time of the Canon XH-A1 camcorder. The battle between the XH-A1 and the Sony HVR-V1U is likely to be intense over the next few months. It’ll be interesting to see whether one ends up a distinct winner.
I had a chance to play with a Zune last week. Frankly, I’m a bit of a biased reviewer in this case, being an Apple fanboy and all. That said, here’s my rundown of the player itself. I haven’t used the software, but check out Engadget’s Zune review for the whole scoop. This is mostly just ranting.
Zune next to a 30gig video iPod
First off, I’m not sure I could get past how gigantic the things is. It just doesn’t feel pocketable. Beyond that, it feels a bit cheap. The choice of a non-spinning “wheel” control is also a bit questionable. Everyone who picked the unit up started trying to spin the wheel and said “why isn’t it working?” – a clear indication that it’s not very user friendly. Having to use separate back and play buttons outside of the wheel is also a bit cumbersome.
Once you’ve gotten the controls down, the interface is for the most part quite nice. It’s certainly got more visual flair than the iPod, but you can still navigate it at a pretty good pace.
The choice of a larger screen rotated 90degrees makes for some awkward situations though. As you switch between videos and the menu for example, you need to rotate the player back and forth. It will be interesting to see how Apple deals with this issue when they go with a larger format screen on the “real” video iPod.
As a music player, the Zune is fine. It’s not great, it’s not terrible. The FM tuner is nice, and I’m sure the WiFi will be useful to some folks. I’ll stick with my iPod though.
The Sanyo Xacti HD1A is a pocket-sized direct-to-memory camcorder. The Xacti line has grown to encompass a number of cameras, ranging from around $350 to the HD1A, which retails for around $600. All of the cameras boast direct-to-memory recording in an MPEG-4 format, using SD memory cards.
The HD1A distinguishes itself, as the name might suggest, by being capable of recording HD video. I’m resisting the urge to put HD in sarcastic quotes (“HD”) as the HD this camera records is a bit of a joke. But more on that later.
Read on for the rest of the review…
This is a review of the Zoom H4 “Handy Recorder,” a portable audio recording device. Sometimes branded a Samson device, the H4 retails for around $300.
These devices have been growing in popularity over the last few years, due to the growth of podcasting and also the growth in independent film production. Because the H4 records in either wave or MP3, it is appropriate for both uses. MP3 bitrates can be adjusted between 320kbps and 48kbps. Wave files can be sampled at 44khz, 48khz or 96khz with either 16bit or 24bit precision. So, whether you’re a podcast producer looking to create quick MP3 files on the go, or an indie filmmaker looking for better audio than your camera can produce, this device tries to meet your needs.
Read on for the rest of the review… apologies for the terrible picture quality, my normal camera was unavailable.
StudioDaily has an interview with Ben Grossman from the Syndicate, discussing the creation of the BMW “Precipice” advertisement. It’s a pretty cool bit of CG, as they had to shoot the commercial during the day, in the dry, but present a commercial which showed the car at night in the rain. Lots of rotoscoping and particle effects ensured, and the end result is pretty impressive.
DV.com has a preview of the Sony HVR-V1U online. I’m very interested in this camera, as it seems like a pretty solid player in a part of the market that has long by dominated by “subpar” options. I’ll be eager to get a chance to play with one. The DV.com article makes mention of the new CMOS chip setup in this camera. I think it will be interesting to see how the indie-film types adapt to the minor differences inherent in CMOS imaging. Curious.
By the way, I’ve got a bunch of reviews coming next week, including the Zoom H4, Sanyo Xacti HD1A, Presonus Firepod, Microsoft Zune and a few other cool toys.
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Everyone’s favorite throwback company, NewTek has launched SpeedEdit, “the world’s fastest video editor.” It’s got a “Next-Gen Workflow” and other features of much importance!
So what’s the deal? Despite my sarcasm, it actually has some interesting features. Or at least, the marketing speak talks of some nice features. They claim to edit natively in any codec, without transcoding, and without worrying about mixed resolutions. So, instead of picking a resolution for your project before you start cutting, you just start cutting. If they can actually do it (we’ll see) it’s a pretty neat idea. Resolution independence is something that I’d love to see in Final Cut Pro sooner rather than later. Cutting natively with all the crazy formats that come off the internets is a bit more questionable – it seems like a recipe for glitches.
They’ve also got a fancy interface which appears to consist of the worst elements of Avid, mixed with a dash of Video Toaster and a pinch of TriCaster. Ugly.
Still, it’s a curious product. Nothing they’re doing is technically impossible, but it’s the sort of thing that’s really hard to do well, especially in a brand new piece of software. We’ll see…
Tripods are one of those things that can be very difficult to judge objectively using just published information. Unlike a camera whose specs you can read and understand, finding a good tripod is much more subjective.
With that in mind, I was really happy to see that DV.com has published a large tripod review. They’re looking at primarily high-end tripod systems, but there’s still a lot of good information there. You might need to log in to access the article.
Panasonic has released a couple of new AVCHD-based camcorders, the HDC-SD1 and the HDC-DX1. The SD1 shoots to SD card, the DX1 shoots to 8mm DVDs.
Both of these cameras record in AVCHD, a format which appears to be gaining some traction in the consumer space. What is it? Essentially it’s an H264-based recording format targeted at folks who don’t have any intention of serious post production. Because H264 is not only long-GOP but also bi-directionally predicted, cutting it in an NLE is relatively problematic. But then, how many soccer-moms or nascar-dads are cutting their video of little Jimmy’s baseball game? Not that many.
Anyways, I haven’t paid much attention to these devices because I’m not convinced they’re worth the trouble. For most people, digital cameras are quickly replacing separate camcorder devices, because the 640x480x30fps video that most digicams shoot is “good enough.” For those who need a little more, something like the Sanyo Xacti HD1A is probably a more convenient device than a traditional camcorder form factor. I’ll have one of those in for review in a few days, so we’ll see.
In any case, I think AVCHD is an interesting format which I don’t really care about. But perhaps you do.
Booo! Hisss! They antiqued my laptop. (It’s like pimping my ride, but different)
Apple has announced Core2Duo based Macbooks, combining juicy Merom chips with … well actually, it was really just a chip upgrade. The upper tier models ship with 1gb of ram now as well, which is a nice addition Additionally, the superdrive is dual-layer now.
This is a bit of a surprise to me, as we’re getting awfully close to Christmas. I had expected Apple to hold off on any more product line updates until Macworld.
Despite what the specs might have you believe, these are actually quite capable laptops for video editing. Motion certainly isn’t thrilled about running on mine, but if you’re just working in your NLE, there isn’t a ton of reason to jump up to the more expensive MacbookPro.