Hi,

Are there any studies of the delay from the recording button is pressed until the first image is captured that is included in the final recording ?

(I'm not interested when it is actually recorded on the medium of course :-)

If I don't remember wrong, the Hitachi Blue-Ray HD-camera is supposed to have a 3 second 'startup'-memory to solve this annoying delay. But it's an disc-media type of camera.

I'm mostly interested in the HDD or memory card type of cameras, for instance the Canon HG-10 or Sony CX-7 or similar.

I will use the camera to capture many short clips of my children etc and the supposed delay annoys me, at least before I have the camera ... It's hard to direct children ...

/Henrik

I have a Sony SR7 that I asked my daughter to try. Her comments were that it was too slow to start up and that the children will have gone away before the camera is ready to shoot!!!!!! I tend to agree with her. I have not tried the solid state memory units like the Sony CX7 but expect these should start immediately. She doesn't like the CX7 because it doesn't have a viewfinder only the LCD. The problem with the HDD units is that the HDD has to spin up and get ready to record even if there is some buffer memory this is still a long time.
On the good side of the SR7 the picture is great.

Ron Evans

Thanks for the info. This confirm what I thought.

I have only used tape-based video cameras in the past and they definitely have this problem, at least when the drum have stopped spinning.


How long does it take until the HD stop spinning after you have pressed stop, in the recording mode?

When it's still spinnning I guess it start recording pretty fast ?

/Henrik

From switch on to being able to press record is about 10sec. It carries on accessing the disc for about 2 sec when stop is pressed. I had to get used to holding the camera for a sec after pressing stop to make sure I didn't get camera movement after I thought it had stopped!!! Once on you can of course leave it on. Unlike a tape there is no issue with leaving it on. So if you know there may be some action with the kids just switch on and wait. It will drain the battery down a little of course.

Ron

That sounds good. So the HDD doesn't stip spinning while the camera is on then

How long delay do you think it is between 'push off button' to first frame is captured ? When the 10s startup is done in advance.

Are you sure it's just not a buffert memory flush that take 2 seconds ? It might not sample any new images.

/Henrik

As far as I can tell the start up when the camera is on is instantaneous. When turned off there is definitely some extra frames taken as I have several shots with me lowering the camera thinking it had stopped, maybe 2 secs or less. I have now got used to this so no more bad endings needing editing!!!! But a lot easier to carry around than the FX1 and in good outdoor light I can't tell the difference.

Ron Evans