View Full Version : Sanyo HD1 footage!


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Robert Jackson
February 13th, 2006, 02:52 PM
The video has a lot more compression artifacts then I would have liked to see and some of the shots look a bit blurred.


Well, you can certainly tell the image is under the squeeze, but I honestly don't have a problem with what I see. It's a teeny, tiny HD camera. I really appreciate you taking the time to get these files up where we could see them. I can hardly wait for mine to show up.

Do you mind me asking what kind of card you're using and if you ever get an interruption in recording due to the speed of the card? Ever since I saw that footnote about short continuous record times with some cards I've been wondering whether or not there would be problems with the media bottlenecking somehow.

The crunchiness of the compression is something I'd kind of expected. It would be cool if it wasn't there, but to me it doesn't seem nearly as bad as it could be. The exteriors show it worst, IMO. Big landscap-y stuff always seems to suffer from edge enhancement-itis and motion chunkiness.

Again, very cool of you to share with us. Thank you!

-Rob

Joseph Aurili
February 13th, 2006, 03:09 PM
Rob,

True, the image is not that bad considering, but after using my Sony Z1.... ;)

I did the test images with a SanDisk UltraII 2.0GB card. I belive it is a 66x card.

I got another card via FedEX right after I was done testing. It is a 4GB 150x Transend. It works!

On both cards there is around a two second delay from when I press the record button to when it starts recording. After the clip there is no delay I from what I can tell. Of course even the slower card is 10x faster then the video bit rate.

Joseph Aurili
February 13th, 2006, 03:38 PM
One thing with the 4GB 150x Transend SD card. It works fine in the camera and shows 58 minutes of available recording time in the best quality 720P mode. It records and plays back video. But, I can't read the card on my laptop's SD slot. It says it is not formated. Perhaps my computers SD slot can not exceed 2GB, or maybe a need new drivers...

Robert Jackson
February 13th, 2006, 03:41 PM
Rob,

True, the image is not that bad considering, but after using my Sony Z1.... ;)

I did the test images with a SanDisk UltraII 2.0GB card. I belive it is a 66x card.

I got another card via FedEX right after I was done testing. It is a 4GB 150x Transend. It works!

On both cards there is around a two second delay from when I press the record button to when it starts recording. After the clip there is no delay I from what I can tell. Of course even the slower card is 10x faster then the video bit rate.

HA!

Well, sure...but I think it would be easier to take the HD1 on a snowboard. ;-)

Of course, I don't know how to ski or snowboard, but I did climb about 30 feet of ladder with a 16mm camera a few months back and I'd have much rather gone up that shaky ladder with an SD1. I'm sure you'll find a million good uses for it. I wonder how long it will be until someone uses one of them for a crash cam?

Thank you very much for all the information! It's great to get the early word on such an interesting new product!

-Rob

Joseph Aurili
February 13th, 2006, 04:32 PM
I'm sure I will use it 10x more then my Z1, because it will be there! Finally a camera I can always take on vacation or just have with me in my jacket pocket. Now I just look forward to the MP4 H264 cameras... ;) After getting so much good info from this board I am glad I can post something of use.

David Kennett
February 13th, 2006, 05:23 PM
Joseph,

Thanks for posting the samples. I assume the MPGs are in the high quality mode. I am also guessing you got a grey market camera - haven't seen them in US yet - but I guess that depends on where you are.

I have a few burning questions, if you don't mind.

1. Have you tried adjusting the color level and edge enhancement? If I read correctly, they should be adjustable. The color seems to be a bit much on all the samples I've seen.

2. What size filter ring? I hope!

3. Have you tried the clip cut and join features?

4. Any surprises?

Again, thanks for taking the time. At this stage, all info is appreciated.

Joseph Aurili
February 13th, 2006, 05:57 PM
Dave,

Yes highest quality video mode for all clips I posted.

I'm in the US and the camera came from Hong Kong.

I have really only tried the basics with the camera thus far.

1) I only see 4 selections. Normal, Vivid (more color), Soft (sharpness subdued), and Soft Vivid.

2) I am not sure. I'm want to know that myself. I will see if I can find out.

3) No.

4) Pretty much what I expected, except I was hoping the video quality would be a bit better that it is. The remote is much smaller then I expected ;)

I will see if I can post the instructions with a link.

--- Joseph

Joseph Aurili
February 13th, 2006, 06:04 PM
Instructions PDF:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/Camera_GB.pdf

Joseph Aurili
February 13th, 2006, 06:34 PM
OK, I tried the clip cut and join features and they do work. It takes a little while to process though.

Pressing select on the "joystick" can be annoying as it is real easy to move the stick in a direction instead.

Wayne Morellini
February 14th, 2006, 04:25 AM
I'm sure I will use it 10x more then my Z1, because it will be there! Finally a camera I can always take on vacation or just have with me in my jacket pocket. Now I just look forward to the MP4 H264 cameras... ;) After getting so much good info from this board I am glad I can post something of use.

Yes, if the 19MB/s true H264 does comes through, it will be a good alternative to HDV, hopefully it might get rid of 80-90% of the attracting in motion. But cheap editing, like a $100 plug in editing card (maybe with the ambarella chip, HDMI and component in, and HDTV tuner).

Thanks for the clips.

Jorge Gil
February 14th, 2006, 05:06 AM
Thanks, Joseph.

I dont like what i see on those videos, and i started to think this is no the same camera that shot the previous videos (baby and child).

In the first one i see some pixelating in solid colors, but not severe.
In these videos i can only see digital noise an very bad compression. Not HD to my eyes at all.

I'm the only one?

I like the fotos, sharp, the 5 mega shows.

I better wait before buy this camera. I'll see what the h264 cameras offer.

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 07:59 AM
I agree my test videos do not seem to be the quality we saw in the baby/child videos that have been going around. Those videos where the reason I rushed to get this camera...

There is so much compression noise in the still areas of videos taken indoors, that it is distracting, but they do look sharp. The outdoor shots don't look noisy at all to me, but look blured, as if the resolution is not very high.

I'm sure the video tops anything you would get from a digital still camera though. It is a nice little vacation combo camera. I don't think a pro would be using it for a primary source of video for anything.

Frank Klein
February 14th, 2006, 08:57 AM
Thanks for your very early review, Joseph!

I also think the Sanyo is a nice all-in-one solution, but of cource not the pro HD cam some people were hoping for.
But lets be realistic - $799 is a fair price for a device which makes video clips much better than any DC cam <$1000 on the market and also take 5MP pics! In holiday I prefer having just carrying one device for all, and this will be the Sanyo when its available here. I think recording 9MBit 720p Mpeg4 will lead to very good mpeg2 DVDs (maybe with some postprocessing), probably much better than what is possible with normal DV cams.

Btw, you mentioned 4GB SD cards. According to the manual only 2GB are supported. More than 2GB are rarely supported, e.g. Win98 only supports 2GB for FAT16, and only since WinNT 4GB can be used with FAT16, or you have to use FAT32 which is not supported by all devices. Also not all card readers support 4GB! And FAT16 allows a max. filesize of 2GB!
Could you check if the 4GB card is playable in the cam, to be sure that the HD1 produces valid 4GB (probably in FAT16)?

Robert Jackson
February 14th, 2006, 09:19 AM
The outdoor shots don't look noisy at all to me, but look blured, as if the resolution is not very high.

I think that "blurry" look is compression at work. It's not fuzzy so much as kind of grainy and that looks more like compression than any kind of focus issue. I imagine that there's a "sweet spot" where the exposure at low ISO hits a point of minimum artifacting. It may be that the combination of sensor noise and artifacting is what causes the "blurry" thing to happen. You know, artifacted noise or whatever. The images seemed to exhibit much more compression artifacting than the footage with the baby and the ice cream kid, but there may be exposure and latitude issues. That first footage looked like it was taken on a relatively overcast day, which may have been working for it. Some tests under controlled lighting may tell more of the story, but it's way cool to have the early report here.

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 09:19 AM
Frank,

I read somewhere that this camera would work with 4GB cards if they are formated as FAT 32, or at least some cards will work. So I desided to get the 4GB card and try it out. When I put the card in the camera it did show 58 minutes and 23 seconds of recording time left in HQ 720P mode. I recorded several clips and played them back on the camera just fine. I'm not able to read the SD card directly with my computer (Laptop SD slot with Windows XP), but if I hook the camera up to the USB port it works fine with the computer. Does that answer your question?

--- Joseph

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 09:28 AM
Robert, I'm sure you are right that the blur is a product of the compression since the indoor shots can be quite sharp. Some parts of the video frame, such as bricks, show more blur then other parts. Now if I can figure out how to get a sharp shot without a ton of noise...

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 09:32 AM
As soon as I have a chance, I will take indoor clips with proper lighting.

Frank Klein
February 14th, 2006, 09:35 AM
Thanks for the clarification. So actually the HD1 support 4Gb and FAT32, but not your Notebook CardReader. Maybe my Notebook will have the same problem, but as long as it works with the docking station thats fine :-)
4GB~1h is excactly my target, I wonder if I could mod the cam to get an A/V input, so it could become a stationary HDTV recorder, than 8GB would be even better ;-)

David Kennett
February 14th, 2006, 09:50 AM
Joseph,

I read parts of the manual. Thanks again! It appears that the image adjustments are limited to the 4 options you mentioned. Could we maybe get a sample of the same shot with each of the options. The chroma level on the sample of the boy eating the ice cream cone. (not yours) seems to be more natural. Another thought - try under exposing just a little bit - or maybe using the ND filter. I wish they had a low-chroma setting in their selection.

Are there threads on the lens ring? I have seen a picture of the cam with a wide angle adapter installed, so there must be something. Nothing mentioned in the manual that I found.

Could you say a little about the software. VLC appears to be the only thing I have to play files, and I don't seem to have anything to convert the files to anything I find useful.

Thanks again! I guess you knew as an early adopter you would be hit hard.

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 10:02 AM
David, I will take some controlled clips ASAP. I will take a shot with each image setting. All my previous clips used the normal setting, so the color should only get more extreme from there. I am sure you can mess with all the manual controls, but I am not very good in that area ;)

There are threads but I can not find the size anywhere. Yes, 2 optional lenses are going to be available. I have spent hours on the web and could not find the thread size...

I have not even check out the software yet. I have Vegas 6. I think there is a software manual I can post also.

--- Joseph

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 10:10 AM
One other thing that bothered me was on the two outdoor clips I did with the tripod. In the first few second the exposure seems to adjusting itself in big steps.What is that all about? Why did it not adjust the exposure before I started shooting?

Graham Jones
February 14th, 2006, 10:27 AM
"One thing with the 4GB 150x Transend SD card. It works fine in the camera and shows 58 minutes of available recording time in the best quality 720P mode. It records and plays back video. But, I can't read the card on my laptop's SD slot. It says it is not formated. Perhaps my computers SD slot can not exceed 2GB, or maybe a need new drivers..."

I'm ordering the cam and I am wondering whether to order a 2GB SD card or 4GB.

I would prefer 4GB, but I was watching an interview yesterday with a Sanyo rep at some show (anyone else see it? Can't remember the name of the gadget site it was on!) and the rep said 1GB or 2GB. I think I also read it somewhere: 1 or 2GB.

Is there any reason it would a problem to go higher? I note that you've had no problems using 4GB Joseph - though I would have thought it'd would give you more than 58mins, after hearing 2GB gives you more than 40mins at 720p.

Say it worked fine for me - but then wouldn't work in a card reader, I wouldn't mind that aspect. This is just for family stuff and I would be very content to transfer footage to computer via the docking station method.

Just wondering whether y'all think it's safe to order 4GB...

Frank Klein
February 14th, 2006, 10:35 AM
I now checked all the samples, and I still like the outdoor shots, not perfect but quite ok for such a cam. But the "lowlight" indoor shots, like T5 and trash are quite bad. They look like the image sensor produces way too much noise for the selected bitrate. For the 9Mbps SHQ mode its really much artifacts, this means the used compressor is quite bad. Maybe the noise or color reduction settings can help, but I don't think they will work in movie mode.
I have seen some 720p videos in 4Mbps which look way better :-(

Wayne Morellini
February 14th, 2006, 10:46 AM
Joseph,

Something devious. In a thread long ago, we were discussing how the live preview output video of the still mode on some cameras were better than MINI-DV images and that it might be uncompressed. Is it possible to test the live footage from video and still mode on monitor as you are shooting, to see if it is uncompressed/better than the recorded image?

Thanks

Wayne.

James Olander
February 14th, 2006, 11:53 AM
This is a great thread going so far. I currently own the Sanyo C6, which came out about 3 months before the HD1 and is the HD1 little SD brother (640x480x30) The C6 claims "mixed-pixel" technology to improve low-light video quality, because previous Sanyo C4 and C5 cameras were atrocious in anything but outdoor light. The C6 is not too bad at lowlight, but filming in a dim restaurant or bar gets very noisey and dark.

The big question on the C6 forums is how well the HD1 will preform in lowlight, most are skeptical because it does not claim the "mixed-pixel" technology. (The C6 claims 9 Megapixel mixing technology <- no one really knows what that means).

Joseph, When performing the video tests, could you please try a few in less than "ideal lighting." There are many anxious on this and the C6's forum as to its performance.

C6 forums: http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/view_forum.php?id=27

Thanks!!!

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 12:11 PM
Graham, at the HQ 720P, a 2GB card gives you around 28 minutes. There is a lower quality 720P mode that will give you more.

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 12:13 PM
Wayne, I will try when I get a chance.

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 12:15 PM
James, the "trash.MP4" clip I posted was not in ideal light. It has a lot of noise. I will post an even lower light clip.

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 01:14 PM
Software instructions PDF:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/Software_GB.pdf

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 01:24 PM
Here is the lowest light clip I have so far:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/lowlight.MP4

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 01:42 PM
When I went to lunch today I shot some clips with the image stabilizer on. The LCD was very hard to see in the day light. So hard that most of the time I could not even frame a shot properly. It is hard to frame by eye, because when you hold the camera straight up the image is not aligned straight ahead. The lens cap kept coming off in my pocket! I will post some of the shots after the battery recharges.

David Kennett
February 14th, 2006, 01:44 PM
Joseph,

Looked more closely at the clips - have more thoughts. Your outside clips have much better noise - they're just a little soft. Of the clips I've seen, the boy eating ice cream is the best. This was in a little lower light, but not so low that it brought up noise. This is somewhat confirmed by the relatively shallow depth of field.

The noisy clips show more compression artifacts too. This is normal because MPEG sees the noise as motion, and tries dutifully to reproduce it, thus reducing the effectiveness of the compression. Theoretically, MPG4 ought to compress about twice as well as MPG2.

Most times, especially with small lenses (for small imagers) focus will deteriorate as the lens is stopped down. Try forcing the lens wide open (F/3.5) by using the "A" mode (page 74).

Try manually setting the ISO setting to its lowest value (page 83). This will reduce noise (along with sensitivity).

To help you judge resolution, I will PM you a resolution chart.

Robert Jackson
February 14th, 2006, 02:28 PM
Here is the lowest light clip I have so far:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/lowlight.MP4

Noisy, but perhaps the winner for Cutest Clip. ;-)

Would asking their names venture into off-topic conversation?

-Rob

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 03:29 PM
Here are my lunch time clips with the image stabilizer on. Does not seem to help the shaking that much.I kept them short:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS1.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS2.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS3.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS4.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS5.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS6.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS7.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS8.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS9.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/TS10.MP4

The thing that is bother me the most now is that in many of the video clips, the camera is adjusting the picture is a very visible way for the first 5 seconds or so.

I will do some controlled lighting clips ASAP. Should be able to post them by tomorrow.

BTW the cats are Annie (adopted name), Precious (adopted name), Donut (my name) in the low light clip.

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 03:40 PM
Dave, I will also do the chart test, when I get the chart. You have mail ;)In automatic, the camera seem to stick to F/3.5 untill the light get very bright. The camera adjusts the shutter speed instead. I have been using exposure setting P for everything, which is why it does what it does.

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 04:57 PM
Resolution chart test clip:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/chart.MP4

Tell me how many lines?

I see that distracting adjustment problem again in the first few seconds of video, and this is fixed lighting...

One cool thing about the camera is you can control the entire menu system from the remote, so I am able to change the images settings without even touching the camera. And the remote is even easier to control the the joystick on the camera.

--- Joseph

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 05:12 PM
OK, I got it done early. Here are the results from the different image settings. I would go with normal as the best. The vivid has too much color. The soft just looks more like SD. The lighting gives a huge improvement in the noise. The camera selected F3.5 at 1/30 of a second. It does not get much better then that ;) With controlled lighting I am actually impressed with the quality. Of course nothing moving in the shot which should make it real easy for the compression.

--Normal kitchen lights normal setting--

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/kitchen.JPG
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/kitchen.MP4

--Better lighting--

Normal setting:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/normal.JPG
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/normal.MP4

Vivid setting:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/vivid.JPG
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/vivid.MP4

Soft setting:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/soft.JPG
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/soft.MP4

Soft Vivid setting:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/softvivid.JPG
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/softvivid.MP4

--- Joseph

Robert Jackson
February 14th, 2006, 05:37 PM
The thing that is bother me the most now is that in many of the video clips, the camera is adjusting the picture is a very visible way for the first 5 seconds or so.

About an hour ago someone let me mess with an HD1 for about 15 minutes or so. It was a gray-market camera, so it may not be a good example, but I found this same thing to be problematic. It hunts around for a few seconds before it settles down. Same thing with focus, though. It seemed very slow to focus and did some hunting. Not so much of an issue for interviews, since you have the opportunity to set up the shot before shooting, but it seems like it would make spontaneous shooting kind of tough.

Joseph Aurili
February 14th, 2006, 05:51 PM
Robert, i'm hoping I can use one of the manual modes to eliminate that problem. I hate to make the clips larger then they need to be just to avoid that issue.

Robert Jackson
February 14th, 2006, 05:57 PM
Robert, i'm hoping I can use one of the manual modes to eliminate that problem. I hate to make the clips larger then they need to be just to avoid that issue.

I didn't have time to really get into the camera at all, but it seems to me that the manual modes will probably be very helpful. It's so small. I have big hands and couldn't really control it at all. I'm sure that something you get used to, but I felt completely out of my element. I took a couple of stills of my girlfriend with it, though, and they seemed pretty nice. It will be great to me able to take production stills with the same camera I'm using to do interviews.

Jef Bryant
February 15th, 2006, 02:32 AM
Interesting but disheartening notes from the manual:

"If the exposure setting is "M" (manual) and the ISO setting is set to OTHER THAN ISO-A (auto), the exposure correction setting will be disabled."

Well, ain't that a kick in the head.

And a special note to PAL users:

When the TV output mode is set to PAL and the S-AV cable is connected, "during recording the image appears only on the (on-camera) monitor, it does not appear on the (external) monitor."

I guess an external monitor will work in ntsc, though.

I suppose this cam is not really intended for use by those who would want good manual control and external monitors anyway...

David Kennett
February 15th, 2006, 07:30 AM
Jef,

I read that "exposure CORRECTION", not manual settings. That is, if you set everything manually, there's no need to TRIM exposure.

David Kennett
February 15th, 2006, 09:00 AM
Joseph,

I read the chart as about 550 lines H & V. H being just a tad better than V. You could go just a bit tighter, but I doubt that it will improve the numbers much. The total H res is about 1000 lines, so the numbers come in a little below the theoretical maximum. Not bad for a camera of this ilk.

Most troubling is the red cast on the chart. Did it print out that way? Now that I look closer, I think the problem is not too much color, but an imbalance in the colorimetry. Are you using auto color? Try an appropriate fixed, or the manual with a white sheet of paper under the light you'll be using. If the chart printed out with an appropriate grey scale, you should see each of the grey squares as grey, and you should be able to see ALL of the squares. Of course you have to get it printed properly first. I will PM you a frame from JVC HD10. It's JPEG, but degraded only a little.

Wayne Morellini
February 15th, 2006, 09:06 AM
Just looked at some of the kitchen images, I won't bother suggesting a 15 watt light bulb version, the results would be far to predictable.

Typical reduced light range, high noise and reduced low light performance of a small mega-pixel CCD. They would have been better sourcing a cmos sensor from fill-factory or smalsensor (now both owned by Cypress semiconductor) or Prixim (which seems too much like smalsensor). They offer multi-slope and autobrite latitude extending techniques that produces latitude ranges upto 20 stops even on small cheap chips, and fill-factory has a technique that samples the light missing the sensor pad, eliminating the screen door technique, with high Signal to Noise ratio and high native latitude.

The multi- sampled colours are as I predicted, great, and some people around these forums might actually prefer the noise as a film look. Actually I quiet like it, I think it might turn out to be a funky legend of a consumer camera ;)Only around 15-45 days before we see the h264 versions.

About the camera. If you want to increase compression performance let the highlights over expose. I'm examining the videos as I watch House, so I'm in one of those analytical moods again. The amount of noise in the scene will be dragging compression performance down which could be better used on existing detail. Upping the exposure should reduce this. The great anti-aliasing screen door effect isn't helping either. I don't even think it is doing pixel binning (combines pixel signal output from a group of pixels to act as a larger pixel and increase the single strength being sampled, reducing noise and increasing relative latitude. As it is, it looks like they need to use a better interpolation routine to reduce the screen door effect (to cross filter out the anti-aliasing using the separate RGBG pixel channels). It is curious the the sample shots of the baby and ice cream worked so well, but I think it is because it was actually because the light brightness and latitude on the day was good enough, but it almost seems like another camera. Was that guy using a lens attachment?

Joseph, there is possibly a way to get a better image from this camera. There has been commercial slr lens adaptors that use a triplet condenser instead of a screen, so you get clean extra bright image with a number of stops more light. Used in conjunction with a suitable ND filter you could possible extend the range and cleanness of the camera. Tiffen had some interesting filter kits, and contrast filters.

http://www.optexint.com/sales/filters/filterkits.html
http://www.tiffen.com/tiffen_filters.html

Worth looking through the pdfs on each type in the kit (I think there are newer kits available to).

http://www.tiffen.com/tiffen_product_literature.html
http://www.tiffen.com/userimages/filter-lens.pdf

This contrast filter thing it interesting, appears counter intuitive, I am interested in how the technology behind it works. Because, despite their glowing description, I don't really how it is much of an improvement over a ND in most cases, anyone know?

http://www.tiffen.com/userimages/Contrast_FactSheet_Lo.pdf

I just thought of something funny, there was a guy on one of the web forums that was buying a JVC HD1/10 to film operations for his class, this camera would be much better. Imagine if he drops it in the patient, "Oops, I'll get that" it might get lost ;)

Joseph Aurili
February 15th, 2006, 09:28 AM
The chart printed gray. I use a good quality color laser printer. I did not even think about the white balance ;) it is on auto. I bet the mix of fluorescent light from the kitchen light and the halogen front light threw off the auto color. I will try again soon.

Joseph Aurili
February 15th, 2006, 09:46 AM
Thanks for the ideas Wayne. I think I will be getting a h264 camera if the quality is better. I would pay $5000 for a camera of this size if I could get top quality results.

Jorge Gil
February 15th, 2006, 10:02 AM
Joseph, in the camcorderinfo's first impressions, the reviewer complained about the possible noise caused by the lens motor and catched by the integrated microphone (as happened with an earlier model from fisher), and argued that was the reason to put an audio in in such a small camera.

Was he right? Can you hear it? Is an external micro needed or the quality of the camera's one is enought?

Thanks for all the time you are spending for us!

Joseph Aurili
February 15th, 2006, 10:07 AM
I can not say I have tested the sound at all, but in the instruction manual is says that motor noice from the optical zoom or focus is normal is not a malfunction. That kind of says it all... ;)

Joseph Aurili
February 15th, 2006, 10:09 AM
I will try to get a sound clip soon also.

Wayne Morellini
February 15th, 2006, 11:48 AM
Yeah, I've been examining the macro blocking and seeing if the soft mode does pixel summing (related to binning) but I can't tell if it's there. I think 25Mb/s H264 would be a better bet for low end work, though Samsung might be doing 19Mb/s camera, and they do vertical models.

I hope somebody starts a switch to h264 resolution TV soon, because the artifacting from mpeg2 compression is literally/distractingly appalling. I would be thinking of getting up and walking out if that was on a theatre screen. At least with all these new DVD players with alternative HD codec support, eventually we won't have to rely on mpeg2 disk standards and will be able to distribute on h264 instead. In China they are developing their own DVD standards, and last I heard they were licensing the latest version of the Ogg Theodore codec, which is better than h264.

Thanks for the clips Joseph, they really give me an idea of what to expect.