Wouldn't 25Mb/s H264 be excellent quality? Even better then HDV?

Yeah, it should get rid of a lot of motion degradation. The problem with motion, and new data, is that the base line bandwidth matters much more than in other issues in compression. Seeing the amount of problems in the non moving images brings me to believe that maybe 25Mb/s is needed, more than 15Mb/s(+) that Ambarella is talking about. The smarter routines in h264 should handle motion better, but what about things with complex movements like waves, pond ripples and bright windy leaves (like we have here)? For new data better base compression of the primary frame also would help. But I wish camera companies would wake up and give us compressed bayer and 10-12bit pixels, that allows us to shoot lazy, that's real professional quality. Not 4:2:0.

Joseph,

You only have a few weeks to eat your Cinnamon Toast Crunch!

Thanks David. I did not even notice that. Good thing this is not SD we are dealing with! ;)

I gotta say, I'm not impressed with the video quality of these shots. Maybe it's my monitor or maybe it's my eyes. This looks no better than DV to me.

Good luck.

Dennis

I hooked up the camera to a SD TV via svideo. I don't have a HD TV where I am now. In a dark room I could not tell the difference between the live video and the played back recorded video. When I used a bright light I still did not notice a difference in image quality. I did notice that bright areas of the image would flicker a lot on playback, but would not live.

Joseph, I assume the ability to switch the output between PAL and NTSC applies to transferring to PC (as well as Composite/SVideo/Component)?

I'm not positive. I believe the setting is only to the video output. When conected to the computer via USB, I am sure it is just a file transfer method. In the manual the setting is under "TV OUTPUT SETTING".

My PC doesn't have the codec to play MP4 but the LinkPlayer2 played them fine, even better because I could view them on 720p Samsung 50 inch DLP.

The mpeg4 compression artifacts are not so bad. The worst part is simply the limited latitude range of the Sanyo imaging sensor. Blacks are wholly crushed, highlights are blown out, and oversaturated colors substitute for a complete absence of shadow detail. It also perplexed me how one area of the scene could seem crisp and in focus, and another from about the same focal plane blurred. You can see this phenomena in the courtyard scene if you look at the red brick wall. Panning the little cam illustrates another problem, the difficulty of avoiding shaky handheld video. Not to be too critical, this is a pocket cam, not a varicam.

New development in relation to this 2gb vs. 4gb question.

As you will remember, I was concerned whether the cam could support 4gb - simply because of the way a Sanyo rep was talking about 1 or 2gb.

The rep wasn't seeming to acknowledge you could simply use a higher memory card. All publicity seems to follow this lead, never suggesting that a user could go to higher memory than 2gb.

I was delighted when Joseph said he inserted a 4gb card no problem.

I was considering buying a Sanyo HD1 and 4GB card that were actually bundled as a single sale on ebay and was making enquiries to the seller.

I know a lot of people at dvinfo.net have problems with e-bay - I read a great dvinfo.net thread yesterday. Obviously this thread is not the place to go into that. I am simply excerpting an e-mail from seller so people know there remains some question whether the cam can do 4gb.

"Please accept our apologizing that the item is now out listing because it
doesn't support 4Gb SD Card at this moment. We have another package NEW
Sanyo Xacti VPC DMX-HD1 Camera G+ 2G Highspeed SD on list."

Personally, my bet is that the cam can do 4gb - based on Joseph's report.

However, the only reason I can think the seller made this change was a customer saying the 4gb card doesn't work.

Graham, perhaps the seller said that is because Sanyo doesn't support OFICIALLY 4Gb Sd cards just because 4 Gb Cards are NOT OFICIALLY SD standard compiliant cards. As i read about SD , the 2 GB is a barrier with this standard.

They have to format in FAT 32 the 4 Gb cards in order to get that capacity, and many devices work under FAT16 so are not compatible.

In the link i posted before

http://www.japaninc.net/newsletters/?list=gw&issue=222#2

you can read the Sanyo support "unofficially" 4gb cards and will suppport SDHC standard, which will not have that 4 gb limit.

-start wonder -

I bet the important point for a 4Gb card is only the reading/writing speed, it has to be enought to the 9mb/s bitrate the HD1 outputs.

Probably the seller readed sanyo's literature and saw there supported cards are UP to 2Gb, and as a good seller (or avoiding future returns/problems/negative feedback), decided to do not sell 4gb cards.

If a ebay customer actually said it not works perhaps it was not an adequated x factor speed

- finish wonder -

With time, we will see confirmated this, i suppose.....

That article clears it up. Thanks!

I've heard from a number of sources that the Japan release date is Feb 25.

I've also heard a few people, including you Joseph, talk about it currently being available in Hong Kong.

If a camera designed in Japan is available elsewhere before it's available in Japan, is it grey market?

Or might there be other countries where it would retail earlier.

In other words - did you buy it in a shop Joseph?!

Thanks!!

Regarding Speed of SD cards:
Highest HD1 Datarate:
9Mbit=1.125MB/s

SD cards speeds are between 33x (normal cheap ones) and 133x (expensive ultra highspeed), i.e. 33*150KB=4.950MB/s so even the slowest sd cards has more than 4 times the bandwith which is needed.

2gb sd cards are usually used with FAT16 which has this 2GB limit. 4GB sd cards therefor need to be formatted in FAT32, but even with FAT32, filesize is limited to 4GB, so future 8GB cards need to support another filesystem or split the files.
As just 4GB sd cards need FAT32, some devices don't support it because it's not much needed. CF card devices usually support FAT32 to be able of using this nice small CF microdrives which are often >2GB.

Graham. I order from a seller on eBay. It was delivered direct from Hong Kong. It could very well be considered "grey market", but that does not mean it is not identical to the camera that will be released later this month in Japan. I am not sure how they are selling it so early. They obviously need to be in production way before the release date. Perhaps they are just selling them before they are supose to. The insruction manual says printed in Japan. Camera says made in Japan. Model VPC-HD1EX.

I hooked up the camera to a SD TV via svideo. I don't have a HD TV where I am now. In a dark room I could not tell the difference between the live video and the played back recorded video. When I used a bright light I still did not notice a difference in image quality. I did notice that bright areas of the image would flicker a lot on playback, but would not live.

Joseph, many SD TV's have a resolution closer to 360 pixels across, even through component input (have this problem on my 69CM) even makes MiniDV look good. Svideo tends to be limited to close to 360+ automatically. If your friendly with a store that sells true HD TV's (most have less than 720p) you can waltz in and say, "hey, look what I've got" and ask them if you can hook it up to their TV's through component. A 42 inch is great but 55 inch+ should make it more obvious. Along the lines of what Tom was talking
about, look for more latitude and information in the blacks and highlights.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/technology/circuits/16pogue.html

David Pogue has a write up on the Sanyo in today's NYTimes Feb 16 Technology section.

[Edit] oops.. someone already beat me to it.

Wayne, I was just trying to determine if the video output was compressed or not. My 1080i TV is in storage on the other coast :(

That review is right on.

Yes I know, it's just the low resolution hides it. That Times article says it pretty well, some of the words sound like ones used here, I wonder if he is reading this.

That would be funny and sad...

OK, here is the resolution chart again in auto and manual white balance:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/chartauto.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/chartmanual.MP4

A lot better color IMO.

And the chart is better aligned. Does it add some resolution? ;)

Take into account the auto is dealing with 2 or 3 different types of light sources.

And here are some outdoor clips in overcast lighting with a tripod in the same general area of the first clips to compare. This might be as good as it gets...

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/OC1.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/OC2.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/OC3.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/OC4.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/OC5.MP4

My questions and concerns are a little different than the others on this forum. I am hoping I can get some good advice on whether the HD1 will fit my slightly (ok very) different needs.

I don't have a high def camcorder. I have an old RIcoh Hi8 one but it is broken. BTW, the mechanical image stabilization on it was great. I used to shoot stills with a Minolt Maxxum and had about every accessory you could imagine including the dual flash system for portrait work. Then I got married and had kids. The Maxxum got replaced with a Canon ELPH. It doesn't matter how nice the camera if you don't have it with you. Then I went digital with a Ricoh RDC-7. I liked the pictures but the camera was SLOW - slow to power up, slow to focus, slow to release the shutter and slow to write the data. Surprisingly my wife started shooting video on it. At 320x240-15fps I had to ask "Why?" Her answer was "Because it is there and it is all I have." That meant movie mode was an important factor in an upgrade. For that reason we later upgraded to a Fuji F700. The Fuji is fast everywhere the Ricoh is slow. The dynamic range is better (still miss the latitude of film) and movies are much more tolerable. We shoot a lot of video but with a max time of 7 minutes per card it is a big limitation. However, it fits comfotably in my wife's purse and so it meets the size and availability criteria.

Now to the HD1. This would be my wife's primary camera. I don't care that it isn't as good as a larger $1400 Sony. I don't even care that there might be noise form the zoom. I can't focus or zoom the Fuji at all once I start taking a movie clip. So here are my questions:

1) How does the feel and apparant size compare to a typical compact camera like the F700 (not the ultra compacts)?

2) How well does it focus in low light? The Ricoh was horrible. The Fuji is great with its focus assist light.

2b)Heck, how does it focus in general? We missed shots on the Ricoh due to slow/poor focusing. The Fuji is fast and accurate.

3) As a still camera, can it replace my Fuji?

4) How is battery life if only taking stills? Most video we shoot is short and we shoot more stills than video.

5) How is the dynamic range if that is the correct term? I am thinking the photo equivalent of the density rating for a scanner. The Fuji is much better than the Ricoh. Shadow detail? Sky gradations?

6) How is it in low light as a still camera?

7) How is it in low light on video? I suspect it is much better than the Fuji which is poor.

8) Is handling as easy and natural as it looks?

Most posts here have talked about making movies or viewed the HD1 as a move down from a camcorder. No great epic at the Platt's house - just family video. How is the HD1 as a step up from the Fuji F700? Is the HD1 a good pocket camera or is the grain a lot worse and make it unsuitable.

Thanks for putting up with my long winded post.

Paul

Paul, not having any of the cameras you speak of, or even a compact camera any time recently, I can't answer your questions very well. But I will try since I have the HD1 ;)

1) How does the feel and apparant size compare to a typical compact camera like the F700 (not the ultra compacts)?

> It feels very small. I could not imagine using anything smaller. It feels like holding a deck of cards, but a little bigger.

2) How well does it focus in low light? The Ricoh was horrible. The Fuji is great with its focus assist light.

> I think auto focus is a little slow in general, and even worse in low light.

2b)Heck, how does it focus in general? We missed shots on the Ricoh due to slow/poor focusing. The Fuji is fast and accurate.

> Even holding the camera still, a few still shots have been blurred. You want to hold down the button half way to left it focus take effect before taking the shot. Of course I would get many blured pics from my Sony f828 also. Maybe it's just me ;)

3) As a still camera, can it replace my Fuji?

> Stills are very good in good light. Low light shots have a lot of grain.

4) How is battery life if only taking stills? Most video we shoot is short and we shoot more stills than video.

> Have not used it in that regard, but I imagine you would get better battery life then from video. The battery is rated at an hour, but you never get that. Spare battery is very small and inexpensive.

5) How is the dynamic range if that is the correct term? I am thinking the photo equivalent of the density rating for a scanner. The Fuji is much better than the Ricoh. Shadow detail? Sky gradations?

> The range seems pretty good for stills. In video much less so.

6) How is it in low light as a still camera?

> Have not tried very low light. Some of my stills posted are in pretty low light. I think there is one called trash.JPG.

7) How is it in low light on video? I suspect it is much better than the Fuji which is poor.

> Pretty noisy. trash.MP4 is pretty low light. lowlight.MP4 is very low light.

8) Is handling as easy and natural as it looks?

> It is hard to hold still as it is so small. Once you have the LCD open it is easy to control with one hand.

BTW, I have been to Duluth a few times. Like that Discover mall.

One other thing is that you really need the LCD to get a good framing. If you hold the camera straight it is actually pointing upward a good degree. In the sun the LCD is very hard to see.

Tom, so on your 50 incher did the picture look better then what you would get from a good SD camcorder? Or a SD TV broadcast?

Joseph,

Thanks for the detailed reply. I think someone can win with a great compact consumer camera that does usable (quality and recording time) video or an excellent video camera that is ok for stills. I worry if the HD1 is compromised into being mediocre at both. The HD1 video quality is better than the Fuji. The C6 certainly takes much better low light video than the Fuji based on the clips I have seen. The Fuji and Ricoh would be worthless in a dark nightclub. Your comments on low light grain in the stills concerns me a little. I'll have to compare your stills to some I have take on the Fuji. The focusing issues concern me more. My kids are 5 and 9 so movement is something we deal with. The C5 has a nice form factor. Sherri and I saw it at Sharper Image. I was worried the HD1 was a lot larger.

Does noise reduction help at all?

Not a lot of people know Duluth, GA. It's particularly fun when we go to Duluth, MN and people ask where we are from.

Paul

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/technology/circuits/16pogue.html

David Pogue has a write up on the Sanyo in today's NYTimes Feb 16 Technology section.


Jeez, you'd think that a writer in the Times technology section would know the difference between HDTV and HDV. He consistently refers to the HD1 (as well as the Sony HC1) as "HDTV" camcorders.

Good luck.

Dennis

Downloaded several MP4 clips and they can be edited in FCP. Except performance is very slow and the audio remains embedded in the video clip.

I did not even see that noise reduction feature. I tried it on and off with a couple of low light pictures and it seems to do almost nothing. Maybe even made it worse? The camera does process the pic for a few seconds. For very low light pictures they don't look horrible.

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/lowlamp.JPG
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/lowlampNR.JPG

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/lowcoke.JPG
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/lowcokeNR.JPG

Joseph,

If I remember the manual correctly, the noise reduction was for long exposures - maybe a half second or so.

Thanks again for posting all the clips. I think something is misadjusted in the camera. Even manual color balance doesn't make it B&W. It's the darker part of the picture that shows the imbalance - in other words, the black level (like individual brightness for each color). This cannot be corrected by making adjustments to compensate for light color temperature. If the black balance is correct, there will be no color with the lens capped - No light involved - no correction for different color light (there is none). It appears that the black level for ALL colors is too low, thus clipping (crushing) the blacks. In that case, you would not be able to see the black imbalance, because they are ALL too low - and thus being clipped. It almost seems as if part of the initial setup of the camera was not properly performed.

The clip of the boy eating ice cream was definitely NOT this way.

Don't know what your solution is. Maybe when more people post clips from US cameras, you might have some recourse. The ultimate objective is to show all the grey scale chips - with no color.

David, you see color in chartmanual? I just don't see it. Or are you saying you see too much black?

Maybe it's possible the print out is to blame.

I should try with the lens cap on then.

Joseph - I just want to say great work on sharing all your time performing crazy tests and posting samples...

I want to say I've been reading about this camera for a while, the sample footage of the baby I don't believe to have originated from the HD1. Also, I read on steves-forums.com that the fujiwara.wmv was also not shot with the HD1 camera.

On this japanese site, http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20060215/zooma244.htm I found extensive stills and some sample video which for sure was shot with the HD1.

I took me a long time to read through all these posts and it's funny to see everyone's different views on this cam. For the price and size of the camera you seriously can not go wrong. I'm an original owner of the C4, soon to be C6 (way improved quality) and likely will jump on the HD1 bandwagon just for cheap kicks and thrills. I REALLY REALLY can't wait to snowboard down a mountain with the camera mounted to my snowboard... or clutched tightly in my hand. NO the quality doesn't compare to a 3 CCD HD cam, but who was asking it to? There's no debate there and there shouldn't be.

I'm also really excited to see some of this footage downrezzed to SD 16:9 and put through some post for potential film making... I said potential, everyone relax ; )

Anyway I look forward to watching more clips... and look forward to some more low light shots, like a room with just a table lamp in it at 50 or 100 ISO. The C4 sucked at this, the C6 is better - I wonder about the HD1.

P.S. Download the ESM07.mov file from that Japanese site... tell me this little camera doesn't ROCK!

By the way, anyone know how the hell to get this footage to play smooth on a P2.8GHz 512MB ram??? What's up with that?

Okay, for those who refuse to read japanese I'm posting a direct link to a quicktime file which kick absolute ass... it's really the best clip I've seen so far. Maybe the people running the camera adjusted modes - who knows but either way take a look and post your feedback:

www.starcentral.ca/dvinfo/ezsm07.mov on full T1 1.54Mbps connection

Right click and select "save as" - the file is 54MB

Joseph,

That frame I sent you from my JVC is pretty much what it should be. If you see color on the chart, your monitor is wrong.

I didn't see it addressed in this thread, so apologies if it has already been asked, but has anyone (Joseph?) tried using slow speed SD cards in the HD1? I know that based on the advertised data rates it should work, but I am wondering how that translates into real life.

In particular, I am wondering if the slow Sandisk (blue) SD cards will work (i.e., the non-Ultra and the non-Extreme cards). Sandisk has slashed their prices, and two 2GB cards can be had for around $100.

I don't mind if it is slow to download the clips to my computer (I can stick them in and then go grab myself a sndwich) and I don't care about burst still performance.

I just wanted to be able to record continuously in Hi-Def at the highest bit rate (i.e., fill up the entire 2GB without skips or stops). Does anyone know if this is possible with the blue Sandisk?

Thanks!

Dennis Hingsberg, now i'm confused.

At first sight, i really like the sampled you linked. I have to do more tests, like looking for noise, pixelation etc..but i like the sample, especially closeups.

The japanese review seems to be very interesting, but using an online traductor for japanese - english and then trying to translate it to spanish, i can't understand too many info from it.

Could somebody summarize the review for me please?
just general conclusions....

I can't believe the differences between this sample an joseph's ones.
Perhaps it's only a low light factor, or the beauty of the images that distracts me, but subjectively is like night and day to me.


About the software, VLC works better for me, quicktime can't process the video without freezing in my laptop but VLC goes flawless.

Justin,

Wrongo!

2GB $73.

Justin,

Pardon! I just re-read. Do you mean two 2gb cards for $100? That's better than I've seen.

Yep, I meant two cards for a total of 4GB. Dell has them for $64 each, and there is a $25 off $150 coupon (which you can use since the regular price of two cards is over $150) floating around. I think that's a pretty solid deal, but not if I can't use it in the HD1 (which I am planning on pre-ordering).

So do you need high speed cards for the HD1 or not? I haven't read the answer to that... that or I'm blind a bit.

Dennis, that clip looks awesome. That camera from this camera??

Yes, it is funny how people can see the same clip and one person will think it's pretty good and another will thinks it is unwatchable ;)

I will try some low light clips soon.

--- Joseph

Justin, if the card can do a MB a second it should work. I don't have a low speed card to test on. My ultraII does 9-10MB a second.

David, you are right, when I do a direct compare on screen between the Sanyo and the JVC charts, the Sanyo clip has a purplish tint.

BTW, it was a real nice over cast day here today. I was out for lunch. A day made for pictures. I pulled the Sanyo out of my pocket. Opened up the LCD. Pressed the power button. The camera says (it talks if you don't know) "please insert a memory card". I left the SD card in my computer. Don't let this happen to you... ;)

I also got my i-glasses Video Pro 3D HMD today. It will be fun to try it with this camera.

When I watch the HD1 clips on my computer screen they seem on par with the HC1 clips, but when I look at my HDTV the Sanyo camera is way more noisier and has lots of artifacts, mainly on skin tones.

However some shots of Dennis post look great - namely the red rose and the small water fall.

I have my HDTV connected to my computer using DVI.

Justin, if the card can do a MB a second it should work. I don't have a low speed card to test on. My ultraII does 9-10MB a second.

I believe the Sandisk cards are supposed to be 33x, which translates to 5MB/s, which in theory should be much more than enough, but you never know what that means in the real world.

Interestingly, on Rob Galbraith's site, he reports that the standard Sandisk SD card is actually slightly faster than an Ultra II in a card to computer transfer test.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6894

Unfortunately, he doesn't have any write performance data.