not sure if this has been posted on this site already somewhere, but anyway, here it is (from a Japanese webs site's test & review) :

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fav%2Fdocs%2F20061025%2Fzooma277.htm&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Some sample shots at various focal lengths and all kinds of other useful pics, (and the auto-translated text of course)

From the translated article...

"As for the knitting machine it can photograph also 30p and 24p not only 60i, but, the selector switch of the hardware is not attached to XL H1."

Man, reading this stuff will mess with your head :)

John

"But the menu button is attached by side, uses somewhat and the selfishness is bad."

"Because it is different from the national welfare machine,"

full review? is this a joke?

the translation alone means this is a joke...right?


Anyone who could make their purchase decision from this 'full' review is nuts!

Haha, welfare machine...

You are not familiar with google automatic translation function right? (this is already stated in the first post, did u just click on the link?)

Original page:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20061025/zooma277.htm

In its native language i guess the "full" review is pretty sweet.

i gave up after the thrid paragraph and then I just scrolled down to go view the pictures :p

Those translations are a scream. But there are some good photos.

I barely see any difference at all between the lightest and highest skin detail options on the grabs that were posted.

Sky detail is also very subtle.

The image control options is a thing of beauty. The difference between the different levels is very clear and it looks amazing what can be done.

Wundering about these two HDV cameras, which are in the same price range, and how theycompair. I realize it may require a field release to fairly study the XH-A1. but, has anyone found a link to a magazine shootout review?

Translation: complete crap, forget it!

Skin & Sky detail modes: barely visible

Video/Cine control: beautiful!

Hardware details: composite output A/V1/V2 switch (what is that?), PLUS BNC - why?!!

The video is not that good. A lot of overexposed stuff and flat looking colors with no texture. But I'm 100% it was probably this guy's first time. Kaku's videos are WAY BETTER. I mean WAY!

Stu -

Thanks a lot for posting the link. Any information revealed before a product is released is valuable and interesting.

For those of us who don't understand lexical complexities and nuances of automated translation, there's always original Japanese version :)

I agree, Kaku's footage was better technically, but this article is still very much worth reading.

It seems less important, but I absolutely love the idea of internal battery compartment. It promises to improve camera performance in extreme cold weather and I think it will.

The skin detail is subtle, but it works. We should remember, it's HD. Not so easy to make it as smooth as in SD. Canon's high resolution does not make it easier :)

For now, just patiently waiting for XH-A1...

"After all, like A1/G1 being thorough, unless it penetrates, perhaps it is not being met the expectation of the user easily."

Classic.

This is why when we get scripts translated we use native speakers of the language. Literal word translations can be very amusing. One of my favorites was the Chevy Nova. When they started selling the car in Mexico and other Latin American countries, they discovered that no va means it won't go. And I was doing a French translation one time when the translator called me up, still laughing like crazy. Turns out one of the brand names was a dirty word in French.

Oh yeah, it happens quite frequently. In Poland for example, OSRAM is marketing their lighting equipment, but their brand name is quite dirty word in Polish, very close to sh*t. Coca Cola had similar problems in some countries as far as I heard.

Let's just get what we can from this particular article and have fun of all the rest without complaining too much. Hey, at least we can have some laugh which original version does not deliver, and article is still useful.

Or there was that time when the foreign furniture company tried to sell a dining room set in the United States under the name "Notable" and it failed miserably because everyone thought it didn't come with the table.

The classic example of this kind of horribly literal mistranslation is the infamous Portuguese-English phrasebook English As She Is Spoke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_she_is_spoke).

:)

I am always amazed by how well Japanese and Chinese (and of course many other Asian languages) native speakers manage with the English language as their own languages are fundamentally different in their construction.

The automated translation software gives us a tiny insight into the mental gymnastics that are being performed daily by some non-native English speakers on these fora. Respect...

TT

I second that.

Thank you Tony -- that's really a very good way to (finally) close out this thread.