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.

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

Instructions PDF:

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/Camera_GB.pdf

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)?

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.

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

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...

As soon as I have a chance, I will take indoor clips with proper lighting.

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 ;-)

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.

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