...the Sanyo VPC-HD1

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sanyo-Announces-$800-First-High-Definition-SD-Recording-Camcorder.htm

I know that a similar post has been posted in the News Forum, but this really is a HiDef Camera and should have its own section Chris ;)

Personally I am very excited. Yes the quality will be nowhere near as good as the HDV cams, but the thing will cost $799 and you can slip it in your pocket. Plus at 1280x720x30p I doubt it will be much worse than the original JVC one-chipper that started it all. Plus it will have lots of manual controls - aperture, shutter speed and even an ND filter.

So I vote for a new section for this little baby :)

The camera is very low end. It is more of a still camera with video function. I think that this site is geared towards more professional tools. The Sanyo would be a nice vacation camera, probably with poor low light performance, nothing more, or does anyone want to make an indie feature, a wedding video, or an MTV clip with it?

I must agree with Petr. I'm trying to steer DV Info Net more toward the middle to high end. Camcorder Info already does an excellent job of covering the consumer range.

The camera is very low end. It is more of a still camera with video function. I think that this site is geared towards more professional tools. The Sanyo would be a nice vacation camera, probably with poor low light performance, nothing more, or does anyone want to make an indie feature, a wedding video, or an MTV clip with it?

True, but I bet it could be mounted in places where even the HC1 would not fit...

I agree with Petr and Chris too...
Otherwise we could make all new subboards for every new consumercam that comes on the market... And we would end up with empty boards with little and most likely unusefull information for the people that mostly visit this site/forum...

I still think that somebody should test this camera, because depending on which version of mpeg4 and how long the gop is (as with a solid state format you only need a key frame when needed for scene changes = a fraction of the keyframes of the normal HDV) this 9.3Mb/s could match the JVC HD1. I hold little hope, but worth a check out under extreme scene movement/changes, checking for fine pixel blocking.

Then that somebody should be you, Wayne.

I would love to (and to keep it) but I'm spending the money on another camera. But I didn't mean somebody "should" should, but that it is still worth somebody with the camera doing it, or that it is a professional camera that requires a forum. My apologies for saying it the wrong way.

Thanks.

The demo footage didn't impress over at camcorderinfo, so maybe that is the way it is heading. Another reason I don't want to buy the Sanyo yet (apart from no 25fps support) is that I'm waiting to see equivalent cameras based on the ambarella chip which uses a better quality Mpeg4 part 10, h264 assuming, that the Sanyo only uses regular mpeg4, as seems to be the case). I'm only hoping for a match with the JVC HD1, not the superior HC1. So I would be willing to do a comparison, except I lack the cameras and money to buy them all.

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sanyo-VPC-HD1-First-Impressions-Camcorder-Review.htm

Just forget it Wayne. Can you imagine any pro showing up with this camera at a client? The camera has something like 5 MP on 1/2.5" CCD. Do you think that the Sanyo lens will resolve this? What F-stop does the camera have at the max. telephoto setting? What's the wide angle? I'm sure it would be called normal angle by everyone else but Sanyo. Do you know what reputation Sanyo has among consumers? Very little! How about among professionals? Sanyo always made low end electronics. They always cut corners. The brand has no quality image. Their products live up to their image, so most of the stuff they make they have to OEM to others, because no one really wants a Sanyo. Nice toy though.

Although i usually dislike the "theoretical without a theory" discussions about untested products, i am going, this time to feed these speculations:

Remark 1: if i look at the MPEG4 "realtime" encoding performed by the previous SD versions of the xacti, we may fear the worse. I have experimented on these; it turns out that the definition is NOT at ALL what it claims to be. Supposedly "dv quality" turns to be indeed nearer to 400*300 rather than 720*576. And it is also true that any decent MPEG4 encoder will recompress the Sanyo stream by a factor of 3 to 4 without loosing any "visible quality", which "clearly" shows the poor efficiency of the "online encoding" techniques used in this case.

Remark 2: editing such footage will add to the nightmare. To the best of my knowledge MPEG4 is uneditable natively to day on classical machines. ( Is it really anywhere?). Therefore an other conversion will be needed , in which format ? Cineform style AVI ? We just ask them here...

Lest Wait and Test and See...

Yes, http://www.ambarella.com/technology/compression.htm mentioned competitor's mpeg4 h264 solution using mpeg2 compression with mpeg4 syntax. I wonder if this is the sort of thing meant? We can only hope for a change, and even for them to be using the ambarella chip, but ambarella should have been crowing about it if they were.

It is funny, I notice a picture of a camera on their front page, which camera is that? It is using a yellow VW Beetle on the LCD screen similar to what I've seen on a promo of some camera in times past.

if i look at the MPEG4 "realtime" encoding performed by the previous SD versions of the xacti, we may fear the worse..

your comparison would not be relevant to a camera that fully utilizes the h.264 specification... it's a whole lot better than the original mpeg4 codec.

one place that you are going to see those h.264 chips a lot is in cell phone video recording, believe it or not.

Yes, http://www.ambarella.com/technology/compression.htm mentioned competitor's mpeg4 h264 solution using mpeg2 compression with mpeg4 syntax. I wonder if this is the sort of thing meant?

it meant that the competitor's mpeg4 h.264 solution did not fully utilize the h.264 spec, so the picture quality was less than optimal... it was still h.264 video, but not as good as it could have been.

for example, several weeks ago i encoded several nero h.264 files for the ipod, as a test for someone out here at dvinfo.net... i can't find the thread right now, but his ipod would not play h.264 that used bi-directional prediction(aka, "quicktime compatible", as nero called it).

which means that the ipod is not fully h.264 compatible... you have to cripple the picture quality of your video encoding to get the file to play on the ipod.

you have to understand the effects of things like bi-directional prediction to fully appreciate what h.264 offers.

Yes, that's what I meant. This cameras codec might be an improvement over previous models, and the full h264 one I mentioned, might be an improvement over it.

That bi-directional prediction, is that where is looks for a visual detail match in subsequent or previous frames?

I have further news.

I have been doing further research, and would definitely advise comparing this camcorder to competing offerings during the year.

Here is a review with some footage:

http://www.akihabaranews.com/news-10951-AKIBA+Sanyo+Xacti+DMX-HD1%2C+the+monster!.html

Here is somebody that has seen footage, and other Sanyo/mpeg4 users talking about their experiences with previous models, improvements, and mpeg4 encoding.

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sanyo-VPC-HD1-First-Impressions-Camcorder-Review.htm

your comparison would not be relevant to a camera that fully utilizes the h.264 specification... it's a whole lot better than the original mpeg4 codec.

one place that you are going to see those h.264 chips a lot is in cell phone video recording, believe it or not.

Have you got definite confirmation, details, models, or timing on that?

I find this interesting, the HD version have around 450MW-1W of power consumption, thats a lot for a Mobile.

That camera on their homepage, is that a JVC or Sony?

you would not shoot hd resolution with a cellphone, so the power consumption would be a whole lot less... divide it by a factor of 4 or more, depending on the frame size... what i saw awhile back was an obscure japanese website that referenced h.264 in cellphone engineering; i think that a lot of what is happening there is proprietary, which is why you don't see much on it.

thanks for the links... it's funny how the people that write for camcorderinfo.com are so technically inept.

not sure what that camera picture is? unless it uses h.264, i personally would not buy this sanyo... greater things are coming! i was very impressed by the fact that it had an external mic jack, tho.

you would not shoot hd resolution with a cellphone, so the power consumption would be a whole lot less... divide it by a factor of 4 or more, depending on the frame size... what i saw awhile back was an obscure japanese website that referenced h.264 in cellphone engineering; i think that a lot of what is happening there is proprietary, which is why you don't see much on it.

thanks for the links... it's funny how the people that write for camcorderinfo.com are so technically inept.

not sure what that camera picture is? unless it uses h.264, i personally would not buy this sanyo... greater things are coming! i was very impressed by the fact that it had an external mic jack, tho.

Although, at last year's MacWorld keynote address Steve Jobs was talking about the upcoming implementation of H.264. He said it was a highly efficient codec capable of being 'scaled' from cell phone all the way to full HD resolution. So I think it's likely we will see it show up as a content delivery method to cellphones and perhas as an acquistion codec for their implemented video cameras.

Time will tell...

-gb-

There has been some sample footage put up, not much for now:

http://www.akihabaranews.com/news-10951-AKIBA+Sanyo+Xacti+DMX-HD1%2C+the+monster!.html
http://images.akihabaranews.com/news_pics/10951/SANY0001.MP4


Found out some interesting stuff about that ambarella h264 chip (data rates and pro version) and am starting a new thread here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=413403#post413403


There has been an announcement of a new Samsung h264 camera:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=58261

I am getting one of these little babies. They are on sale at Amazon for pre-order - $799.

Can you imagine any pro showing up with this camera at a client?

Mount a long shotgun mic on it then ;) LOL

No seriously, I think the pro applications would be to mount them in places where you would not otherwise be able to mount other HD cams. A few examples that come to mind - skydiver's helmet, four of them at different parts of a racing car for different views around a lap, etc...

Thanks for the footage link Wayne, I was looking for that !

Look at the 0.6X wide lens :) looks funny.

EDIT:

Just viewed the footage, not as bad as I thouught it would be, BUT guys take a look at the wepage that Wayne posted:

http://www.akihabaranews.com/news-10951-AKIBA+Sanyo+Xacti+DMX-HD1%2C+the+monster!.html

and view the FLASH VIDEO, this was actually shot on the XACTI HD1 (from what I gather) and downsized for web compression and it looks very good indeed

Anhar

Mount a long shotgun mic on it then ;) LOL

No seriously, I think the pro applications would be to mount them in places where you would not otherwise be able to mount other HD cams. A few examples that come to mind - skydiver's helmet, four of them at different parts of a racing car for different views around a lap, etc...

Yes, I am interested in a camera for high movement footage too, and the 9Mb/s sample footage isn't complex enough to tell anything, and I would prefer 25MB/s h264 myself.

Anhar, that footage (first file) comes up as 1280*720 in vlc, what is it coming up as in yours?

Here are some comparison links of h264, WMV and mpeg2 frames from a DVD transcoder called Nero Recode (in NeroVision Express 3):

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=414608&postcount=8

Yep its 720P same as you.

Anhar

I've been keeping an eye on ebay to see when the DMX-HD1 shows up. Looks like it just did. Pretty expensive though!
Bob C

OMFG! You are right, its already for sale on E-Bay. So I guess it is out and about in Japan already. Too bad we have to wait until March :(

That guy wants to make a killing selling it at $1340!!!

New thread, another clip:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=58228

Anhar, are you sure the flash window contains footage from the Sanyo HD1 camera?

Thanks

Wayne

Yes Wayne I'm pretty sure, he uses the remote control to switch it off. Also it was discussed over at camcorderinfo, hence from the disscussion I was able to find out that it was shot on the Sanyo, the outdoor was very nice and indoor shots of the big projection was very clean as well, however with that web compression it is difficult to be sure.

P.S you spelt my name wrong :)


Anhar

So somebody had definite confirmation of that, it was a Sanyo remote in his hand?

Can anybody tell me how I can download that footage to a file, because it just goes troppo trying to play in flash and then wants you to reload it to play it again, argh..? (flash video controls)

P.S you spelt my name wrong :)
Anhar

Sorry about that.

Thanks for your help.

Wayne.

Wayne, I've found that the best thing to do is, hit play then wait for the progress bar to move a little then hit pause again and wait for it to load completly, then also if you right clip in the flash window and click on the folder icon then slide the little slider to the right to allow you to store more MB's on your local hardrive then it will not need to reload everytime.

Hope that helps

P.S

My name Anhar is an arabic name chosen by my late grandmother, it means river or rivers, the same as the famous actor River Phoenix (1980s).

However many people get my name confused with Anwar (a very popular arabic name) which means the brightest.

Just for laughs, I found out that your name is an Old English for a Waggon maker !


Anhar

Oh dear guys, I may have been wrong, take a look at the remotes:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e320/Anhar/XACTIHD1_remote.jpg


Anhar

Thanks Anhar, but I need to get it outside of flash into VLC to view it properly, enlarge and slow down. But as it seems to be a different camera remote it probably doesn't matter (mind you, that burn out on his head is what you would expect to see on the HD1 anyway). If you have a better copy of the image, you might be able to make out the brand name on the remote). I've already asked them if they would put up the flash as a file.


P.S

My name Anhar is an arabic name chosen by my late grandmother, it means river or rivers, the same as the famous actor River Phoenix (1980s).

However many people get my name confused with Anwar (a very popular arabic name) which means the brightest.

Just for laughs, I found out that your name is an Old English for a Waggon maker !
Anhar

Yeah, car designs, sigh, well all be flying in future ;).

Actually, if you look at my name you see it has a root of More, which probably comes from the Mores, which were a group of Muslim Berbers from North Africa that invaded Spain.