Detailed Review of Panasonic HDC SD-1 at DVinfo.net

Peter Solmssen · December 13th, 2006, 04:57 AM

The careful Japanese reviewer whose name is machine translated to "Small Temple Trust" has published his report on the Panasonic HDC SD-1. A machine translated version is available at:
http://tinyurl.com/ykzgu3

Wayne Morellini · December 13th, 2006, 08:23 AM

You beat me too it ;). Been sitting on that site for an month waiting for the review.

Here is the link to the actual page:
http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl...006-17,GGGL:en

Looks interesting. What does everybody make of it? There are a few concerns there, but I can't decipher them. I also can't tell what they thought of the camera compared to the Sony AVCHD models.

Mike Lewis · December 13th, 2006, 01:06 PM

While the low light performance has yet to be established, from the 106Mb m2ts file in that review, looks remarkable similiar in definition and latitude to my Sanyo!! Maybe the image stabiliser is better: that's the let down on the Sanyo, though I note that the Panny shots in that clip are tripod based.

Hse Kha · December 13th, 2006, 06:21 PM

So glad to see some real unedited raw footage and...

Well this confirmed my initial fear of having such lowly res CCDs. What is the point of 3 CDDs when they are such low resolution? In my opinion there is no comparison to the 1 Chip of the Canon HV-10 or even the Sony HC3, etc.

OK, OK the colors may be more accurate by a little bit (of noticeable at all), but resolution is way more important to the overal image quality. Give me half a CCD with high res than 10 CCDs with such ridiculously low pixel count.

Very sad. I was really looking forward to the first ever Solid State HD Camcorder (consumer model), but then again Panasonic have never been one to use high res sensors...

I wish Canon would come out with the AVCHD camcorder with the exact same sensor and lens as in the HV10, but put it in a nice small body and use SD cards and allow the full bit rate of 24Mbps AND the full 1920x1080 resolution that AVCHD allows (no 1440x1080). That would be somethng... :)

P.S. Not to mention the crazy price of US $1499 for this camcorder AND the huge size! Bigger than the Canon HV10! Well done Panny...

Paulo Teixeira · December 13th, 2006, 08:49 PM

Compared to the SR1, the SD-1 doesn’t have a focusing ring and a microphone input and the SD1 has a constant bit rate of 13MBPS while the SR1 has variable bit rate of about 15MBPS than can probably go up to 18MBPS so it shouldn’t be surprising for the picture quality of the SD1 to not be better than the picture quality of the SR1 because of the lower bit rate but the SD1 does have an optical image stabilizer and it is a lot more compact than the SR1.

Not a bad little camcorder but the price should be around 1200 dollars since its competing with the HV10.

Paulo Teixeira · December 13th, 2006, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hse Kha

P.S. Not to mention the crazy price of US $1499 for this camcorder AND the huge size! Bigger than the Canon HV10!

I think the size is fairly similar. You make it seam like its a lot bigger.

Wayne Morellini · December 13th, 2006, 09:10 PM

More like $499. You see the plastic on the fold put port cover. But let me ask, as this is hard to read the translation:

Are they actually saying it is lower resolution then the Sony, or is that based off off the resolution of the pixel shifted chips?
You can get real resolution out of pixel shift, if the manufacturer chooses to offer it.

Those downloads are reseting everytime I try to resume them, I am going away and I doubt I will have time to download them all. So, can somebody tell me, is there any low light footage to prove the statement that Sanyo is them same, because Sanyo is bad, maybe they are shooting even lower light?

Is there any properly done footage of high contrast, the shots we saw earlier seem to indicate it is better than Sanyo HD1a? But much depends on handling of camera exposure and filters in these (and also the effect of latitude of Earth on sun brightness).

Is it really saying that noise is better than Sony AVCHD cameras, or am I misreading that?

I would love it, as long as the above issues are not a problem and price is half.

Douglas Spotted Eagle · December 13th, 2006, 09:31 PM

Given that it's a translation by software, what you are reading is likely very far off from accurate; we've seen this time and time again.
The images/footage posted are not raw images, if I'm understanding the translation correctly (and I'm probably not) so who knows what compression/encoder/software was used to create the on-line versions.

Guy Bruner · December 14th, 2006, 01:45 PM

The M2TS downloads are raw footage.

Douglas Spotted Eagle · December 14th, 2006, 02:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guy Bruner

The M2TS downloads are raw footage.

Ouch. Based on the "With Adobe Premiere Elements+VAIO Edit Component to compile the image which photographed and have knocked down and mix to 2ch. As for bit rate 15Mbps. You encode WMV type with 10Mbps VBR" and the "Editorial staff note: As for the animated picture sample, H.264 when photographing (.m2ts) with, the WMV type which is encoded with 10Mbps VBR. As for playback environment because it differs depending upon video card and driver, OS and the playback software, guarantee of playback of the animated picture which is published is unable to do." comments, I'd assumed they'd gone into Premiere Elements to convert the footage.
I hope it's my decoder making those downloads look as poor as they do?

Paulo Teixeira · December 14th, 2006, 05:04 PM

The fact that the camcorder’s CCDs are ¼” makes the price somewhat justifiable doesn’t it? The low light capabilities should be very good. Panasonic kept the pixel count that low to increase the light sensitivity even more.

Either Nero, Divx or VLC should have a priority in fixing the playback issues.

Anyway, CES is just around the corner so if you don’t like the camcorders that are out already then you may like some of the camcorders that may be showing.

Douglas Spotted Eagle · December 14th, 2006, 06:18 PM

The speed of your computer would only affect framerate of playback, not quality of frame content. However, if you have a poor decoder/cheap decoder it could affect quality of image.

Guy Bruner · December 14th, 2006, 07:29 PM

Spot,
I took that to mean that they encoded the WMV that way. The M2TS files that I have seen are raw as far as I can tell. There are other raw MTS and M2TS files posted around the 'Net and the video look similar. I would love to be wrong because I'm not impressed with the resolution.

David Ziegelheim · December 14th, 2006, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hse Kha

I wish Canon would come out with the AVCHD camcorder with the exact same sensor and lens as in the HV10, but put it in a nice small body and use SD cards and allow the full bit rate of 24Mbps AND the full 1920x1080 resolution that AVCHD allows (no 1440x1080). That would be somethng... :)

Just as long as you are aware this is a 3-sensor camera and the Canon is a one sensor Bayer filter camera. So the Canon's resolution is actually a bit less. Which is not to say it isn't a great camera...if it only had audio input!

Cliff Gilmour · December 18th, 2006, 08:36 AM

For some reason I can not play the raw footage on my MacBook but am I right in concluding that you all think that this is a too expensive camera, especially compared to the Sanyo HD1a which does almost the same job at half the price?

December 13th, 2006, 04:57 AM	#1
Peter Solmssen Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Palo Alto, CA Posts: 133	Detailed Review of Panasonic HDC SD-1 The careful Japanese reviewer whose name is machine translated to "Small Temple Trust" has published his report on the Panasonic HDC SD-1. A machine translated version is available at: http://tinyurl.com/ykzgu3

December 13th, 2006, 06:21 PM	#4
Hse Kha Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: New England Posts: 195	So glad to see some real unedited raw footage and... Well this confirmed my initial fear of having such lowly res CCDs. What is the point of 3 CDDs when they are such low resolution? In my opinion there is no comparison to the 1 Chip of the Canon HV-10 or even the Sony HC3, etc. OK, OK the colors may be more accurate by a little bit (of noticeable at all), but resolution is way more important to the overal image quality. Give me half a CCD with high res than 10 CCDs with such ridiculously low pixel count. Very sad. I was really looking forward to the first ever Solid State HD Camcorder (consumer model), but then again Panasonic have never been one to use high res sensors... I wish Canon would come out with the AVCHD camcorder with the exact same sensor and lens as in the HV10, but put it in a nice small body and use SD cards and allow the full bit rate of 24Mbps AND the full 1920x1080 resolution that AVCHD allows (no 1440x1080). That would be somethng... :) P.S. Not to mention the crazy price of US $1499 for this camcorder AND the huge size! Bigger than the Canon HV10! Well done Panny... Last edited by Chris Hurd; December 13th, 2006 at 11:10 PM. Reason: meta

December 13th, 2006, 08:49 PM	#5
Paulo Teixeira Trustee Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 1,773	Compared to the SR1, the SD-1 doesn’t have a focusing ring and a microphone input and the SD1 has a constant bit rate of 13MBPS while the SR1 has variable bit rate of about 15MBPS than can probably go up to 18MBPS so it shouldn’t be surprising for the picture quality of the SD1 to not be better than the picture quality of the SR1 because of the lower bit rate but the SD1 does have an optical image stabilizer and it is a lot more compact than the SR1. Not a bad little camcorder but the price should be around 1200 dollars since its competing with the HV10. __________________ https://www.youtube.com/user/PhotoVi...esEtc/featured https://www.pond5.com/artist/paulot

December 13th, 2006, 09:31 PM	#8
Douglas Spotted Eagle VASST Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Stockton, UT Posts: 5,648	Given that it's a translation by software, what you are reading is likely very far off from accurate; we've seen this time and time again. The images/footage posted are not raw images, if I'm understanding the translation correctly (and I'm probably not) so who knows what compression/encoder/software was used to create the on-line versions. __________________ Douglas Spotted Eagle/Spot Author, producer, composer Certified Sony Vegas Trainer http://www.vasst.com

December 14th, 2006, 05:04 PM	#11
Paulo Teixeira Trustee Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 1,773	The fact that the camcorder’s CCDs are ¼” makes the price somewhat justifiable doesn’t it? The low light capabilities should be very good. Panasonic kept the pixel count that low to increase the light sensitivity even more. Either Nero, Divx or VLC should have a priority in fixing the playback issues. Anyway, CES is just around the corner so if you don’t like the camcorders that are out already then you may like some of the camcorders that may be showing. __________________ https://www.youtube.com/user/PhotoVi...esEtc/featured https://www.pond5.com/artist/paulot

December 13th, 2006, 08:23 AM	#2
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	You beat me too it ;). Been sitting on that site for an month waiting for the review. Here is the link to the actual page: http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl...006-17,GGGL:en Looks interesting. What does everybody make of it? There are a few concerns there, but I can't decipher them. I also can't tell what they thought of the camera compared to the Sony AVCHD models.

December 13th, 2006, 01:06 PM	#3
Mike Lewis Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Cheshire UK Posts: 96	While the low light performance has yet to be established, from the 106Mb m2ts file in that review, looks remarkable similiar in definition and latitude to my Sanyo!! Maybe the image stabiliser is better: that's the let down on the Sanyo, though I note that the Panny shots in that clip are tripod based.

December 13th, 2006, 09:10 PM	#7
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	More like $499. You see the plastic on the fold put port cover. But let me ask, as this is hard to read the translation: Are they actually saying it is lower resolution then the Sony, or is that based off off the resolution of the pixel shifted chips? You can get real resolution out of pixel shift, if the manufacturer chooses to offer it. Those downloads are reseting everytime I try to resume them, I am going away and I doubt I will have time to download them all. So, can somebody tell me, is there any low light footage to prove the statement that Sanyo is them same, because Sanyo is bad, maybe they are shooting even lower light? Is there any properly done footage of high contrast, the shots we saw earlier seem to indicate it is better than Sanyo HD1a? But much depends on handling of camera exposure and filters in these (and also the effect of latitude of Earth on sun brightness). Is it really saying that noise is better than Sony AVCHD cameras, or am I misreading that? I would love it, as long as the above issues are not a problem and price is half.

December 14th, 2006, 01:45 PM	#9
Guy Bruner Major Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Ashford, AL Posts: 937	The M2TS downloads are raw footage.

December 14th, 2006, 06:18 PM	#12
Douglas Spotted Eagle VASST Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Stockton, UT Posts: 5,648	The speed of your computer would only affect framerate of playback, not quality of frame content. However, if you have a poor decoder/cheap decoder it could affect quality of image. __________________ Douglas Spotted Eagle/Spot Author, producer, composer Certified Sony Vegas Trainer http://www.vasst.com

December 14th, 2006, 07:29 PM	#13
Guy Bruner Major Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Ashford, AL Posts: 937	Spot, I took that to mean that they encoded the WMV that way. The M2TS files that I have seen are raw as far as I can tell. There are other raw MTS and M2TS files posted around the 'Net and the video look similar. I would love to be wrong because I'm not impressed with the resolution.

December 18th, 2006, 08:36 AM	#15
Cliff Gilmour New Boot Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Amsterdam Netherlands Posts: 21	For some reason I can not play the raw footage on my MacBook but am I right in concluding that you all think that this is a too expensive camera, especially compared to the Sanyo HD1a which does almost the same job at half the price?