Try VLC. It seems to be a lot smoother.

Ginger, I tried a still shot in while recording video in 640x480 mode at 30 and 60 FPS and still see a pause in the video when played back. And yes I think HD mode looks way beter then SD mode. I will post some sample clips in a bit.

Here are some sample clips taken outside on an pretty sunny day.

They all use ISO 50, F6.8, Auto shutter, Sunny WB, and the ND filter.

They don't look as good as the AT batch I did last time IMO. It might be due to the outdoor lighting, as it was not ideal overcast like the other day.

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/AT1.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/AT2.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/AT3.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/AT4.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/AT5.MP4

Here is the same general #2 clip, but in Black and White filter mode.

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/AT2BW.MP4

Some SD (640x480) samples at 30 and 60 FPS. The freeze in the middle is due to a still shot taken during the video. It is hard to see as there is not much movement.

www.gamersden.com/hd1test/ATSD30.MP4
www.gamersden.com/hd1test/ATSD60.MP4

Wow!!!!! there really is a huge difference. I was always under the impression that HD makes no difference if it is not played back on a HD format monitor. That does not seem to be the case here. What am I missing?

Now that you have had a few days to play with your new camera, what are your impressions? Do you consider it a great camera? What are its pro's and con's as far as you can tell?

Your feedback has been amazing on this thread- thank you so much for all of your input!!!!!!!! It's really been helpful.

The HD mode has three times the resolution as the SD mode. If you viewing it on a typical computer, you will see three times the detail, because the computer has a high resolution display. If you are watching it on a SD TV, you might not see a difference, because the TV has a lower resolution. Just depends on the output device you are viewing the video on.
It is a great camera for portability. It takes very good still pictures. The flash works well. It has great manual controls. Great remote control functionality. Takes pretty good HD video under controlled conditions.
The auto focus is a bit slow. In auto mode it does not shoot the best video. It is not very good at all for video in low light. The battery does not last very long. The LCD is very hard to see in any sunlight. Remote does not respond well in sunlight. It is hard to hold still freehand. The image stabilizer does not help much.

Because the picture is 1280*720p downsized (probably to a 720*480 frame). The details and edges might look more well defined. But the other big factor is that you have 9Mb/s+ codec collecting much more detail than the little 3Mb/s VGA codec.

One thing I did find interesting. I examined the SD clips of the water from the Japanese site, and the 3Mb/s frame looked better than the 6Mb/s 60fps frame. The water seems bazaar, but maybe it is a reflection. But when I examined the top of the group of high trees in the background I found the opposite, the 6Mb/s frame seemed to have more definition. Of course, the 9Mb/s 720p version looked slightly better again.

I would be interested in how DVD down conversion would go, it might turn out very good, in that case, this would be an interesting camera for company training videos (as well as family flicks).

Yes, VLC as Robert said. If you still have trouble then slow down the playback to 50% and less. You might be able to use this trick on your existing Quicklime as well.

I wonder if the clear correspondence between increased resolution and increased bandwidth is an indication that this is the limit of what even a consumer camera company will try (VGA 30fps-3Mb/s, 60fps-6Mb/s, 720p-9Mb/s)?

Sunny day tests
 

Joseph, this clips are comparable to plans of the japonese review for far subjects (IMO acceptable and better than your first set) and your closeup plans are very good ?. Obviously, he camera is not at its best for strong ligths, high contrasts and far subjects. Your number 5 is not good at all (may be a pb with focus or stabilizer ?).
Because the aperture is the same than previous overcast day, (IMO very good), may be is there also a pb with fast shutter speeds. In these case (sunny day),you can try to set the minimum aperture (8) to oblige the cam to set the shutter speed to a lower level.
If this does not work, you can buy an external ND filter (lense) to add more light reduction.
PS: I don't know if the aperture is truly comparable to 35mm photo cameras, but with 100 ISO films (the real ISO selected when you choose 50 in the video mode, cf user manual), if you choose a 6.8 aperture you get a shutter speed faster than 1/1000 on a sunny day (on this kind of cam, you choose 11 or 16 aperture).

Luc-Henri

Joseph,

I was reading about shutter speed in the manual and couldn't get specifics on what the different shutter speed options are. It just seemed to give minimum and maximum. Is it possible to do 1/60?

Also, wondering if you turn off the HD1 and return a week later will it still be set like you had it? Or does powering it off mean manual settings are all forgotten?

Thanks for all your hard work.

Graham

Low Shutter speeds
 

Wayne,
what do you think of the fact that this cam is better at low shutter speeds ? Can this help the mp4 encoder ? Could we suppose that because fast movement is naturaly (physicaly) blurred the encoder don't detect it as something to encode ?

Luc-Henri

I don't really know, maybe the blur destroys information and replaces it with macro blocks (seen a bit of that in the clips, but haven't seen the latest clips). But one thing I have noticed, is that the the waves, bubbles, etc contain a lot of curved features/edges that is replicated rather than dropped in resolution. Is there some sort of function for curved data in Mpeg4, that would help with curved data, as you don't really know what you are looking at anyway?

The lower shutter speed definitely picks up more light, reducing noise, I don't know how it affects latitude though. On the HC1, one guy decreased shutter speed to 1/500-1/1000 a second to clean up motion (still seems to be macro blocking in the waves) he also tried different modes that helped I think. That Japanese article mentioned some about mode changing, what was that about?


Thanks

Wayne.

Luc-Henri, With the settings I posted I was getting shutter speeds of 100-150 in the sun. 1/12 to 1/22 in the shade. The ND filter was on. I still don't know what the thread size is on the camera. They hide it well. #5 is 10X zoomed. I guess we need one more test with a f3.5 and low shutter speeds on an overcast day to see if the shutter speed or the f stop is more important.

Graham, the manual shutter speeds are: 4S, 2S, 1S, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/100, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/1500, and 1/2000. I think they mean if there is no primary battery power, in about a week your settings will be lost, because the internal battery will run out. Not using the camera for a week is a test I WON'T try ;)

Last tests
 

Thanks Joseph. I think that speeds like 1/100 or 1/150 are not very high speeds and may be it's why your last outside clips are better (combined with the increased depth field of f 6.8). But may be the more natural blur (the blur we use to see in movies) induced by 1/30 or 1/60 speed can also mask some mp4 artifacts ? Of course it is difficult to get this values on an sunny day (with a min of f8), and not satisfactory when we have a fast moving subject to shoot.
What do you mean by "I still don't know what the thread size is on the camera" ? (My English is not perfect :<)

Luc-Henri

Luc-Henri, the thread size in mm to attach a filter or lens. This information is not documented anywhere.