First Sanyo HD1A Review. Impressive
 

Finally, the first HD1A review with tons of raw video samples:

http://hd1a.com/2006/qualle.MP4
http://hd1a.com/2006/fish.MP4
http://hd1a.com/2006/elephantbaby.MP4
http://hd1a.com/2006/poorguy.MP4
http://hd1a.com/2006/aspirin.MP4
http://hd1a.com/2006/aspirin_zoom.MP4
http://hd1a.com/2006/thinkpad.MP4

Looks good. I wonder if there will be a firmware update for the HD1 such that it fixes the jaggies issue. You would think that the HD1a firmware would work on the HD1.

Maybe I´m wrong, but i think the jaggies are still there. Have a look at the jellyfish footage... are you sure that the problem has been resolved?

I was just reffering to what the reviewer was saying. He mentioned that the Jaggies were gone. Otherwise the HD1a comes with a lower resolution LCD screen which makes it an inferior model to the HD1. Unless the video quality is somehow better on the HD1a, I'll take an HD1 over it anyday. I thing the HD1a also comes with a diferent remote that may not have shutter on it.

It seems to me that the jaggie is finally fixed, and the overall encoding quality has been improved. I don't know about the low light performance, but nonetheless it is a noteworthy upgrade.

--

ha, nevermind. Jeggies are not gone yet. It may be less prominent but existent. doh!
I see it at thinkpad footage.

I too spot the jaggies. I can't tell if they are any different; it'll take a sample with strong angles to know if changes exist.

As I understand it, Sanyo said that there was no change to the compression algorithms. If you look at the sad shot of the orangutan (poorguy) then at the top right there is a down to the right angled diagonal which shows the same issue.
Having said that, and now mainly watching my video on an HDTV rather than a PC, I am moving to the view that it really is not that big a problem.

Nice review there :-)

I too am a little worried (or was) about the 'jagged lines' but I got a theory...

Is this because people are watching he footage on a computer or does this happen when it is burned on to DVD then watched on a 'normal' screen?

I don't see the lines that some people are talking about, maybe I'm just missing them, but the footage I have seen so far on the net seem pretty good to me.

As in another post, I have a JVC MC500 and it's a pain to use, although it is a good camera, I just want something a little more, usable.

Kia.

Possible work around for the diagonal problem (before continuing, it is not cheap).

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...281#post544281

So, the diagonals on this new camera are definitely there?

Low light
 

It looks different some how. The low light ability might be better (can somebody confirm). The noise looks different, but the frames look speckled, like film grain. Macro blocking is extensive, but the choices of where those blocks go is interesting. Notice the blue on the lower left of the track pad, there is heap of blocking and low definition there (but this is 4:2:0). The diagonals look different but unacceptable. If it wasn't for the diagonals, and if there was an active uncompressed HDMI port I would be very interested.

The camera desperately needs a higher data rate, even 19mb/s would go well on dual layer DVD.

Does this look better or worse to you guys, and would you go as far as to make a cheap film on it?

I don't think footage from these cameras can be judged fairly unless seen on an HDTV, for which they were intended. On my 60 inch Sony HDTV the footage under discussion looks fabulous. If you study it on a computer screen from a foot away, not surprisingly you can see more noise, etc. On the TV, the fish at the zoo look like they are going to swim right into the living room.

I agree that people who plan to view video on HDTV alone will be quite pleased. I also think that represents a minority among early adopters. It's simple fact that the lossless digital format of these devices lends itself well to people who plan to do more than view on HDTV.

I think the viewing on computer is very important for a variety of reasons. Here are my main ones.

1. As resolutions on devices continue to improve, the quality issue will become more apparent.
2. The jaggies are very apparent on my projector. This is my main television unit.
3. I use a computer screen for small format viewing.

In some ways the jaggies issue is overplayed. Still, in a couple of years, all I will have for my investment is the video. I'd rather it didn't contain such defects. My issue is less to do with quality on HDTV and more to do with the limitations imposed by the flawed codec.

HDTV can often come with a number of problems for viewing, one the resolution does not match that leads to defects being blended with neighbouring pixels (a 1920*1080 screen is not good for viewing 720p to gauge what somebody with a 1280*720p screen will see, a 1366, or 1024 pixel, pixel HDTV screen would also suffer from this problem a little). TV's could suffer from lower res input (but I don't think that many would, unless analogue, where there is talk of lower resolution for copyright issues). Better TV's come with circuits to smooth out defects and hide/correct them.

Other things are that that we view our TV's as tiny boxes at great distances, but the industry is moving towards cinema like fields of view which means bigger screens/closer seating. We are already moving into the 60 inch HDTV realm, but the preference is above 80 inch+ (printable OEL should make this possible at below $1K. At these viewing distances even lossless 720p looks course.

The only way to test this accurately, (re-edit) to get an idea of what viewers with a correct HDTV setup will also see, is a 1280*720 screen with 1280*720p sampling. At a distance that approaches the widest field of use that a viewer is likely to use, without constantly shifting their vision around from side to side, which is a forwards half cinema seat (approx two thirds+ down to the front). With a computer monitor you can move it or your head until it fills this angle. (17inch 20-30cm, get a 26 inch+ for focusing ;) or zoom in.

Re-edited.

More observation on the other videos.

Is it my computer, because there is a massive amount of aliasing in the clips, in the aspirin one it can be clearly seen on all lines, in the other it leads to crawling details, such as low light desk detail, and poor chaps fur, but I think this also has to do with compression. Does anybody else see this?

I suspect they have changed the interpolation method, I do not remember this level or anti aliasing, or this much low light ability. It almost looks like, to downsize the 5m pixel bayer pattern, and produce a 720p bayer patter to transfer to video, they have simply extracted the relevant color from every block of four bayer pixels, to match a 720p bayer and then debayered that. This would produce a severe aliasing effect. A better way would be to have the sensor chip circuit so that it produced a 720p bayer using all the pixels in a 5mp bayer block, or even debayered straight to 720p video and output that. But then again, maybe something is wrong with my VLC setup/or hardware player.

Latitude in the elephant footage looks way down, even in aspirin there is white sky (or is it cloudy or sunset).

I seems to have a key frame here from 2/3rd+ the way through Poor chap, where the white balance goes to blue, in focus, with little blocking or diagonal blocking problem. Pity all none keep frames could not be this quality.

Interesting thing, is that there appears to be blocking when t eh camera is reasonably still, or zooming, but when panning there appears little blocking but it goes into shapes of blurry speckled patterns.

Something about the color looks different, much to saturated, and the slope of the gamma curve might be too gleamy (but I reserve judgement on that until I see more footage).

I have yet to examine interframe resolution properly, but I suspect it is way down on the key frames).

Summary:

I give it thumbs up for effort, Low light appears to be better, but because of aliasing (and we do not know the true lighting level in Think pad) I can not yet tell. A fail for diagonals (that is even visible from 90cm on a 17inch, or good seating with good HDTV). Latitude and this aliasing is a thumbs down. Colour and he gamma curve I am yet to decide on, but from the previous HD1a sample footage, maybe a thumbs down, to much.

Now bring on the HD2, with full manual controls, full Lanc jack, HDMI uncompressed, 19mb/s Mpeg4, or H264. With, high latitude multislope/well capacity, high fill factor, low noise and high sensitivity QE and proper binning (decreasing noise and aliasing, and increasing latitude) sensor. 10 bit HDMI uncompressed live with surround sound with camera microphone inputs. Without issues like purple dogs, lines, diagonal blocking, and other things. And we may just trust you again.

One thing I did with the clips, was convert them to SD. I still prefer SD due to it's ease of distribution (at this time), so I still like to shoot SD.

So, this cameras footage isn't amazing when viewed in HD. However I took it into After Effects on a 16.9 Standard Definition timeline. I manually scaled the size of the image down and rendered in SD with a good codec. The results are WOW. Downsized to SD this footage looks amazing (to me anyway), It has strong colours and its progressive video!

So, if anyone else likes the idea of using medium quality HD for great quality SD then I think this camera is a good choice, if just for the fact that its progressive.

PS. I might add that all clips look good exept the PoorGuy one. There seems a lot more compression artifacts in that one for some reason.

Given the cost of space and future benefits of HD resolutions, I record in HD and transcode when I'm giving copies out. Every recording I make is saved in its native format so I can pull the best quality out later. This serves a double purpose because if/when codecs of post processing helps the jaggies, I have something to work with.

I agree, the camera is lowish consumer quality, unless you are converting to SD. I do comparisons based on optimal setup that people might have in their homes. 19mb/s and a bit of thought would be enough to make this high end consumer and professional quality.

I still think, with a lot of post processing (and extra latitude), this could be made acceptable for professional production, but it would still probably look less than a good HD camera, just not with objectionable artifacts/noise and crawling.

Thanks for the clips.

I talked to a Sanyo product manager today, still no HD1a for my country planned, good reasons given. Leaves me with little enthusiasm. But, I asked about the HD2, and the guy said 6 months next model. I don't know where ever he was saying that he knew an actual HD2 would be coming in 6 months or that it is usual to expect future model releases every 6 months. Maybe I should have asked him details.

Anyway 6 months is a real long time, and this present camera needs a bigger brother (25fps, better latitude and 60db+ sensitivity, 1.4 aperture etc) and dropping the price of this one. You either buy it now, or don't buy it at all (still waiting for those $799 h264 cameras).

I suspect that the macro diagonal block might be hardwired into the custom ASIC they use, and we won't see it fixed until they run out of them. Lets see, those things are likely done in 100K or million batches, so it might be a while yet.

How do you convert the HD clips to SD? I use an Xacti C5 now and simply load the clips into a Panasonic DVD writer with hard drive. When I get enough clips I simply put in a blank DVD and copy selected clips from the hard drive.

Is it going to be more complicated to make DVDs from the HD1a? I assume they will be retained on the hard drive as HD but copied to the DVD as SD??

I anyone can shed any light on this, I'd appreciate it. I don't understand the concept of converting back and forth. Thanks

I think you should use a video-editing program, like sony vegas, adobe premiere, etc. Then you could reencode it as you prefer (720p or SD).
Anyways you need a computer, as far as I know, you can't do it just putting HD1 clips into a stand-alone dvdwriter and then burn them as SD, like you're used to do with your C5.

Bye!

Is it a consensus that the HD1A's low-light capability is better than that of the HD1? Is it as good as that of the C6? I presume that the low-light capability of the CA6 is the same or better than that of the C6.

According to specs, the CA6 actually improves low-light capability over the C6, at least in this sense: On the C6, the video light sensitivity of 3600 was only manual--the Auto setting only went as high as 1800. According to the specs of the CA6, its Auto video light sensitivity does now range as high as 3600 when necessary.

In contrast, the HD1 and HD1A seem to have the same video light sensitivity specs. Their Auto setting ranges only up to 800.

Sanyo HD2, reviews and footage (improvements).
 

Lots of people have disappeared, so here is to reaching out to you:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=83398
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=87867