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Hardware

Solid-State DV Camcorder 179

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-take-two dept.
melorama writes "The NAB convention passed 2 weeks ago, and I'm surprised nobody has pointed out the really neat Solid State Video Camcorder that was unveiled by Panasonic. It seems a bit kludgy right now (it records onto a series of PCMCIA cards), but it definitely beats the klunky Avid/Ikegami Camcutter (aka Editcam) from several years back, which records onto a self-contained harddisk. This is certainly a blow to Sony, which is working on a camera acquisition system that uses a blue-laser optical disc (read: moving parts) technology."
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Solid-State DV Camcorder More

Solid-State DV Camcorder

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  • Solid state for recording video? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ErikTheRed ( 162431 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @05:57PM (#5803885) Homepage
    And you're going to get ~30GB of storage how, exactly?

  • Oh... I'm scared. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Exiler ( 589908 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @05:57PM (#5803887)
    The computer hardware and audio-video accronyms are crossing over, jeebus save us all.

  • don't forget (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) <mrpuffypants@gm a i l . c om> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @05:58PM (#5803901)
    that not only does the Sony camcorder use moving parts but that also any device in the past that involved burning discs sucked the juice fast and furiously

    get ready for 30 minute family outings, tops(hey....that doesn't sound that bad :)
    • There will probably be a large after market for battery addons.

      Like the idea about family outings though...

    • You can already record an hour or so of VHS/VCD quality video onto a memory stick with sound with the newer Sony digital cameras. This thing isn't being targeted to people wanting to film their kids, but rather professional cinematographers/TV people.

  • If this stuff is... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Recoil_42 ( 665710 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:03PM (#5803929) Homepage Journal
    ..as cheap as the article presents it to be; why arent we using it in PC's? screw 32-meg usb-keydrives, i want a 4gb solid-state drive!

    • Re:If this stuff is... (Score:5, Informative)

      by sebi ( 152185 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:31PM (#5804165)

      Nowhere does the article make any claims that this solution will be cheap. He states that the camera will originally be targeted at news outfits, that will appreciate the speed and usually are not cash strapped when it comes to buying equipment.

    • That's very simple, PCMCIA never gained much popularity years ago... And now, CompactFlash is the format of choice, not PCMCIA (adapters are cheap).

      What we need are desktop computers to start shipping with PCMCIA/CompactFlash slots in place of the floppy drives. At that point, sloid state storage will skyrocket.

  • Neat, but necessary? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:03PM (#5803930) Journal
    What exactly would be wrong with a gigantiforous hard drive? This thing has 5 cards x 4 gigs each (max) for a max of 72 minutes.

    Why not 60 gigs of HDD for 216 minutes? Or 120 for 432 minutes? For a consumer level camera, this seems more useful.

    Imagine going on vacation and needing a bag of ($$$expensive$$$) PCMCIA cards to film with, or having to stop in the middle of a shoot to transfer 20 gigs of footage to a laptop.

    A big enough HDD could just store all your footage, and you just point and shoot and dont think twice about it 'till you're back home.

    I can see this being cool for professional cameras, as no doubt you can build a solid-state rig with better shockproofing, etc, etc..

    But I doubt it can really become ubiquitous for home use - at least not until the spinning magnetic disc is replaced with solid state components.
    • "What exactly would be wrong with a gigantiforous hard drive? This thing has 5 cards x 4 gigs each (max) for a max of 72 minutes."

      Hard drives are fragile. This could be made to be extremely rugged, and memory's only getting cheaper.

      I think there's plenty of room in the market to have both a hard-disk equipped camera, a tape based camera, and a solid state camera. Each has their own advantages.
      • If hard drives are so fragile, how come there are a plethora of hard-disk based portable MP3 players available? Are you going to throw your camcorder around any more than you would one of those?

        • Re:Neat, but necessary? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:33PM (#5804171) Homepage Journal
          "If hard drives are so fragile, how come there are a plethora of hard-disk based portable MP3 players available?"

          There aren't a plethora of hd based MP3 players out there. There are a handfull.

          Let's see, hd's in Mp3 players don't need to spin as fast. They don't need to be accessed as much. (I would imagine the music's cached into RAM and then played...) etc.

          Laptop drives are very fragile. I ruined one by drumming my fingers on the case of my laptop once. I didn't know the drive was right under the case. Doh.
          • If you had a memory stick or the like to buffer data then I'm not sure the HD would need to be accessed as much either. Just burst it down every now and then.

            You are right about laptop drives. They are fragile. But most people I know with iPods handle them roughly, jog with them, drop them, and so forth with no real problem.

            Now you can say that this is because they likely weren't writing when dropped. True. But I think that HDs are becoming more reliable and that if you have a removable HD, thi

          • Laptop drives are very fragile. I ruined one by drumming my fingers on the case of my laptop once.

            Sounds like you either had one incredibly crappy hard drive, or have some monsterously huge fingers.

            2.5" drives can stand SERIOUS punishment, as long as they are mounted with some slight shock absorbtion... They can stand great deals of force, but the direct shock of impact can cause damage. So a few ruber spacers around the drive, and it could stand a 10' drop, likely without damage.

            • Not really.

              If the drive is being accessed, a 1 foot drop could crash the head all over the platter. Once that happens, there's nothing you can do about it. Even on the most expensive drives, this will happen.

              The solution is to spin the drives slower, and so you can have the head placed farther from the disk. This increases the force it takes to get the head to crash. They do this in laptop hard drives, but still it's not gonna withstand anywhere NEAR 10ft.

              Even if you don't notice damage, it is possible f
      • Solid state devices ain't getting cheap enough fast enough, and as cheap as they get, HDDs will still be cheaper.

        Sure they're more rugged, but I've seen some mighty rugged laptops as well.

        It occurred to me that theres nothing preventing this camera, since its PMCIA based, from using HDD, tape, or solid state, or a direct broadcast to the station (since it's being targetted at ENG) by simply swapping out the card. Then everyone can be happy.

        Going to shoot Mrs McGees 100th birthday? Take the HDD. Embedd
    • I think the initial target market would be news channels or your local news. Say they go out to do an on-the-spot type broadcast. They probably don't need over 72 minutes of video (continuous - otherwise swap the memory). Plus, with no moving parts, there's a lot less to break in the field, as you mentioned.

    • I agree, HDD, not optical, not solid state...yet (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MDMurphy ( 208495 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:28PM (#5804136)
      I've figured the reason you don't see a HDD in a DV camcorder now is that they want to sell tapes. A 60GB laptop drive would take less space than the mechanism to drive, read and eject a DV tape, while holding the equivilant of 5 tapes worth of video. With a firewire connection to suck into your computer for editing or writing to your media of choise. Heck, a removable HDD would even work, though in theory you could download from the camcorder directly to a larger desktop drive.

      Sony tries with their variations on optical, but I'm convinced that's just to sell media. That's the whole reason they invented the memory stick.

      Solid State is just too expensive and/or slow to replace the HDD. If not, laptops would use it now in lieu of the spinning platter.

      If the camcorder used a standard laptop drive, in theory it could be upgraded for mor capacity in the future, or even updated with a solid state version if/when they're feasible.

      • Re:I agree, HDD, not optical, not solid state...ye (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Natalie's Hot Grits ( 241348 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @08:01PM (#5804814) Homepage
        The main reason technically speaking to keep tape is because it can withstand far far far greater G's than a hard drive. You can smash your camcorder on the sidewalk, and as long as the circuitry and gears didn't break, you can keep taping. With a hard drive, the fucker crashes on first glimpse of fall.

        A camcorder with a hard drive in it is going to be more delecate, no matter how you look at it. Even if you used external FW hard drive in a backpack, you still can't be jumping up and down while using the camera.

        Tape is the best media that is going to be available for camcorders in the near future. Until solid state flash chips become like CD-R in price, they aren't going to take off. Optical drives are going to kill battery life with the powerfull lazer, and the high speed motor.

        What they really need to do is come up with some kind of smaller form factor tape spindles with higher density data storage. So you could fit the motors, reader/writer, and tape and everything in the size of a current 8mm cartrige.

        The idea is this: which is cheaper, tape recorders/readers, optical recorders/readers, or magnetic disk recorders/readers? Tape is the answer. And its more durable under high Gs

        I think the main drawback is its heat sensitivity being less than that of optical or hard drives or flash. But that is only a problem in certain climates.

        I would suggest to not dismiss tape because its the 'old' kind of storage we used in the 80s and 90s. Tape is just a physical medium. We have been using disks even LONGER than tape (records)! New tape is good. It's digital. It's data redundant. It's low powered. It's high density. It's CHEAP. Don't let the misconceptions of tape being inferior because they are "old" technology slant your choice.
    • What exactly would be wrong with a gigantiforous hard drive? This thing has 5 cards x 4 gigs each (max) for a max of 72 minutes.

      It couldn't take as much rough handling. This camera should be able to take huge amount of shock due to it's total lack of moving parts.

      Why not 60 gigs of HDD for 216 minutes? Or 120 for 432 minutes? For a consumer level camera, this seems more useful.

      If you'd read the article, you'd see that you can swap out cards on the fly. Use up one card, it moves on to the next emp
  • This doesn't seem developed enough for anyone to buy it yet, but I imagine when it's fully developed, cinamatographers will buy them by the truckload.

  • BLOW (Score:1)

    by gik ( 256327 )
    Yes, A blow to Sony indeed.
    You hit the nail on the head with that one.

    I don't know how they'll ever survive this newfangled "SOLID STATE" shit you talk about. :|

    • Re:BLOW (Score:3, Interesting)

      by luzrek ( 570886 )
      The biggest problem for recording to anything is the speed with which you can write. Relatively rugged/lower power consumption hard drives (notebook-type) max out at about 4000 rpms and about 1/20th of a terrabyte (desktop drives max out at about 10000 rpms and about 1/3 of a terrabyte). Flash memory seems to max out around 2 Gigabytes (at about $750+ a gig) and is much, much slower than hard disks, it also sucks juice when you write to it. While relatively small data transfers can be buffered by much fa

  • Blue Laser (Score:3, Informative)

    by LS ( 57954 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:05PM (#5803953) Homepage
    I don't know how much a "blow" this will be to Sony, considering that the main reason for including moving parts (read: disks) is because of cost per unit of storage space, and not the cost of integration. I'm sure Sony could throw a solid state disk into their camera without much effort.

    LS

  • Prices cost solid state storage device 2003 2 gig (Score:5, Informative)

    by hfastedge ( 542013 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:06PM (#5803961) Homepage Journal
    http://www.bitmicro.com/ [bitmicro.com] Makes SSD's. I sent them an email, and here is what prices of SSD's look like:


    http://www.bitmicro.com/products_edisk_25_ide.php [bitmicro.com] [bitmicro.com]
    E-Disk® 2A66(2), 17408MB, Commercial Temp, No PowerGuard, NAND
    E-Disk® Part Number: D2A066B 017408 CNN
    Discounted Unit Price: $18,857

    -- -- -- --

    http://www.bitmicro.com/products_acedisk_25_IDE.ph p [bitmicro.com] [bitmicro.com]
    Ace-Disk 2A16, 2048MB, Commercial Temp, No PowerGuard, AND
    Ace-Disk Part Number: A2A016B 002048 CNA
    Discounted Unit Price: $1,356

    -- -- -- --
    SSD
    pricing has been coming down over the last few years as the performance
    continually improves. We expect the pricing to reach the consumer
    level in the next 3-5 years. Two years ago we were roughly $15/MB, last
    year $5-8/MB, and this year we are ranging from $1-4/MB depending on
    interface/model and capacity.


    With any type of real market, these prices should come down very nicely.
  • I don't quite understand why the hard drive is kludgy. The DV tapes for my camcorder are only slightly smaller than my iPod.

    It would seem to me that a camcorder following the iPod model with a Firewire800 port would be fantastic. For one you could probably download your videos much more efficiently than present DV methods. (I hate fastforwarding in iMovie)

    Perhaps the Avid solution was kludgy (although I saw no discussion of why in the link to it). But that likely was due to it using hardware from

    • Better yet, why not use a laptop HD. Price/performance/size/consumption wise it's the best compromise. $150 or less for a 40 GB mini IDE drive. A standard adaptor for USB/PCMCIA/Firewire transfer and we are all set.

      Opinion anyone?
      • Part of the problem is, I suspect, space. A 40 Gig HD isn't big enough if you tape a lot. That's why I suspect they went with the memory cards. It allows them to be removed ala tape. With a fixed laptop harddrive you need to download the data fairly regularly.

        The iPod solution is really your solution. You have a laptop or computer nearby you download to. Alternatively the hard drives are removable. Right now that's not really economical. But if you have a firewire800 port you could realistically j

        • I think it's a great solution, in the variants you described, or being removable (a connector problem, not an HD problem) or being for buffering or standalone if you need extra storage (say 60 GB). In any case, you could have all three options (one internal fixed, a slot for removable variant and a firewire port & mode that activates buffering.

          A plain non-removable big HD consumes a lot and is ugly, and solid state fash cards are really unnecesarily expensive. Of course, who cares, some people will sti

  • AVI Format? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by M.C. Hampster ( 541262 ) <M...C...TheHampster@@@gmail...com> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:13PM (#5804019) Journal

    From the article:

    The video and audio is recorded in an AVI format, so any system that can recognize this format can edit the audio.

    I couldn't see in the article, but does anyone know what actual codec they use? Is it the same DV codec that my Sony Digital 8 Camcorder uses?

    • Your Sony doesn't use the DV codec. Your Sony is using a quasi-bastardized version of DV (Digital8 anyways).

      That being said, yeah, it would be probably be using the same codec as the DV/MiniDV cams out there.


      • Your Sony is using a quasi-bastardized version of DV (Digital8 anyways).

        Are you sure about that? How come I can pull the video off my Sony Digital 8 camcorder and edit it without installing any special codec from Sony? Every video editing program I've used just uses the normal DV codec. Just because it's stored on a 8mm tape rather than a DV tape doesn't mean the actual data has to be different.

  • A WOW REVIEW! (Score:4, Funny)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:14PM (#5804027) Journal
    This idiot uses the term "wow product" like two dozen times in this cheezy PR piece.

    "...saw my second wow product of the day"

    "... the Tough-book (retailing at $4000) also has a touch panel screen ... That along makes this a wow product."

    "...the Encore DVD software. It is a wow product"

    "...that about wraps up my Super Wow day at NAB"

    WOW!

    NEATO WALLY!

    That wraps up my super WOW post at slashdot.
  • I was just looking at an Olympus camera the other day, for $500. This particular camera could save to Xd or SmartMedia cards, either in still shots or video. Granted, the videos were rather short, but it's been out for quite a while.
    • The thing you're missing is that this records full resolution, 60 fields-per-second video with 48k/16 bit 2-channel audio. IOW, a REAL videocamera.
      • The thing you're missing is that this records full resolution, 60 fields-per-second video with 48k/16 bit 2-channel audio. IOW, a REAL videocamera.
        The only difference is the storage size. The reason why the Olympus doesn't do that (aside from not having a microphone) is because the largest Xd card is 512mb. A far cry from 2GB cards. I'm looking for innovation, not bigger solid-state media.
    • Sure, and many mini-DV camcorders will shoot still pictures as well. The problem is that the cameras usually don't shoot more than 30 seconds of video and the camcorders take pictures at 1 megapixel. There isn't a device that is at least average at both tasks.

      My phone can take crummy pictures and shoot 15 seconds of video, but I wouldn't consider it as either a primary camera or a primary camcorder solution.
      • I just read about panasonic or fujitsu, one of those companies comming out with a 4 megapixel camera that could also do video, onto either mini-DV tapes or memory sticks.
      • Sure, and many mini-DV camcorders will shoot still pictures as well. The problem is that the cameras usually don't shoot more than 30 seconds of video and the camcorders take pictures at 1 megapixel. There isn't a device that is at least average at both tasks.
        I'm not talking about a shitty 1 megapixel camera. This shoots QuickTime video, granted it's final resolution is only at 320x200. It's still solid state, and the limitation there is lack of hardware encoding that's efficient. If you added hardware

  • Internal Problems (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:20PM (#5804071)
    I work at Panasonic's Inca Labs (the lab responsible for this product product).

    Working as a tester on a a prior version of SS HDD, there were many reports of instantaneous memory losses. After much experimenting, these were ultimately diagnosed as a result of intertia change factor > 2.23G. The result was the HDD was trahed because it was highly suseptible to "memory loss" from daily usage.

    I have since transferred to another team, and I don't know frankly, how much the product could have improved in a little over 10 months. I hope it is good enough to released in public, but, I seriously doubt the management had the patience to wait for a finished engineering product.
  • This is great industrial and government applications where there are requirements for withstsanding ... well a lot of rigorous tests.

    I know right now, it's a pain to have to get a solid-state disk of decent size for the main storage(meaning, not having to copy over just runtime libraries/apps every single time you build something) and NFS style loading isn't always possible.

    Ramdisks are the key right now for low-end systems...but if we could skip having a solid-state node and a regular single-board embedd

  • "This Will Change The Industry Forever" (Score:4, Funny)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:24PM (#5804102) Journal
    ... probably not as much as Kazaa, however.

  • Solid-State DV? You're lucky. (Score:3, Funny)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06NO@SPAMemail.com> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:25PM (#5804113)
    When I was young, we had to get up at 2:00 am, have a hot cup of gravel, crawl to work on broken glass and when we got there, we had to record our video on granite CDs in which we carved the individual pits with our teeth.

  • Cute, but professional??? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pastpolls ( 585509 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @06:29PM (#5804139)
    I think the idea of the Panasonic camera is good, but much like the editcam, I don't think it will do anything but fill the needs of hobbyists. The Sony camera that records to discs scares me too. Recording to a disc, what happens when I shake the thing? Does it skip?

    Most professionals want durability and reliability. Most of these types of cameras, and some of the lower-end DV cameras, are good for hobbyists but I know I demand more (and I am a professional). Cameras like DV5000 [jvc.com] from JVC are inexpensive and are solid pieces of equipment, but may not be for the geek. Automatic focus is something you will not find on most professional cameras.

    I know that there have been some successes in the profesional world with this type of camera, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Almost all movies are still shot on film and most television stations and production companies demand something more durable than a disc based camera... and something more standard than a PCMCIA rig. Most places are still using BetaSp, even though Sony quit development a couple of years ago (please don't think I mean BetaMax). I believe this PCMCIA based camera will come and go much like the EditCam. Hopefully venders will realize that people like standards and that they get upset when "left out in the cold" with a product that no one else will support (see Digital 8mm [sonystyle.com]). I think this not only holds true for professionals but hobbyists as well.

    God bless this rant... and my karma.

    • Recording to a disc, what happens when I shake the thing? Does it skip?

      Yeah, it'll skip... just like your portable CD player... What's that you say??? Your portable CD player doesn't skip??? ESP??? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do believe that Sony invented electronic shock protection, and just about every portable Sony disc-based product uses some form of it.

      How about burn-proof technology... I think it's safe to assume that the camcorder will be buffering the video, and record each piece as it

    • Re:Cute, but professional??? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by melorama ( 546258 ) <{gro.keegahpla} {ta} {lem}> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @07:25PM (#5804577) Homepage Journal
      I think you're missing the point. This is obviously a proof-of-concept camera, and I dont think anyone at Panasonic is expecting professionals to implement this right now in any serious, widescale way.

      As a professional, I feel that Panasonic did the exact right thing in unveling this at NAB at this early stage, because it shows that an idea like this is more than feasible, given current technology, and I'll be willing to bet my old AU-65 MII deck that once the cost comes down on the memory units, and they implement this technology into a dockable back for pro cameras, professionals will flock to this like flies on shit. I imagine that eventually, the SSD unit will accept more convinenient and swappable "cube" units that each accept an array of memory cards that can be switched out like tapes. I doubt very much that you will be swapping out individual cards that you plug right into slots on the camera back.

      I might remind you that there was a time, not so long ago, when audio guys on film shoots wouldn't let you pry their Nagra's from their cold dead hands. Now Deva's are the defacto standard for disk-based location audio recording. Some ideas are so good, that it's worth the pain of quick adaptation and adoption.

    • Amen brother! This is just like that compact disc fad a few years ago. Some smartasses at Sony and Philips thought they could get the entire music industry to switch over to their new proprietary standard even though the discs cost more and didn't sound as good as mint vinyl on an audiophile setup. They thought consumers would buy it just because it was more convenient and it sounded better on budget equipment. What were they thinking?
    • I don't think it will do anything but fill the needs of hobbyists.

      Actually, it's professionals - particularly the news professionals for whom time between shooting and airing is premium - who will benefit first from this. One main reason is that to get the video from tape into a digital editing suite takes time. If they're willing to pay top dollar to minimize render times for video effects, you can bet they'll pay even more to save an hour of transferring from tape to hard disk for (non-linear) editing

  • Moving parts are part of just about every photographic system ever, so that won't be the deciding factor.

    Blue-laser DVDs will hold tens of gigabytes of data, and are feasible now. Memory chips in the same form factor won't even come close to that for a decade at least.

    And pcmcia cards aren't all that durable.
    • Sony is pushing the "Blue Ray" DVD storage for their professional cameras.

      I think the big win by Panasonic is not to have people pull out the PCMCIA cards, but to uplink video over Firewire or high-speed wireless from the camera. The PCMCIA cards should just be ways of installing or upgrading memory.

      While PCMCIA cards aren't durable in terms of putting-in, pulling-out, once in place they don't need any maintenance, unlike tape mechanisms or DVD drives.
  • i'm just wondering why anyone would need a solid state camera?

    for video, (which no one is going to watch faster than realtime anyway) tapes seem to be the best method yet since they are easily storeable, have less moving parts than hard disks, and have far more storage space (ratio wise) than solid state media.
    • for video, (which no one is going to watch faster than realtime anyway) tapes seem to be the best method yet since they are easily storeable, have less moving parts than hard disks, and have far more storage space (ratio wise) than solid state media.

      No consumer may "watch" video fast than realtime, although *I* do every single day...I'm a video editor. And as an editor, anything that eliminates the time wasted in digitizing video from source tapes is worth it. Digitizing lineararly in realtime is so "1990's", and its amazing that 90% of us in the video industry are still doing it. BetacamSX is an exception, but nobody but news and sattelite videogeeks use that format. Moving clips from the SSD as if it were nothing more than a file is exactly the way video editing workflows should work, in 2003.

      I think we can all agree that this is not something that will revolutionize or even affect the consumer video space. But for professionals, it's a great start towards the elimination of tape as an acquisition format.

      • Digitizing lineararly in realtime is so "1990's", and its amazing that 90% of us in the video industry are still doing it.

        I'm not in the industry, but it seems to me that dumping video from a DV camera onto a computer involves no "digitizing". Aren't you just copying an MPEG stream off the tape into a file? You're limited only by the speed of the computer's tape drive. It's still linear, but it should be way faster than realtime.

    • Panasonic is pushing SD memory cameras for professional broadcast use.

      When you buy a $20,000-$50,000 camera, that is only the beginning. Each year you pay thousands of dollars to clean and align tape heads and other maintenance.

      By going totally solid-state for the media, you reduce maintenance downtime and costs. Plus the tape drive is a power hog, so you increase battery life as well.

      The Panasonic SD-based cameras are a move to the "tapeless" environment, which promises more efficient workflows throug

  • Umm, no. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ok, this is nice and all. but 4GB sux. Also the video is stored compressed.

    if the storage capacity was in the 100 GB range so you record losslessly .. I could see it's uses.
    Also, I dont see the problem with tape/moving parts based cameras. I never had probs.

  • Panasonic are eating Sony (Score:4, Informative)

    by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @07:20PM (#5804538)
    I was a Sony fan for a long time. Their video/VCR gear was always solid, functional and of exceptional quality.

    In the past few years however they've really dropped the ball.

    Their consumer-level camcorders are suffering the same rampant "featuritus" that their VCRs do and they've sacrificed good, solid reliable functionality for an incredible array of bells and whistles that really fill out a sales brochure but which your average user finds as useful as tits on a bull.

    A couple of months ago I wanted a new top-end consumer camcorder (3CCD) and did a fairly comprehensive analysis of what was on the market.

    Sony's offering was the DCRTRV950 which would have done the job, but thanks to the fact that they've loaded it up with "fluff" like Bluetooth and a myriad of other gee-whiz "features", it is very pricey for the basic functionality it delivers.

    By comparison, Panasonic's MX500 is a brilliant camera. It has 3CCDs and all the really important high-end consumer functionality such as manual focus, zebra stripes, 3megapixel stills, etc. Just about the only feature I won't be using is the direct to MPEG recording that allows you to create MPEG files directly onto the memory card (but I'm sure many others will find this handy)

    Here in New Zealand, the Sony DCRTRV950 is priced at around NZ$6K and even Sony's single CCD DCTRV50 has a list price of NZ$4299.

    By comparison, the 3CCD Panasonic MX500 cost me under $3K, which meant I could afford some nice accessories to go with it.

    Picture quality wise, the Sony and Panasonic offerings are very close -- the Sony having slightly better low-light performance -- but the difference is nowhere near worth paying double the price for.

    I'm extraordinarily happy with my Panansonic's attitude of providing good, solid, basic functions at an affordable price.

    So long as Sony continue down the path of placing more emphasis on sizzle than steak they won't see me buying any of their products anytime soon.
  • How many times have you been invited to a friend's house to watch home videos and were bored to tears?

    I personally think the solution is what my Canon S45 does (and many other cameras do as well) which is to take 3 minute max segments of video.

    Why? Because it makes you take what's important, no just what's happening (because most of life is pretty boring).

    Granted, 3 minute limit is a little sort when filming a song at a concert, but it does make you think more wisely about what you are doing with an end
    • Or you could record as much as you want, then load it into iMovie and cut it down to a few minutes you want to keep and delete the rest. That way your 3 minutes don't run out in the middle of something you wanted to keep.

  • Why not regular DRAM? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by huie ( 148646 ) <mhuie@netco[ ]om ['m.c' in gap]> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @07:44PM (#5804723)
    I've been saying all along that SIMMs are cheap (especially SDR- you probably don't need anything too fast). Just make a camera that has a number of SIMM slots (ruggedized, of course) and loops through the memory space. Then when you want to save anything, hit a button to actually save the last N minutes/megabytes/gigabytes to the PC Card, flag it as read-only for later downloading (to something like a 1394 hard drive... or video iPod :) and/or concurrently send it to the WAN-enabled server in the truck.

    Yeah, if the battery dies then you've lost everything, but a small battery backup for the memory isn't that hard and with RAM- even DRAM and not SRAM- you're not drawing power as fast as you would be with HDD, flash, or optical so your main battery is going to last longer anyway. Okay, the storage mechanism probably isn't the biggest drain in the camera- the CCD and LCD are probably big power hogs.

    I'd assume that for news reporters, most of the footage is shot and either edited in place or sent directly to the station for editing later. Yeah, a filesystem for saving and deleting takes would be helpful (if there isn't already one) and anything like RAM, flash, HDD, or optical are going to work well with that too. DRAM storage is optimal for the short, take-retake-send-straight-to-the-home-office usage pattern of news organizations.
  • Several of the new Sony digital cameras allow unlimited recording onto solid-state memory (MemoryStick Pro) at 640x480. That's camcorder quality, and as memory sticks are getting better, you will be able to record longer and longer. And as Flash memory bandwidth gets larger, you will probably also be able to record at higher resolutions.

    So, while Panasonic may be trying to create a niche for themselves in the high-end video camera market, solid state video recording has already been happening quietly.

    • Several of the new Sony digital cameras allow unlimited recording onto solid-state memory...

      What exactly is unlimited about it? Sounds to me like you're severely limited by the size of the memory stick, no?
      • What exactly is unlimited about it?

        Until recently, recording times on digital cameras were limited to at most a few minutes by the size of an internal buffer, no matter how big your memory stick or CF card was. That restriction has now been removed on several models.

        Sounds to me like you're severely limited by the size of the memory stick, no?

        A 1G memory stick holds about six hours of MPEG4 video, about 1h of regular quality video, and about 1/2 h of DVD quality video. Doesn't sound that limited to

  • Digital camera are NOT camcorders! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Faeton ( 522316 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @09:13PM (#5805226) Homepage Journal
    Nor does it work the other way around, currently (even with Sony's effort).

    It's really ignorant to equate 3 min clip on a digital camera to the superiority of true DV. That's like comparing a drive to Florida for 12 hours to a 2 hour plane ride. Sure, they both get you there, but it's a vastly different experience.

    Even with a cheap-o MiniDV cam, it's lightyears ahead of any $2k digital camera can do, as far as moving pictures/sound quality goes.

    I will admit that for some people, a digital camera is "good enough" for them, but don't bother to say it's good enough for everybody. This camcorder, for the professionals, is really a huge step forward. For the rest of us, hopefully this tech will trickle down in 5 years.

  • Too weird (Score:2, Informative)

    by zorander ( 85178 )
    Who (even in the media field) wants to juggle five pcmcia cards? Obviously there's nothing too standard about them if they're made by panasonic for this and only this. Sure, the laptop reading capability is nice, but you could accomplish that with a larger solid state memory module that acted like a USB2/Firewire hard disk and probably accomplish faster datarates than pcmcia anyways without sacrificing the convenience of connectivity. Breaking up the video over cards sounds like a recipe for disaster since

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