Shouldn't we be seeing more Flash based camcorders by now?

[Hulk]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820211319

Seeing as how you can get a 4GB Flash card for $117, which was about $2500 a few years ago it seems this technology is "ready."

Three cards for less than $400 for the equivalent capacity of 1 tape that can probably be used 1000 times. And be used in your next camera as well. Not to mention swapping with your digital still camera if it supports Flash like my dSLR.

No more broken tape transports, lighter cameras, and faster/easier transfers to the NLE for editing.

What I really want is an HDV Camera that uses Flash. Kind of like the Panasonic but I'm not totally sold on that one. I'm a little shaky on the DVC PRO HD spec, anyone know about this?

- Mark

[Brian Ellis]

Personally, I would not like this. I could not afford to take the equivalent of 5 hours of tape on a project and then have to have large storage capacity to archive them. Tapes are handy and cheap enough not to have to reuse them, so can be used for medium-term archiving.

[Hulk]

Tape is definitely great for archiving and long shoots. I'm not saying to do away with tape based camcorders I'd just like to see the same model offered in both tape and tapeless formats.

If you did have enough Flash memory to cover the shoot you could always download the video to a tape based camcorder for archiving. Or someday straight to 50GB optical discs.

Yeah I know I'm dreaming again.

- Mark

[Jerry Jones]

I expect the FLASH-BASED high definition camcorders to start arriving from Panasonic immediately prior to January 8 - 11, 2007.

http://www.cesweb.org/default_flash.asp

They're going to be the next BIG THING and will, in my view, become common among consumers who want HD solutions in small form factors.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Brian Ellis]

They're going to be the next BIG THING and will, in my view, become common among consumers who want HD solutions in small form factors.

This mania for smaller and smaller, lighter and lighter cameras is stupid. It is driven by lower manufacturing costs but is incompatible with quality video. It is crazy to have a 500 g cam but have to mount it on a 2 kg tripod because there is no way you can hold it steady. Doing away with a menchanical drive and the larger battery to drive it will only exacerbate the problem. Give me a clunky cam, any time. Dammit, the battery for mine is almost bigger than some of the modern offerings, but I can do a hand-held shot (perhaps not on telephoto!).

[Sasq]

for me, and the only thing I actually take video of, I look forward to small form factor HDV cams.
Specifically, my hobby is scuba diving, and the only thing stopping me from going to real video, instead of using my digital still cameras video function - which is pretty damn good all things considered - is the form factor - and associated houseing costs.

Nothing like falling backwards off a boat with a large camera strapped to your chest for fun and excitement.

[Jerry Jones]

This mania for smaller and smaller, lighter and lighter cameras is stupid. It is driven by lower manufacturing costs but is incompatible with quality video.

This is not true.

It is being driven by consumer demand.

And it isn't necessarily incompatible with quality video.

Panasonic is already selling a standard definition MPEG-2 camcorder that records to FLASH memory.

It is the SDR-S100.

Pictured here:

http://tinyurl.com/klfcg

Reviewed here:

http://tinyurl.com/jkfhy

"The video performance of the SDR-S100 is extremely sharp. The excellent showing is driven by the 3 CCDs, each measuring 1/6”, producing 640K effective pixels. These are identical specs to the PV-GS250 (a Mini DV camcorder), which, despite the relatively small size of the CCDs, is one of our top contenders this year."

"The JVC GR-X5 (a top JVC three-CCD Mini DV model), the surprise performer this year, had a brighter image with more vivid colors overall, but again, it could not match the SDR-S100’s sharpness."

The SDR-S100 is just a preview product.

The next generation of products will likely be greatly improved.

CNET ran a story recently about consumer HD.

The article predicted Panasonic, which hasn't signed on to the HDV format, will be releasing consumer HD camcorders very soon:

http://tinyurl.com/zlf55

"Panasonic, which already has a high-end HD camcorder, plans on coming out with an HD camcorder that will be about the same size or smaller than today's mini-DV cameras in 2007."

"These systems will likely sell for less than $1,000."

The MPEG-2/MPEG-4 camcorders *can* produce quality video; but it is necessary for the manufacturers to use good optics and larger CCDs or good 3-CCD configurations.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Nowhere]

for me, and the only thing I actually take video of, I look forward to small form factor HDV cams.
Specifically, my hobby is scuba diving, and the only thing stopping me from going to real video, instead of using my digital still cameras video function - which is pretty damn good all things considered - is the form factor - and associated houseing costs.

Nothing like falling backwards off a boat with a large camera strapped to your chest for fun and excitement.

I wonder...miniDV cams are still, with accompanying enclosure, too big/bulky/heavy?

This is not true.

It is being driven by consumer demand.

And it isn't necessarily incompatible with quality video.
...

I think Brian meant, more than actual capbilities of camera, impossiblity to record stable shots. Not the limitation of tech, but of us (similarly, there's a limit for minimum size of clasically operated cellphones...)

[Sasq]

But I wish for high def. realistically, my curreny digital still camera does just was well for video as a small cheap miniDV, the only difference is, with my 1gb card, I can only get about 9 min of video.

Size does matter, my camera case now is about 3"x3"x6" plus the light mount, arm and light.

i can't get anything for a minDV cam thats less then 7" in diameter and about 8" long, and lets not talk about the size of a current gen HD came enclosure

[Hulk]

I would gladly trade the weight and size of the tape transport for a better lens block. If you need a big clunky camera why not put the size and weight into the lens where it will do some good in terms of image quality instead of a tape transport?

Tape is on the way out. No doubt about that. With Flash prices coming down, small form factor hard drives, and the demand for tapeless formats we'll be seeing tape phased out in the next few years.

Yes, even the audio cassette had a slight resurgence before finally going down for the count. I predict a similar trend with tape based camcorders. As manufacturers of these cameras see the end they and tape manufacturers will drop prices dramatically and add features to clear inventory.

With cheap Flash memory, SFF hard drives, and large storage optical disks everything will be in order to shoot via Flash or SFF hard drives in camera and archive to optical disks.

- Mark

[Brian Ellis]

The MPEG-2/MPEG-4 camcorders *can* produce quality video; but it is necessary for the manufacturers to use good optics and larger CCDs or good 3-CCD configurations.

Exactly! Good glass lenses and optics, rather than unstable plastic bottle-bottoms, are necessarily heavier and bulkier. I have a semi-pro Super-8 film cam with a Canon 10:1 zoom lens. This feeds a frame size barely larger than a (or 3) CCD(s), but it alone weighs about 1800 g (and the rest of the camera as much again). It gives superb images, with much less distortion than the lens of my mid-sized 3-CCD semi-pro mini-DV video cam. What is more, I can hold that cine cam still, even at full telephoto zoom (OK, for less than 30 secs, when the arm starts to tire, but film was too expensive to shoot for more than 10 secs at a time, anyway!!!). I would love that lens on my video cam!

I rest my case.

[VJ]

I'm on the lookout for a small, decent quality camera. I would prefer digital media for easier transfer to laptop (has CF/SD reader, no firewire, no builtin dvd).

So far, I'm considering the Samsung VP-X210L (sometimes called SC-X210L), but the Panasonic SDR-S100 also looks interesting.
However, I'd love it to have video/audio in as well, but the Panasonic lacks this...

I wonder, is it techically possible to make a digital storage in the shape of a DV-tape? A bit like this MP3 player:

http://www.mobiblu.com/eng/e_sub_d220.asp

Jörg

[Jerry Jones]

Ambarella is supposed to be developing chips for H.264 camcorders:

http://tinyurl.com/g9w7x

But - so far - no recent news.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Jerry,

That's interesting but I really don't want my acquisition/editing format to be compressed that much. I would actually like to stay away from interframe compression if possible and go with intra-frame compression similar to the current DV format.

Even though I've co-written a book on the wonders of HDV I'm not totally on-board at this point in time. Yes, the resolution is there but I just don't like the 4:2:0 colorspace for editing. I like to edit in a colorspace above my final output format. Don't get me wrong HDV is a huge jump over DV, but on very high quality monitors I did see some things from the Sony cams that concerned me in a few difficult scenes. I haven't had the chance to closely examine the JVC HDV cams but I suspect the lower resolution of the 720p format will ease MPEG-2 compression loading and allow for better in-cam encoding quailty. Which I think is a major concern at this point in time.

A lot of quality in the HDV MPEG-2 PS can be obtained by increasing the quality of the in-camera converters. If you were to capture uncompressed 4:4:4 HD footage and then compressed non-realitme with a good encoder at 25MPBS the results would be (and are) stunning. Showing no artifacts even on high motion scenes. I've also seen some real time monster JVC MPEG-2 compressors that are incredible. But you can't stuff them into a camera yet.

But the encoders in cameras don't have the luxury of really fast (power hungry) processors...yet.

So what type of camcorders would I like to see?

How about a 3 CCD (1/3" please) camera with a 60GB hard drive that records 50MBPS 4:2:2 I-frame only MPEG-2 Program Streams. Oh yeah, I'd also like a USB port as every computer has USB, that way I can transfer footage to any computer.

60GB would give me over two hours of extremely high quality recording, enough or me. But if people needed more recording time lower quality modes could be incorporated as well as higher capacity hard drives.

Truth be told I'd rather have the camera 720/60p than 1080i as I don't like watching or working with interlaced formats. While I'm in this dream I might as well add a 1080/60p mode as well. I consider 1080/60p the Holy Grail of HD.

[Jerry Jones]

Good wish list, Mark.

But I'm so poor these days, I'll settle for a good, inexpensive H.264 camcorder.

I can't keep throwing money at technology as I have in the past.

The other day, I added up my technology receipts over the years.

The total was way higher than I would have guessed.

For me, it's time to stop buying so many toys.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net