- Saturday, 28 November 2009
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We cannot renounce the use of force otherwise a peaceful reunification would be impossible - China's Jhian Xemin on Taiwan
Sanyo's HD camcorder keeps getting better
QUITE POSSIBLY MY favourite gizmo from the last two CESes was upgraded again: the Sanyo Xacti camera line has three new models. The new ones are 1080i/p, waterproof and vanilla.
The best one of the line is the new HD1000 model, claimed to be a Full HD model with a 1920x1080 rez, making it 1080p, but the marketing materials only claim 1080i. Odd, but even at 1080i, it still looks really great.
The size and controls stay about the same as the past models, and you still use SD/SDHC cards for storage, getting about 20 min/gig of storage. This one will take 4MP still pics as well with a 10x optical zoom. All this for $800.
If that is too expensive, you can step down to the HD700, a 720p camera with a few features fewer. It only has 5x optical zoom and the body is much narrower than the HD1000. Oddly though, it takes 7MP stills. IYou can pick one of these up for $600.
The last one of the line is the VPC-E1, an SD variant that takes 6MP stills. The trick to this one is that it is waterproof to five feet for one hour. Like the HD700, it has a 5x optical zoom, and is in general a decent-looking holiday camera; no worries if you drop it at the beach. This one sells for only $500. ยต
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How do they fit HD image in 873kb/s stream?
"Oddly though, it takes 7MP stills"

They increased the resolution in order to compensate for the lower optical range. A higher resolution allows them to increase the digital zoom a bit more. It's always better to buy a camera that may have a lower resolution but a higher optical zoom than a camera with a higher resolution but lower optical zoom.
Dear Michael

I bought this thing before christmas. The hardware is great except if you use it at low light (no smooth video for fast motions) but the software is a disaster. There is no MPEG4.2 AVC1 CODEC available, so the only software you can use to work on your videos is the ULEAD stuff that comes with the camera. The Nero software doesn't play MPEG4 as promised, and my Pinnacle Studio 11 doesn't recognize the videaos at all.

So in sum, it's a disaster. Similar to buying a Porsche that has no firmware for the injection engine.

Please try on your own before praising this stuff.

Bernd