SONY UNVEILS WORLD'S FIRST HDV 1080i CONSUMER CAMCORDER

New Handycam Model Brings High-Definition Quality to Personal Content

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 6, 2004 — Sony, the worldwide camcorder market
leader, today took another leap forward with the introduction of the
world's first HDV 1080i camcorder. The HDR-FX1 Handycam® camcorder
records and plays back high definition video with 1080 interlaced
lines of resolution - the highest resolution (1440 pixels x 1080
lines) of any consumer camcorder available.

"With U.S. sales of HDTV sets exploding, along with the availability
of high-definition programming, the expectation of having personal
content in HD is growing rapidly," said Linda Vuolo, director for
camcorder products for Sony Electronics. "The introduction of the
HDV-FX1 has been timed and targeted to meet this desire."

http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/5118

Gary

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dang... I KNEW that was going to happen right after I bought an AGDVX100a.
Why 1440 though?

http://www.videoguys.com/blog/

 

Gee, only $3,700! Like an 'affordable' Ferrari!

Funny that they'd price the world's first consumer HD camcorder at a
price that matches or exceeds other HD camcorders for 'pros' that are
already available, like the JVC's. (I'll leave the interlaced vs
progressive image quality issue up to you.) Guess moms around the world
will have to save up a little more for this 'consumer' priced camcorder...

 

the JVC is no comparison to the new Sony. It is a single chip. $3700 is
great price for 3 chip 1440 x 1080 camera!!!

I will buy one for sure.


(I'll leave the interlaced vs

 

I'm already trying to decide what to sell to offset the cost.

 

If you are talking about the similarly priced JVC camera, that is a
actually consumer camera. As for professional HD cameras, you are
off by more than an order of magnitude. This is very inexpensive for
a HD camera. The AGDVX100a cost about that much, but is a
standard definition camera. I think you will find that it is technically a
prosumer camera, as is the Canon XL-1, (even though there are
some "professionals" using it ). I think you will likely see this camera
achieve a great deal of popularity in the low budget independent
"film industry".

David

 

you and be both. I wonder how long it will take for our entire workflow to
accomodate the format.

 

I wonder if you can plug the firewire into your notebook computer and capture
directly to hard drive. Or even better, capture directly to a firewire drive
connected to the notebook. Of course, even better would be straight camcorder to
firewire drive, but from my understanding, they don't want to shakeup the
industry by doing that.

The reason I ask is that the 1 hour limit of the tapes could be a problem, say
you are filming a long play or recital. If you had two of these, you could cover
a school play or recital, using one for closeups and the other for distant
shots.

From the little experience, converting HDTV to DVD format results in much better
DVDs than mini-DV to DVD. So even if you are distributing the final product in
DVD, you should see a substantial boost in final quality.

 

Of course!

And Camera to firewire drive solutions already exist.

DV is only 1 hour also.

 

Yeah, isn't it 16x9? And shouldn't that be 1920x1080? Isn't that
the resolution delivered by HDTV broadcasts?

 

Traditionally, the highest horizontal resolution numbers are reserved
for industrial cameras, which are drastically more expensive (and larger
and more difficult to operate and/or travel with) than even the best
prosumer units.

I'll be very surprised if the new Sony isn't pretty amazing.









C.

 

Yeah, Sort-of

I was under the impression that the profesional cameras that support 1080i
do have a horizontal resolution of 1920 when used at that resolution. A trip
to Sony Broadcast, or Panasonic, on the web would probably clear that up.

But there are special purpose industrial cameras that have much higher
resolution.
For instance
Redlake ES-11000 does 4008 x 2672 Only 5 FPS though
http://www.edmundoptics.com/US/onlinecatalog/displayproduct.cfm?productID=2498
http://www.redlake.com/high_res/mega2_ES11000.html

ES 2093 does 1920x1080 at 30 FPS

HG-100K 1504 x 1128 less rez, but it does 1000 FPS
http://www.redlake.com/high_speed/HG100K.html

David

 

Yes.. that's true. Although many of the industral high rez cameras are
monochrome. Even Digital SLRs have higher resolutions.. I was just curious
about the irrelevant comparison as I don't know anyone who has shot a show
or a commercial or even an antiwar documentary with an industrial camera!
Resolution is less of the issue than cost and tape format. 4k ccd chips have
been around for over a decade in scanners.. etc..

 

Just to clarify, I was thinking more of the Betacam format which, for
VTR and broadcast purposes, had comparatively low horizontal resolution
numbers (enabling Sony, during its Hi8 heyday, to crow that Hi8 rez
exceeded broadcast standards...), but that the best Betacam cameras
usually had horizontal rez specs in the 700-900 range.








C.

 

I understand.

 

Instead of doing a whole lot of guessing about this camcorder, I'd suggest
reading the review at http://www.camcorderinfo.com/ and then going to the
official site at http://www.sonyhdvinfo.com/
I'm sure most questions will be answered.

Mike

 

so.. what did you thinkof it Mike?

 

There will, under the HDV format, never be a resolution higher than
1080i because that's the max available. That or 720p are you're two
main choices. That's why there's no 1920+ resolutions.

They can modify the HDV format or add new resolutions and call it
something like HDV+ if they will ever support higher resolutions.

Don't have the actual HDV reference, but here's a page with the basics
of what resolutions & frame rates are possible:

http://www.yenra.com/hdv-format/

 

Not sure what you mean here David. Can you elaborate? 1920 is Hz rez .. 1080
is V no?


oh.. I see what you mean.. it simply is not in the spec yet.... got it.

1440x1080 is awesome! But it is MPEG2. hmmm.. Also, it looks like the
144x1080 is right up against the 25Mbps DV rate..


Upon looking at the specs it will be interesting to see if editing is
problematic etc...

thanks for the link!