Briefing

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE

EQUIPMENT NEWS On Friday April 27th Bob High demonstated the Merlin Steadicam; all who saw this were impressed with how neat and effective it was - but maybe tricky to master. If you missed this or just want to know more see this link. The professional show for higher end video equipment is called NABs and is held in Las Vegas in April each year. The hottest news from the latest NABs is from Sony. Basically they are going to introduce a tapeless series of HD cameras and the cheapest, being introduced in late 2007, will be under £4000. The spec is just amazing and details are here and here. I spotted very useful looking piece of kit: the ElipZ 10k battery from Anton Bauer. On March 23rd Peter Kidman and Bob High gave the latest camcorder technology update. These are the links to some of the various sources used.
CAMCORDER NEWS On March 23rd Peter Kidman and Bob High gave the latest camcorder technology update. Peter outlined how the supply of HDV cameras has multiplied over the last two years both at the prosumer top-end but more so at the under £1500 consumer end. They are getting smaller and smaller as well as cheaper. In addition it had energed in the last year that HDV was not the only HD standard available at consumer prices and the new AVCHD format agreed between Panasonic and Sony would be offering the possibility of recording onto HDD or even flash drives (like digital still cameras)as opposed to tape. However although two cameras had been announced the general intial view was that this new format had not yet matured to deliver the quality that might eventually be possible.Also editing att he moment was quite tricky.It was a case of watch this space. Meanwhile Bob outlined the reasoning behind the purchase of his new HDV camcorder. Peter and Bob also carried out live experiments attempting to establish which of two HDV delivered the best low light sensitivity. Update on this - later in the bar of the Glenlyn Peter and Bob carried on the experiment and established that in fact there was no apparent difference between the Sony HC7 and the Sony A1.

USEFUL LINKS These are links to the various websites used to produce this briefing:
Pro-sumer HDV Camcorders Canon XH-A1 http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-XH-A1-Camcorder-Review-Complete-Color-Charts.htm http://www.canon-europe.com/For_Home/Product_Finder/Camcorders/High_Definition_HDV/XH_A1/index.asp Sony HVR-A1E http://www.dvuser.co.uk/content.php?CID=34 Sony HVR-V1E http://www.dvuser.co.uk/content.php?CID=141 Consumer HDV camcorders Sony HDR-HC7 http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sony-HDR-HC7-Camcorder-Review.htm Canon HV10 http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-HV10-Camcorder-Review.htm Canon HV20 http://www.camcorderinfo.com/d/Reviews&level_b=Camcorder&level_c=Canon&level_d=HDV.htm http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/07/canons-hv20-hdv-camcorder-reviewed-dubbed-the-monster/ http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-HV20-Canon-HV10-Sony-HDR-HC7-and-Sony-HDR-HC5-Camcorders-Compared.htm
AVCHD Format and other new developments http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sony-HDR-SR1-Camcorder-Review/Format.htm http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Panasonic-HDC-DX1-First-Impressions-Camcorder-Review.htm http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/JVC-GZ-HD7-First-Impressions-Review.htm http://www.simplydv.co.uk/comment/comment01.html http://www.avchd-info.org/index.html
HDMI Cables http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/06/13/hdmi-version-1-3-approved/