 Amazing camera for the price! |
| Review Date: April 16, 2009 |
| Reviewer: KD, Bay Area, CA |
If money is no object and optical image stabilization is your primary concern, then I recommend you buy the Canon HFS10 or HFS100. Now, with that out of the way, you have to temper your expectations with what you paid for. This camera is at least $600 less than the HFS100 for basically the same image quality minus image stabilization. You will see that I compare this with the Canon a lot because Canon has been king of the camcorder scene for a few years now.
Pros:
The image quality is almost as good and even better than the Canon in some aspects (based on online reviews as I don't own the Canon). The low light sensitivity is excellent (there is an option to turn up the sensitivity level). The thing we need to keep in mind is this: camcorders are best when used in areas with plenty of light. There is really no reason to film at night unless you absolutely need to. For the times when you want to film the night light or night scenery, this camcorder does its job very well. When hooked up to my 1080p television, the video was spectacular. I can't imagine how much better the Canon would be but I'm very satisfied with this. I know that it's impossible for the Canon to be twice as good as this camcorder for twice the price, at least for me.
It is small! I can definitely take this with me on vacation every where I go and not tire out my arms. It's much smaller than I expected, almost like a toy. Having used 5-pound camcorders in the past, this is definitely a good thing.
I can now leave my point and shoot camera at home as this substitutes as a regular still camera, hence the dual camera moniker. It takes 8 meg stills (don't use the 12 meg option as that's interpolated) which is impressive for a camcorder this size/price. There are ISO adjustments which I believe is lacking in the Canon.
Cons:
Image stabilization. If you like to film videos without tripods, monopods then I suggest you stay away from this. However, for under $500, I was able to buy this camcorder and a tripod, 16GB SDHC, and a camcorder bag. No optical stabilization can match a tripod/monopod. If you're serious about creating timeless videos that you can view 20 years from now, you need a tripod. Period.
Yes, it would be nice if the image stabilizer was better for the times when I don't have a tripod with me. However, it's serviceable if I hold the camera very steady so it's not as bad as some people would lead you to believe. I don't plan on filming while walking very often so it's perfectly fine. If you have a shaky hand problem and hate tripods/monopods then stay clear.
You can mitigate shaking with (1) a tripod, (2) steady hands, or (3) deshaker software (free online). You cannot mitigate $600 or low light sensitivity. No matter what camcorder you buy, you will need a tripod eventually if you're serious about taking good videos. So budget that into your purchase plan.
Normally, I would deduct one star for the bad image stabilization, but for a camcorder with superb image quality, low light sensitivity, and the fact that I can throw in a 16GB SDHC, tripod, and camera bag (all bought separately of course) for around $500, it's absurd to dock a star for it. This is the best camcorder for the money. |
Camcorder bargain of the year... so far
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| Review Date: October 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: David B. Haynie, Monroeville, NJ USA |
This is my fourth HD camcorder... I own a higher-end Sony (HVR-A1U), a Canon HV10, and formerly a Hitachi BD70A Blu-Ray model. I have been "doing video" since the 80s.
First of all... do keep the price in mind. This Sanyo VPC-FD1 was never intended to be confused for a professional model. Neither are the $1300-$1500 units from Canon (S10/S100/S11) or Panasonic (TM300). However, they are all symptomatic of the reality that the line between "pro" and "consumer" is blurring, at least with regard to picture quality.
The quality of this camera's HD image is quite good. It holds up well in low light... much better than any other consumer model I have used myself. It's also very good at capturing fast motion, which has until recently been a big problem for AVC based models, rather than DV or MPEG-2. It's not without some artifacting, but quite a bit better than earlier models, in my experience.
Some places claim the lens is 16x... it's really a 10x zoom lens, optically speaking. The 16x comes, as with many consumer camcorders, from "digital zoom"... that's when the software just uses a small bit of the whole sensor. They claim to be doing this intelligently... could be. In normal use, there's an 8Mpixel sensor here being cropped to about 6Mpixel... that's three times the pixels you need to create a 1080p image. That's also useful... you get better color and better light sensitivity, but if you cut out 2/3 of these, you'll still have decent HD video. More than that, and you'll get noticable pixelization. Which you do see in the viewfinder using digital zoom, but I have yet to look at it in finished video. Just something to be aware of.
The Great Big Feature of this model is 1080/60p video... you have to go to a pretty high-end professional model to get this anywhere other than in the VPC-FD1 or VPC-HD2000. Pros would like a higher bitrate than 24Mb/s (it's actually variable bitrate, peaking around 28-29Mb/s so far as I've seen), but it's not bad... the software clearly knows how to avoid macroblock distortion by adding a bit of low-pass filtering (slight blurring when necessary... don't worry, it does improve the video quality... compression mastering engineers do the same thing on DVDs to ensure that high speed video looks a good as it can on DVDs).
There are some caveats. One is the whole flash meets video meets FAT32 thing... like other current flash-based camcorders, this one uses the FAT32 file system. That offers big storage on 16GB and 32GB flash cards, but the maximum file size is 4GB. This means that, after about 21-something-minutes at 1080/60p, the camcorder needs to close one file and open another. That wouldn't be bad, only that the Sanyo doesn't pipeline this, so there's a delay of a few seconds between the end of one file and the start of another. Sure, it's better by far than changing 8cm DVDs every 20 minutes on a DVD camcorder, but it's an issue. They could fix this in firmware... they ought to. You get more time in a 4GB file as you drop to lower video modes (1080/60i, 1080/30p, 720/30p).
I have shot a number of High School soccer games with this in 1080/60p, and I get great results. Last year, I used my Sony in 1080/60i mode; this is overall better video. For one, I can downconvert to web video without interlacing artifacts. I can decide, after I shoot the video, if I want to make a 1080/60i, 1080/30p, 1080/24p, or 720/60p Blu-Ray disc, assuming I target Blu-Ray for delivery. That's pretty nice.
The other big issue is edit. Know this now: your PC is probably going to struggle just to play back 1080/60p at full frame rate. Neither Windows Media Player nor VLC had a prayer of playing this back on my Q9550-based desktop (that's 2.83GHz, quad core, 4GB fast DRAM, etc) on a 1200p monitor. Splash Lite did play it back, but used 65-75% of CPU power... that's all four CPUs. Using Nero Showtime with GPU acceleration enabled, I was able to play this video back with under 50% CPU on my desktop, and just about 100% CPU on my laptop (both using nVidia 8600 GPUs).
So when it comes to editing, you're in trouble. I don't know of a video editor yet that uses either multithreaded rendering or GPU acceleration during editing (most use the former for rending a final video... at least one also uses GPU acceleration). I opted to buy CineForm NeoVision for this. CineForm is an "intermediate CODEC"... you convert from your shooting format to CineForm for editing, then render to MPEG-2 or AVC or whatever you want for delivery. In theory, this means a loss of quality, in practice, nothing you can see. In fact, CineForm interpolates the 4:2:0 color of AVC to 4:2:2, so if you're doing lots of compositing and effects, the quality could actually improve. You need a ton of space for CineForm.. it runs over 100GB per hour of 1080/60p video.
The video format is MPEG-4 AVC in an MPEG-4 transport stream wrapper (.MP4). This is similar to, but not the same thing as, AVCHD, which is MPEG-4 AVC in an MPEG-2 transport stream wrapper. AVCHD is a full consumer standard, MP4 isn't, really. However, Sanyo's choices here should work with most software.. they're using MPEG-4 AVC at Level 4.2, and AAC audio, which is the usual MPEG-4 compressed audio format (AVCHD uses AC-3, formerly known as Dolby Digital, which is one of the Blu-Ray and DVD standards... the AVCHD standard really comes from Blu-Ray). I believe Sanyo has been making MPEG-4 camcorders longer than most companies, so they do have their act together here, even if they're not following the current popular standard to the letter.
I have not used still photo mode. They claim it's as good as a typical P&S still camera (that's the "Dual Camera" thing). I used my HV10 as a still camera, for about 300 photos, on a backpacking trip, and would have liked something better... I would be surprised if the Sanyo didn't do better stills. But it's not usually that important to me.
The battery is inside the camera, so you can't really get a much larger one. But unlike many kits, the stock battery delivers 150-180 minutes, which is ok. Also good is the fact this battery has been used by both Sanyo and Kodak for awhile... they didn't feel compelled to have to create a brand new cell here. So you can find 3rd party cells, chargers, and all.
The lens takes a 37mm filter/accessory, which is fairly standard. I was able to fit a polarizer from my Canon and a wide-angle lens from an old Sony SD camcorder... all good. There's no automatic lens cap.. there's a real lens cap that stows in the cloth handle when not being used.. fine with me. Those mechanical shutters generally break.
The image stabilization on this is digital (like my Sony), not optical (like my Canon).. that means it's inherently not as good. Optical these days always wins. With that said, optical can get confused by vibrations, and it can break if you drop the camera (so can other things, but that's one of the first to go). I usually shoot video from a tripod or monopod anyway, so this wasn't a big deal for me.
If you're buying just one camcorder, and plan to use it for video and audio, you probably don't want the VPC-FH1 (you might consider the VPC-HD2000, which is much the same, only in Sanyo's pistol form). The reason is simple: the mics are built-in, no plug to add an external mic. Microphones built-in on camcorders are general bad. The FH1's aren't noticably better or worse than anyone else's, they're just typical built-in mics. Not very sensitive, no wind screen, and ... well, at least they won't pick up tape noise like similar mics on similarly small DV and HDV camcorders. I have a Rode mic for my Sony that cost nearly as much as the FH1... you can imagine it does a bit better on the audio than any built-in. But it you're using this as a "B" camera, or using a field recorder for audio, that's not such a concern. The mics are located just below the lens, which is a superior location... many small camcorders put them on top somewhere, where your fingers will undoubtedly antagonize them no-end. |
Great video and pictures in a compact size.
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| Review Date: April 12, 2009 |
| Reviewer: F. Conrad, Cincinnati, OH United States |
I was lucky enough to receive this on Thursday and able to use it over the Easter holiday. I made several test videos and pictures to check out all the features before using it on Easter get-togethers. I strongly recommend buying this a couple weeks before using it on big events so you can test out features and set it up to get expected results. It's a great point and shoot camera/camcorder as long as you know what you're doing. It's not much bigger than a computer mouse and fits easily in a clip case. It came with a component video, S. video, mini USB and mini USB adapter (for the hard drive). It did not include a mini HDMI cable.
For the Easter recordings, I used it in the full HD mode 60fps with noise reduction on because it produced the best video on a true HD television when checking out the test files. The quality is extremely good. as good as and in many cases better than actual HD TV programs. A nice feature is being able to take still pictures from video by playing it back and pausing on the frame you want. The still pictures from the video files were very clear and plenty good for printing. The still photos were all done in the eight megapixel mode with excellent results. It was easy to switch between recording video and taking snapshots. I took a few snapshots while recording video and everything worked OK but the picture quality of the snapshot wasn't that much better than taking a frame snapshot from the video during playback.
I tried a few of the features but haven't had a chance to really analyze them in detail. The image stabilization feature has its limits shooting video. It does a good job when zoomed out, but you'll need a tripod when zooming in halfway or more. When zoomed in, it's hard to hold the camera steady enough for the stabilization feature to work. It is very important to hold the camera steady except if purposely panning. When the camera jerks, it causes the entire image to move which causes the MPEG-4 compression algorithm to create a whole new picture instead of just the small portion of actual action. This comes across as sort of a strobe effect on a large high definition TV.
The standby mode works great. When you're finished shooting, just close the display. When you're ready to record again, just open the display and it will be ready before you can remove the dust cover. The face chaser had a hard time locking in on more than two or three faces. This might be because nobody was standing still for a very long period of time. When it did lock in it seemed to be good at correcting. This will need more experimenting.
The display brightness was good and adjusts well between direct sunlight and indoors.
A useful feature is the ability to edit and merge video files right on the camera without the use of a computer. You can also connect the camera to a hard drive without a computer. The downside is that the drive has to be formatted to fat 32 and can't be over 1 TB. File transfer is very easy on any computer with a USB 2 connection. |
Amazing
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| Review Date: June 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Robert A. Wallis, Los Angeles, CA |
I've had the camera for about a month. Works great. I import my files into iMovie '09 for Mac by using a SD card reader. The battery life is fantastic. I don't even need to record in 1080p all the time.
One problem is you cannot turn off the display while recording. If you are at a conference recording some long talks, it could drain the battery more than necessary. This is especially strange for recording audio only, the screen stays on. But the battery life is fantastic, and I used it successfully at three conferences recording some parts. Honestly, I wouldn't record the entire thing anyway because it takes so long to do any kind of video editing.
The size is perfect, I just stuffed it in my front pocket at Disneyland and Seaworld and pulled it out to record whenever I felt like it. It was in my jeans. Then when we went on water rides, I put it in my girlfriend's purse.
Also, it works as a webcam without downloading drivers on Mac OS X 10.5, so when I use Skype and I have it plugged in and set on the camera to share, Skype recognizes it instantly. Same for iMovie and Quicktime so I could use it to record directly to my computer, or do a live broadcast with Quicktime.
The strap that comes with it has a place to stick the lense cap so it doesn't wave around and get in the way.
I have used the "Dual Shot" feature to take a picture while videoing just to make it easier to email someone without having to extract a frame from the video manually when I got home. Also I used it to record people preparing for a photo, because it's more interesting to see everyone's personality while preparing. But really, who want's to look at a photo when you have a video? If you want to save battery and disk space you could use the camcorder as a camera, but it's much cooler to record lots of video at the smallest HD and make a DVD, than to look at a photo album.
The camcorder is pretty light too, it sits on one of those funky gorilla tripods made for regular cameras just fine.
Also the red recording light is in the back so people won't notice as easily that you are recording and start acting if you are looking for naturalness.
There are many languages including Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Korean. But not Japanese, which seems prejudiced.
It has two microphones for stereo sound on the front. At the park I could pickup people about 20 yards away when they were talking loudly, so it worked well for filming a softball game from the outfield.
The quick settings buttons click pretty loud, so if you need to lock the focus or exposure while filming, it will pick up the sound. But it comes with a remote control that you can use instead to avoid the jolt motion and click sound from pressing the button. |
Highly versatile, quality camera: shoots quality, fluid motion HD well, even in low-light conditions
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| Review Date: August 19, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Thomas E. Jackson, Seattle, WA USA |
The primary reason I purchased this camera was for the 60fps 1080p video recording, and I couldn't be happier. I can't express what a difference it makes to have 60fps video instead of 30fps, all without all the horrible annoyances with interlacing.
This camera does 60fps video extremely well, providing VERY high resolution video that is incredibly fluid to watch. Looking at the footage from this camera is like being there.
Bullets are always nice, so here's a simple list of pros/cons. The biggest takeaways are: It's a great camcorder, especially for action shots, it's a good still camera, and the quality and versatility is stunning given the price.
Positives
+Unmatched fluid motion in a camcorder (I don't know of any other major camcorder that does 1080p60 except the Casio EX-F1)
+EXCELLENT bang-for-the-buck
+Good low-light performance
+Awesome slow-motion capability
+Fully automatic mode supported along with Shutter priority, Aperture priority, and full Manual.
+Macro mode is very good
+Zoom is very good
+Videos shot with Slow-mo + macro or Slow-mo + zoom are awesome
+Still photos are very good
+You can take still photos *while recording a video*
+If you're not recording a video, a good flash is enabled for good stills
+On-camera editing is pretty good
+The camera is SMALL and LIGHT, amazingly so.
+Transferring the videos to a computer is trivial, it just connects as a flash drive with .MP4 files that play on any computer running Windows 7, any Mac, or any Pre-7 computer with Quicktime or DivX.
+Videos can be uploaded directly to YouTube from the camera, in HD.
Negatives
-Image stabilization is not very robust. This might be a problem for some people.
-No Line-in for an external mic
General Advice for cameras/HD:
+Interlacing is never your friend, avoid it if you can. It just complicates things, especially if you're using the video with a computer.
+Cameras have a tough time in the dark, no matter how you slice it. This does quite well relative to the competition.
+Don't be fooled by sharpening, on your HDTV or on you camera. It's especially important on cameras to turn the sharpening off as the compression algorithms used by cameras are designed for actual video content, not artificially sharpened video content. Whenever possible shoose the 'Soft' or 'Normal' setting available on a TV or camera. Your videos will look much truer to life. |
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