Panasonic’s HDC-SD1
Posted August 8th, 2007 @ 07:33pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Steve Jobs mentioned Panasonics AVC-HD (the HDC-SD1) HD camcorder which records high-quality HD video to an 8GB SD card in his keynote.
The specs page says the camera has a high-speed shutter: 1/60th to 1/8,000th seconds.
But it doesn't list the framerate. Currently, to record my golf swing (for analysis), I record on my Canon SD550 (still camera). It does 60 frames per second (more than the 30 most DV cameras offer) at 320 x 240.
At $999 (or is it $799 as Jobs said somewhere?), I'm mildly interested in getting back to shooting video… and a little more interested if it can do 60 FPS (or higher) at any resolutions above 320 x 240.
Donate Life
Posted 08 Aug 2007 at 8:33pm #
Amazon seems to have a good deal on this one.
Posted 08 Aug 2007 at 9:21pm #
My camcorder recently died so I am looking around. The Sony camcorders have a feature specifically for this. For example see this one:
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sony-HDV-1080i-Handycam-Camcorder-HDR-HC3/sem/rpsm/oid/148882/catOid/-13063/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
There are lots of variants on these cameras depending on whether you want a hard drive, MiniDV etc. All of the Sony's seem to have this feature.
I think I am leaning towards the Panasonic. I had decided that was what I wanted then learned that Macs did not really support AVHCD, but as of yesterday that no longer seems to be a problem.
Mark
Posted 09 Aug 2007 at 5:09pm #
Thanks for digging up the model of the camera that Steve talked about. I kept looking for info on the iLife website, but they seem to have removed the list of compatible devices that they once had. I guess it just grew too big (plus it's easier to just say that any consumer camera will work 😀 )
Posted 12 Aug 2007 at 2:06pm #
[quote comment="42666"]There are lots of variants on these cameras depending on whether you want a hard drive, MiniDV etc. All of the Sony's seem to have this feature.[/quote]
I'd like something with the SD card support like the Panasonic seems to have. Again, AVCHD has probably been supported for awhile now - there was no QuickTime update to accompany the new iMovie.
Posted 12 Aug 2007 at 2:11pm #
[quote comment="42710"]I'd like something with the SD card support like the Panasonic seems to have. Again, AVCHD has probably been supported for awhile now - there was no QuickTime update to accompany the new iMovie.[/quote]
I just bought an open box version of the Panasonic at Circuit City for $669. Unfortunately the hard drive in my Mac died last week and I do not have it back yet, so I cannot truly test it out.
I really wanted the new version of this camera that will sell for $999 but I cannot wait for it to come out as both kids have a birthday party and start school before then. I figured at this price it is worth getting the older model and I can still return it if there are any problems.
As for your question, I thought Sony had models that support the memory stick and have the slow-motion feature you wanted. Could you not find one? Plus the hard drive version seems like it'd be just as good as the SD version anyway.
Posted 14 Aug 2007 at 12:33pm #
I was intriuged by the mention of this camera as well. The lack of a tape based recording media in more and more cameras is interesting. Not that tape has ever been a good archiving medium, but what is the modern version of the stack of home movies that sit on a shelf near the family TV, to be pulled out when one is feeling nostalgic? Steve Jobs made a comment during the presentation that iDVD was updated "for those who still want to make DVDs". I feel like I was being made fun of. I have been wanting to make home movies of my kids since they were born (so far, just photographs). In my extended family of 100s (thanks to my wife's mega-extended family), I think I can count on one hand the number of people who would look to my website for videos of the kids. I centainly don't want to have to go to a website every time I want to watch a video of my son's birthday or baseball game. Having them available on the TV through an AppleTV or something similar is great, but having a tangible DVD to hold just seems "more right". Am I not embracing the whole digital lifestyle right?
That all said, I am jonsing for this camera. Seems that it is what I have been looking for - a tapeless, point and shoot style of video camera that my wife can use too without getting another grey hair. 😉 Of coarse, to get the videos to my HDTV, I'll need to either grab an AppleTV or encode them so the Xbox360 can play them. Ugh, technology making life more complicated through more flexability. Another gripe for another day.
Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 6:00pm #
I'm definitely thinking of grabbing one of these cards and maybe a Blackmagic card for my Mac Pro for direct HDMI input.
Mind you, I have absolutely no use for that high of quality video. I'm merely flexing my nerd muscle.
Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 6:25pm #
I just got my Mac rebuilt after losing the hard drive. This gave me a quick chance to try iMovie 08 and this camera. I am fairly disappointed. The quality is good, but the problem is that iMovie still appears to do some kind of transformation of the AVHCD content from the SDHC card. So I was hoping to get really quick transfer of recording from the card to iMovie, instead it is basically a real time transfer just as it is for MiniDV.
I guess I was hoping it was just a pure file copy but that does not appear to be the case.
Posted 26 Sep 2007 at 1:09pm #
The replacement seems to be the Panasonic HDC-SD5, which lacks a mic input but otherwise seems like a good upgrade.