MomentumPhoto News » Digital Video

Will camcorders become disposable?

jas — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 06:53:18 +0000

For those who thought owning a camcorder was sheer expense, then here’s some good news for you. If you’re not someone who is frequently on the go, and this happens to be just a one-off business trip to Florida or LA, then the DXG-572v is just what you’re looking for.
Well, I won’t exactly call it use-and-toss just because it’s priced at $149 (yeah that cheap), coz it does have almost all benefits that a high priced camcorder would give you. Be it DVD quality recording or 5.13 Megapixel stills, you got this cool cammy to do it all for you.
You can just max it out and totally torture it if it’s your only vacation for a long long time, but I’d say it’s cool to even hand out to your kids later when they are off to their school picnics. It will be fun for them to show it off while their friends use some kiddy camera.Not something to feel great about, but if you never had a camcorder in your life, then one’s a total must-have to practice all your amateur tricks on it.(NR/e)

Hitachi’s Blue-Ray Camcorders: An edge to camcorder technology

jas — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 11:27:27 +0000

Hitachi’s Blue-Ray Camcorders: An edge to camcorder technology While the idea of Blue-ray camcorders seems to be catching up like wildfire, you wouldn’t quite know the reason why, un-till you see Hitachi’s version of this cool methodology. The DZ-BD7H and DZ-BD70 models of Hitachi record High-Definition video at 1920×1080-pixel resolution onto a Blu-ray disk (BD-R/-RE discs of single side/single layer), and include a 10X zoom lens with a 2.7” LCD screen. The coolest part of course is that you can rid yourself of having to use a thousand different cords for transferring it once you’ve enjoyed being a cameraman or photographer, coz this one does it internally and saves you some sweat. The DZ-BD7H will be a hybrid with a 30 gig internal drive and record about four hours of 1920×1080 full high-definition video, and about eight hours of 1440×1080 HD. And as for the DZ-BD70, it can record one hour at 1920×1080 HD video and 1440×1080 HD video for two hours. Both will be endowed with a 5.3 megapixel progressive CMOS image sensor at 2.07 mega pixels for video and 4.32 mega pixels for still photos. However, don’t throw your loyal, old camcorder yet. It’s not until October that these would arrive in the US, and would of course hit Japan, much before, i.e, by the end of this month. So enjoy your pretty old baby till then. (NiRa)

Net-sharing cam: Youtubing your pictures and videos, the Sony way!

jas — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:46:40 +0000

Sony is going all the way to rake the interest of the young and excitement-buzzing generation, what say. It’s all over the place, whether its iPod accessories, TV sets, music players, or just about any electronic equipment under the sun; you couldn’t possibly skip gadget news worldwide these days, without reading about at least one Sony device. What you see up there is not some cheap imitation of the N93 or any other photography-encouraging phone. It’s Sony’s ‘net-sharing-cam’, and true to its name, its been brought out to hook up with Youtubers while they point and shoot and click, and share the best and worst of their generation with the rest of the world. The NSC-GC1 camcorder (that’s what the model’s called) can record in QVGA for easily uploadable 15fps videos or DVD-quality VGA. Your keen expertise in videography or photography can be stored on Sony’s Memory Stick DUO memory card and can be effortlessly posted to the social networking site of your choice. The NSC-GC1 also features a 5-megapixel still camera with flash. Neat init? This ‘not-so-bad’ looking device is designed to hit shelves in September, and costs $199 (that’s a rather decent price); however, pre-orders are now being taken. (NiRa)

Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2: Way too bulky – and not quite functional

jas — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:10:17 +0000

With the new Xacti VPC-HD2 Japanese CE company Sanyo just released another addition to the petite collection of hybrid HD cameras. However, reviewers are pretty skeptical: According to testers from
Dcresource.com the VPCHD2 gets to take crisp still shots alright but only if you set the shoot to lower ISO. Image noises are just so visible at higher ISO settings. Under low ISO, the shots are good. It has no lighting adjustment capability also. The camera produces either white-out or burnt prints under extreme or unusual lighting conditions (example: studio lights). Worse, there is not even red-eye reduction capability.
Another negative issue is the size. The Xacti VPC-HD2 is very big at 20.4 cu in. compared to its contemporaries like the Canon PowerShot TX1 which occupies 9.2 cu in. of volume only. The bottomline: The latest Sanyo video gadget is way too big for your pocket.

Retails for around $700.

Via: http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/sanyo/vpc_hd2-review/index.shtml
(SePh)

Canon XH A1 High-Definition Camcorder: Must-have for Spielberg wannabies

jas — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:44:59 +0000

Dying to read further about that great looking camcorder up there? Wondering if it’s straight out of some ‘high on photography’ movie? Well the good news is that it’s all that and much more. What you see up there is the Canon XH A1 1.67MP 3CCD High-Definition Camcorder, one that’s simply a must-have for the unbeatable photographer in you. Whether it’s for shooting that great National Geographic documentary or simply for shooting the dance of that hot lil chick at your friend’s birthday party, this one’s got something for every occasion. Of course don’t be too sure about it unless you’ve tried it yourself. Moreover, priced at $ 3500 (with a $250 mail-in-rebate), it’s not exactly something you can buy off your budget. So since you got to plan for it, you might as well make really sure that it’s worth it. However, Canon definitely doesn’t have a name for making anything bad (at least in my opinion). Apart from having 20x HD zoom lens, this one comes with true 1080 resolution, widescreen (16:9) HD video, 2.8-inch widescreen LCD monitor; .57-inch viewfinder,; Super-range optical image stabilization, Three 1/3-inch 16:9 CCDs (1.67 megapixels), and DIGIC DV II HD image processor. Quite a juicy punch huh? Try it. Maybe you’ll like it. (NiRa)

Canon releases HR-10 video cam with AVCHD video technology

jas — Tue, 29 May 2007 19:15:25 +0000

Starting this August Japanese photo and video giant Canon will be joinig Panasonic and Sony in their latest efforts to promote a new video standard called AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition). Canon’s first camcorder using the high-definition video standard will be called HR-10. The new cam that will be recording digital video clips on MiniDVDs will be featuring a 10x zoom and a 2.7 Megapixel camera for still photos is expeted to be much smaller then competitors in this class. Some Insiders even compare the new Canon cam to Sonys newest super small HDR-CX6 camera.

Web-Video on low budget: Mustek Mini camcorder for YouTube Fans

admin — Wed, 23 May 2007 09:57:03 +0000

Hollywood wannabies, online video geeks and YouTube freaks, listen up: Taiwanese tech company Mustek just introduced a perfect little mini camcorder for web video fans. The new Mustek DV520T is capable of recording VGA-quality MPEG 4 video at 30 frames per second including sound. Additionaly, the 520T can be used as a digital camera, capturing still shots in a 5 Megapixel resolution. Plus, the DV520T can serve as a digital voice recorder as well, saving voice notes in WAV format. However, the main reason to seriously consider getting one of these mini video machine is the price: The Mustek DV520T retails for only $130.