Category: Cameras

ViewSonic 3D Camcorder

Posted by – September 3, 2010

Here’s a low cost 3D camcorder with a 3D auto-stereoscopic viewfinder display. The camcorder has a built-in HDMI output to output the resulting 720p 3D video to a 3D enabled HDTV. The resulting video can also be converted on a computer to the Youtube 3D video format before uploading.

DigiLife Camera Projector DDV-JF1

Posted by – June 3, 2010

A good looking, perfectly pocketable, digital camcorder combined with a projector that will cost between 220 and 250 US$.

Bluetooth-enabled JVC Everio GZ-HM550 released for $800

Posted by – March 19, 2010
Category: Cameras

Slowly seeing some of the wireless features I want in my next camcorder as I wrote in my Next Camcorder Wish-List, the new JVC Everio GZ-HM550 ads a few interesting Bluetooth features:

Source: JVC America Press release

1. Bluetooth for a Headset to monitor audio or record voice.
This is cool, but:
– How is the voice recording quality using any regular Bluetooth headset compared to high quality wireless RF microphones?
– Why can’t they sell us maximum quality non-interfering Bluetooth stereo microphones and have at least 2 work for recordings? I’d buy those wireless Bluetooth microphones for $50 each, I wish they would work in high quality and be easy to use. Good quality RF microphones are ridiculously expensive at something like $500 each (tell me in comments if you can recommend some cheaper best ones)

2. Bluetooth remote control and viewfinder on smartphones
3. Bluetooth GPS location (why not include GPS inside the camera? Would that add too much cost or power consumption?)
4. Bluetooth off-loading pictures to the smartphone, this is probably going to be very slow.

Dear Camcorder industry:
– Please add WiFi to upload directly to Youtube the HD recordings.
– Please let Bluetooth keyboards be used to edit Title, Description and Tags when uploading the videos to Youtube.
– Please provide high quality wireless microphones either RF or Bluetooth available for $50 per microphone and at least two shall work at the same time, with easy to use mixer volume control on the camcorder for all the mics.
– Please provide video-recording at very high quality yet low bitrates. Like using the OMAP4 processor from Texas Instruments, which promises to record real-time at close to 2% of desktop multi-pass insane encoding quality, thus reaching pretty perfect 720p as low as 2mbit/s and 1080p a bit higher than 4mbit/s (same bitrates as on Youtube HD). 720p 4mbit/s and 1080p 8mbit/s would be fine to then have Youtube compress to 2mbit/s and 4mbit/s.
– Please provide a processor like OMAP4 to record both 1080p optimized bitrate and D1 for streaming on ustream.tv (and display overlay chat) over Bluetooth Tethering, WiFi or built-in 3G at the same time.

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ARMflix: ARM interviews Texas Instruments at Mobile World Congress 2010


ARM talks to Robert Tolbert, Director of Product Management at Texas Instruments at Mobile World Congress about their latest OMAP 4 platform showcasing multiple display capabilities.

You can also see my video interview and product showcase that I filmed at MWC at: http://138.2.152.197/2010/02/16/texas-instruments-omap4-demonstrations/

This video was released at ARM’s official Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/ARMflix

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Aiptek PocketCinema Z20 720p camcorder and projector combo

Posted by – March 2, 2010

Here’s probably one of the first 720p camcorders with a built-in projector. With this you can take some cool videos and project them directly on any white wall to show friends and family, pretty cool.

Aiptek 3D camera and 3D screen

Posted by – March 2, 2010

Aiptek is showing probably one of the cheapest 3D camcorders on the market so far. It films 3D at VGA resolution, to then watch on any TV using polarized auto-shutter 3D glasses (or however they are called).

Update on my wishlist for my next HD camcorder

Posted by – January 31, 2010

Here’s an update on my August 2nd 2008 wish-list for features of my next HD Camcorder:

Since the beginning of 2008, I have been using my Sanyo HD1000 camcorder to post about 1000 videos in 9mbit/s 720p HD quality (h264 baseline Sanyo recordings) to Youtube and before mid-2008 using 3.5mbit/s DivX 720p HD to my server when I posted all my technology videos at http://techvideoblog.com. In 2005-2007, I was using my old Sony HDR-HC1 for my 1080i HDV recordings to video-blog in 3.5mbit/s DivX 720p and Google Video.

I consider myself to be a professional video-blogger, thus I really would like to see the HD camcorder industry to include video-blogger features in next generation camcorders.

I would like to see Sanyo release a compact pocketable HD3000 model in the next couple of months, with following features:

– built-in WiFi upload to Youtube HD, like the Eye-Fi but WiFi uploads should be fast at full WiFi speed with resume of uploads supported and very easy to use user interface in the camera to manage uploads and automatic-uploads.
– built-in Android touch screen interface (for editing titles/descriptions), with USB-host or Bluetooth for keyboard text input to edit titles/descriptions
– faster/better H264 encoding quality per bitrate with more lower bitrate options such as 4mbit/s 720p (which should be at least as good quality as 9mbit/s encoding on the older Sanyo HD1000) for quicker upload to Youtube.
– Wireless microphone using Bluetooth or RF built-in would be nice as well.
– Live WiFi streaming with overlay chat API for Qik/Ustream would be nice as well while it also records HD versions.
– If possible, it should record both 4mbit/s 720p or 1080p 8mbit/s for Youtube and 20mbit/s 1080p for archiving.
– It should support automatic editing of intro/outros in all videos. Thus I could record a new intro/outro for each new event and it should just automatically edit that in.
– Let me pause recordings to thus edit videos while I film and let me join/cut videos within the camcorder faster than on HD1000
– It should let me point to a transparent PNG file to use as Watermark in all videos by default, the Watermark should be applied while filming thus not loosing any quality in re-encoding later.
– Version with built-in SIM card slot for HSDPA features would be nice, constant overlay live IRC chat would be nice to receive live questions and suggestions from live viewers
– 4.3″ or 4.8″ screen would be nice as viewfinder compared to the 2.7″ of the HD1000.
– Built-in 2.5″ or 1.8″ hard drive compartment would be nice for adding built-in storage upwards 500GB.
– Otherwise a second built-in SDHC card slot would be nice.
– Some clever system to swap battery while filming without having to interrupt the filming would be impressive.
– Built-in wide-angle, I film everything in wide-angle so I’d rather not have to buy an add-on wide-angle lense. Yet it’s ok if Sanyo make the lense look wide an cool by default (small lenses don’t look as professional).

Dear Camcorder industry, if you want to differentiate your HD Camcorder with good optics (better than a basic Flip camcorder), and not let Smartphones get HD camcorder functions built-in before we see some of these things. These features are it! Once you have got these features integrated, you can start aiming towards Quad-HD resolution recording for cheap if the HDTV LCD industry can follow as well, instead of making those ridiculous 3D HDTV.

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720p Android on a video-phone by Universal Microelectronics Co. Ltd.

Posted by – September 5, 2009

Universal Microelectronics Co. Ltd. is showing this awesome looking video phone project based on a powerful ARM Cortex A8 processor to integrate the Google Android OS into a 10.1″ capacitative touchscreen product! It has HDMI output, capacitative touchscreen (Android touchscreen dirvers are still under construction), ethernet plug, USB host and more features. Built-in dect phone, webcam. For about $260 price for carriers or resellers to buy this in bulk. They are also making a 4.8″ 800×480 version with a built-in mini-HDMI output, MicroSD slot and USB-host as well for about $200!

FaceVsion HD Video Conferencing solution

Posted by – September 5, 2009

FaceVsion of Taiwan now has added HDMI-input and Full HD 1920×1080 HD video-conferencing in the new FVexpress Pro card, as well as they still have the FVexpress combo with a new higher quality HD webcam included and a mini-PCI module that can be integrated in certain compatible netbooks (when the Express Card slot is not present on the netbooks) to integrate their HD video-conferencing directly into the netbooks.

What this technology from FaceVsion does is that it integrates HD H264 encoding and decoding into their express card device, or into their mini-PCI module, for netbook/laptop manufacturers to integrate or for end-consumers to buy as an express card solution or as a mini-PCI module to install inside of the netbook or laptop.

FaceVsion’s Qulive software automatically adapts the upload and download bitrates to and from each party according to the stable and reliable bandwidth that is available, it also support SIP to SIP connections and even IP to IP direct connections, thus it could be perfectly suitable for implementation at the Enterprise, for large, medium or small businesses. But also, especially, for just $119, this FaceVsion HD video-conferencing solution could easilly reach end consumers in masse if they manage to offer the right combination of product and value proposition.

Imagine sitting in your living room with a HD camcorder or cheaper HD webcam on your HDTV, and the same for your grand parents wherever in the world they live, simply sit back and have a real-time HD quality discussion in each of your sofa’s, the siye of a 42″ HDTV making it look like you are nearly sitting in the same room!

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Nikon D300s, Nikon D5000 and Nikon D3000

Posted by – September 5, 2009

Video sample upload filmed using the Nikon 300s at IFA 2009, I am walking around the Nikon booth showing their new cameras in beautiful HD quality that the D300s can film also using my Seenheisen MK 400 external microphone using the microphone input of the Nikon D300s camera. I am showing the D5000 and D3000 briefly.

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Olympus Pen E-P1 camera

Posted by – September 5, 2009

It’s not a DSLR, it’s not a digicam, what is it? I dunno, it’s thin though and the quality of the pictures should be fine but there seems to only be the live view LCD viewfinder.

Fujifilm 3D VGA camcorder

Posted by – September 5, 2009

It records a stereo image in VGA resolution. Put on your 3D glasses and click on following link to see the actual 3D video as filmed using this camera:

Nikon coolpix1000pj

Posted by – September 5, 2009

Nikon coolpix 1000pj shown at IFA 2009, it has got a built-in projector!

Sony MHS-PM1

Posted by – September 4, 2009

Here’s a Sony alternative to the Flip camera craze. Unlike the flip, this camera actually flips so that you can also film yourself while you can look at the LCD if your makeup is okay. It records in 1440×1080 at around 6mbit/s according to my calculations.

My next HD camcorder should have these features

Posted by – August 2, 2008
Category: Cameras, Opinions

– WiFi and HSDPA built-in to upload my HD videos directly to an FTP server without needing to use a laptop. API to interact with online services to then publish that video to video-blogs and Youtube.

– Live streaming using WiFi or HSDPA of the camera feed in a low resolution and bitrate all the while the camcorder is recording the HD quality to the Internal storage.

– Built-in 2.5″ hard drive (up to 500GB) as well as SDHC storage.

– Built-in bluetooth or VHF to use for cheap but high quality wireless microphones. Multiple microphones should work with one camera.

– USB keyboard support to enter filenames, description, tags for when publishing the HD videos directly from the camera to the Internet.

– Voice recognition service (could be online), can automatically transcribe title, description and tags from voice recordings made to be linked up with the main HD video file recording.

– On screen live chat from live video viewers in the same way as the Qik live chat works on the Nokia N95.

– Live video feed should be able to go to services such as Qik.com, Mogulus.com, Ustream.tv, Kyte.tv as well as live p2p streaming systems using live Bittorrent protocols, pplive or sopcast.