Looking at purchasing a Full HD waterproof video camera with good optical zoom and was wondering what anyone out there has tried and their opinions??
What would you recommend?
G'day Toby,
Jr Walks is right. I've got my self a Sony HDR-XR520 with the sports pack SPK-HCE which can give me up to 5m depths of HD recording. You don't have to get the higher end camera like this one but its the housing sports pack thats brilliant. Down side is the housing is clear and lets in light which drowns out the LCD screen (you have a little mirror which allows you to see the LCD screen) and makes it hard to see if your trying to zoom in on stuff, especially since we have kiting in mind and when its sunny, things are not perfect. But the other side to that is because its HD, when you edit the footage, you can post zoom (editing program allows you to zoom footage) and the quality is still mostly there, so you don't have to zoom so much while filming and therefore just 'aim' the camera and record, don't even bother too much with zoom. By the way this camera is 12 times optical, you can fit a 2 times adaptor with a small modification (a small repositioning of the camera inside the water housing to pull its position back and then you can fit a 2x or even wide angle lens).
Also, this camera has brilliant steady shot features which makes it perfect for in water filming of kiting while in the surf. I've checked out other brands and this sony model is the best I've see so far.
One last thing, working is full HD is hard on you computer, you need a fast powerful computer to handle the extra info, my software and computer was fine on my older Standard Definition stuff, but ****s it self now on HD 
.
cheers,
Robert.
Robert , do you have any footage to share so can see the quality? YOUTUBE H/D would do...
thanks
I know its not a proper video camera, but the compact Panasonic Lumix FT1 that they have just put out is waterproof and does HD video recording. (Only AVHD lite I think) But the reviews on it's picture quality are pretty postive. Most tough cameras seem to have crap picture quality and this might be a good compromise (Not to mention a hell of a lot cheaper) I am looking to pick one up myself as I always seem to break my cameras by dropping them or landing on them while snowboarding.
check out store.sony.com.au/ and www.sony.com.au/product/spk-hce
its full HD and has a great picture, takes good stills too, 12Meg, but its not cheap. The truth is, if your not making BlueRay Discs you don't really need 1920 x 1080 resolution, so you won't notice it on Youtube if its full HD or lite HD 1440 x 1080. Sounds like the panasonic camera is good too.
I did a few experiments with different levels from full HD to SD long play and put them to DVD and even SD, was pretty good, so youtube would be even harder to spot the difference. When I put other camera footage amongst the sony it is easier to see that this camera is superior.
Anyway, the hdr-xr520ve is the best of the domestic cameras which is near as damn-it pro quality. I have tested the drop protection for the onboard hard drive (240Gig Hard Drive), and it works good, I was riding around on a jetski filming my mates kiting and dropped the camera onto the ski, hit pretty hard, and no problems, so far!!!
cheers for now,
Robert.
Puetz your camera sound really nice........
I've been sort of looking around but don't have enough cash yet. I think although HD is expensive and not really used that much yet, its worth the investment. With in a year blue ray players will be taking over dvd players and HD will become standard. All broadcast is now HD, meaning all of your SD footage will become less attractive. Even if you don't use HD yet its good to have to footage archived in that format cause you will.
puetz - is your camera minidv?
G'day Tom83,
the camera has a hard drive it records the footage onto, not like miniDV which uses a tape. This camera can record 29 hours of HD footage or if I want too, change the settings to lower resolution and have more hours (109 hours in standard definition). The old tape you could get 1 hour, stuff that, especially when you go on holidays.
For kiting footage, the camera has great stabilizer so if your a bit shakey the camera soaks it up. I used a 'good' JVC camera and it was terrible, it that is was shakey like sh!t, I did like it at all.
All we need now is some wind so I can get some footage, proberly the hardest thing is getting some one to give the time to record it, instead of kiting!
cheers,
Robert.
I recorded 7 hours of HD 1440 x 1080 kiteboarding while on Cocos last year on my Sony HD9 in a Sony sports pack. Made an incredibly sharp video on BluRay disk.
Rob
ROB S
do you have any exmples............ I know youtube distroys quality but you can get some idea
I bought a panasonic Lumix DMC-FT1 digital camera. It does the job that I wanted. A 43sec lite HD movie was 80meg. It is a compact snappy happy digi camera, but takes good pics - generally 6meg each on its best settings.
Couple of times taking surf vids the data overloaded the memory and it shut down. 9 out of 10 times it was no probs.
This is going to get a bit tech so only read on if you are brave:
just crunched the numbers on the Sony HD9 - its recording using a really good codec for DELIVERY (but definitely NOT good for recording in for use as source files to be graded, cut, slo mod etc etc) at 2298 kb per second (based on 9 hours recording time) - thats closer to what you would compress HD down to - in fact its close to what i end up sending video out to Vimeo , exposure room etc - ie - compressed for web delivery.
This is not a good place to start if something like HD is what you are really after. Does the HD 9 have a lower recording time - higher quality option?
Dv and HDV cams (tape) record at 25mb per second - both at the SAME data rate- but HDV is a more compressed format (think Jpeg vs raw) while DV is less compressed.
Those formats give you a much higher bit rate per second compared to the HD9 codec number crunching above- which really is compromised. You would probably get better contrast and color out of standard DV off tape
The h.264 codec is brilliant - for final delivery - ie the final compression once the edit is done - but its ABSOLUTELY hideous for use as a souce codec to edit on the timeline because the computer has to work SUPEr hard to decompress the codec. It will hang up, take hours to render and generally be a pain in the ass on anything other than a supercomputer.
If i was starting out i would Go with Standard def - off tape - which edits like butter on the timeline - even on an older computer -and focus on getting good light.
My old Sony Hc3 does a great job recording HDV but i ALWAYS transcode it to something else because HDV is a nightmare to edit too.
Do the maths on the lumix data rate and you are again shooting a highly compressed format - think really bad youtube quality (we've all seen it) at one extreme and high quality vimeo at the TOP end - thats basically what you are getting
which is fine for people looking for an optical record of their adventures - if picture quality is what you are after - search elsewhere
good luck editing the codec that comes out of the Lumix..
Bit rate is everything - an efficient codec also helps - be very wary of anything under 25mbs.
I shoot in DVCpro hD - its a 100mbs codec - and thats shooting 1280 x 720.
But the color space is AWESOME. Your viewwers will pick up color and contrast as the first indicators of picture quality - definition is something like the 5th most important variable in percieved picture quality.
I'm with Reflex on this one.
high compression "HD" recording is a compromise. The h.264 codec was basically developed for the plethora of security camera recording systems out on the market to extend recording time and still give decent quality to the recorded images to be able to define faces/numberplates etc.
Even basic DV tape recorders will chew up over 12Gb to record 1 hour of video, but this does give you much better colour and contrast to your footage.
Also, I prefer tape. I know you don't get 9+ hours of recording, but you also don't loose 9+ hours of recording in 1 hit. Tape is direct. The tape contacts the recording head and is held in place. Unless the camera suffers a HUGE impact it will keep recording. If (heaven forbid), water enters the unit, then what you have on tape will probably be salvageable.
Laptop Hard Drives are used in HDD cameras. These drives are slow (4500/5400 rpm compared to 7500-10000 rpm for bigger drives) hence the requirement for compression of the recorded video as they simply cannot keep up the data write rate. "solid state" memory is used to cache the video when it cannot be written to the HDD quick enough. These drives are also fragile. When the power is off, the little arm that writes data to the "platters" (little magnetic round things that store the data) on the drive is parked away and impacts are not so much or an issue. The problem comes when impacts occur when the little arm is out writing data to the platters and this causes a write to the wrong area. This can cause data corruption and ruin your video. over time this will also degrade the efficiency of the HDD and slow down it's recording rate. It can also scratch the surface of the platter rendering it useless. As for water ingress, if it gets wet, its pretty much all over. Putting the drive in a laptop or hard drive caddy usually does not work as most companies use proprietary disk formats that are unreadable by most operating systems without the camera's interface.
I'm a bit of a gumby with editing and it takes me about 6-7 hours to edit 1-2 hours of footage down to 3-5 mins. 9 hours worth, you do the sums.
Hope all this helps
the lumix is not as bad as poor quality youtube. The format it produces for the movies is strange. The quality is lots better than I expected, when played back in the software it comes with. The software also does some basic cut and paste.
it seems to open in premier elements, so that was a relief. Only just had the camera for about a week so just checking now. I'll check the bitrate???? (edit - it is 17mbps after checking the manual)
very happy with the photos, which was the main reason to get it.
the bottom line is if you want good quality digital movies in high definition you need to pay the bucks and get the right gear. a digital pocket camera is a compromise.
Lostinlondon,
i bought it off the internet for $507 plus $35 postage. I think it was going in JB's for $593
I'm happy with it for my purposes. I'm just checking into the editing of the movies now and what you end up with after it converts into an avi or mpeg or quicktime.
For travelling its perfect. If you want to make a profesional movie job of your adventures, then maybe not.
pretty sure sanyo do a hd waterproof mod.
i have the non and it is the best quality camera i have ever owned. plus it was under 1g.
My error, just checked. My camera is a Sony HDR-HC9. 0n MiniDV tapes.
Not a HD9. Got the tape version as it was higher bit rate record than any cameras recording on memory card in my price range at the time. 25 MB/sec
Look about on the net for computer set-up for HD movie making. Some cameras recommend > 1.8GB processors and at least 2GB RAM + a big harddrive. Laptops won't cut it in the HD world. Read the camera specs before buying or you may be up for an expensive computer upgrade.
You can cut on laptops - but just not the basic ones..
An apple Mac pro laptop will eat up editing in the field and even in a studio - but these Grunty babies arent cheap. Lots of indies and pros work on the run with these machines.
I cut on either:
an Apple 13 inch laptop - perfect for basic cuts in the field and capture / Hard drive shot management on shoot.
or
my Apple G5 power Mac tower with 8gb Ram - i have about 4tb of disk space right now. And i need more!
despite this older technology i can still work work quickly as i am mostly working with DVCPROHD from P2 cards on a Panasonic HVX 202
or Apple intermediate (a bit slower to edit and render) for all transcoded HDV material-
these codecs are nearly as easy for a computer to work with on the timeline as SD DV.
If i was shooting in AVCHD or HDV and wanting to edit natively in those formats i would be stuffed. And up for a quick 5g of new MacPro tower power. Basically any mpeg / h.264 / formats are a NIGHTMARE to work with - unless you have a blazing hardware set up.
Its the dirty little secret that no one tells consumers - especially as DV tape cams become harder to find as all the "Wonderful" (not) new flash card, HArd drive only cams are dominating the market now.
Editing is a very trial and error process to get the right look and timing so render speed on the timeline is a crucial aspect.
As is screen real estate - get the biggest monitor screen you can afford.
with nasty mpeg 4 formats - TRANSCODING is your friend - converting the highly compressed format to something more open and easy for the computer to work with
look at options to transcode AVCHD across to Dv or DVCPRO HD
cineform on pc (i think)
compressor on apple (its part of the final cut studio package)
i reckon there are other options too.
Once again, the Sony Handycam HDR-SR11E records in compressed format.
7 hours of video on a 60Gb hard drive says it all. It's a compressed format, so you loose alot of detail in every frame. Not true native HD
For more info on AVCHD, check this.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD
From the sony website, you can see this camera does not even get close to 25 MB/sec. The best it can do is 16Mb/sec
Movie Quality (Average Bit Rate/VBR)
HD: AVC HD 16M (FH) / AVC HD 9M (HQ) /
AVC HD 7M (SP) / AVC HD 5M(LP)
SD: 9M (HQ) / 6M (SP) / 3M (LP)
Nasty HDD/memory stick storage as well.
unless u want to spend over 5 grand and get a proffesional quality finish, u cant get much better than a sr11 and a cheap sports pack housing that will prob set u back just over 2g.....
i say go a SD DV tape cam - those panasonic gs 250 small 1'4 inch 3 chip series ones are great
and can be had super cheap now - probably less than 1 g.
And will edit like butter on even an ageing computer.
Or go HDv and transcode - My 3 year old Sony HC3 with housing works nicely- but you have to transcode - i go to apple int codec or pro res. And it has awesome telemacro..
try going across to DV or DVCpro - those are undemanding codecs for the computer to edit - but the file sizes will increase.
www.afterdawn.com/glossary/term.cfm/dv
www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=142075
forums.dvdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=320353
so much technical information
cheers
agree with the above
have panasonic 3ccd 250s which takes crisp clear image to DV tape
but also a wterproof panasonic that records to sd card (MPEG)
premier struggled with this (MPEG4) once the dvd got greater than about 10min long
old computer using pinnacle studio didnt seem to have same trouble with tape downloads, now i know why!
