Watch out, Sanyo, because your diminutive
HD2 camcorder is about to face some very daunting competition from Canon. Like the recently announced Sanyo, the PowerShot TX1 packs a 7.1 megapixel CCD into a tiny little package capable of capturing 720p HD video as well -- but unlike the $700 HD2, Canon is hanging just a $500 pricetag on this model. Besides its one-two punch of high resolution stills and videos, this device offers a 10x optical zoom (with an optically-stabilized lens), a 115,000 pixel LCD, and ISO settings ranging from 80 to 1600. You're also getting the latest Digic image processor, advanced face detection and red eye reduction, Vista-compatibility, 14 shooting modes, and a so-called "Intelligent Orientation Sensor" to keep the display looking right no matter how you're holding the cam. No word so far on a release date, but with all this functionality at a very attractive price, you can probably expect the TX1 to fly off shelves when it finally makes its debut.
posted Feb 21st 2007 11:25PM
Canon is such a c*cktease! The price point is great. The form factor is OK. But a look at the specs on the Canon web site requires me to say "pass." The video specs are miserable and don't even come close to the Sanyo HD1 or 2. A mere 6 mins on a 2GB card at full HD res! (The Sanyo can do more than double that) Unable to handle anything larger than a 4GB card! (Sanyo HC2 will handle 8MB cards) No wonder Canon is marketing this in their camera line and not their video line. What a disappointment. I don't really like the HC1 and was hoping this could be a worth competitor.
I've seen low light footage from a canon G7 640 x 480 that is a vast improvement from the TX1 PMA clip. Unless I do all my video footage in bright light I don't think I can call the TX1 video HD at all just yet.
Still hoping there are some manual override features to improve its low light performance?
damn i really want one of these
13 minutes of HD video on a 4GB card - unacceptable. Video is recorded in AVI.
blah! Canon still uses AVI??? Why couldn't they move on to H.264/AVC?
Bad call on Canon's part. I was hoping it would be THE ultimate digi/vidcam in one I was hoping for...
Hot. Want it.
Whoa, are they making a little HD Minicam? Because at the bargain basement prices SD cards are going for (2 GB for $13?!? And getting cheaper all the time!), that's a really smart move.
Not only do the specifications look interesting, the camera itself looks like a throwback to the '70s.
Love it!
1. What is the video format? MPEG2 or MPEG 4?
2. Does it support Camera RAW format for the photos?
I hope the photo quality is up to the standard as those PowerShot S series.
Can we get rid of the "Digg it" links? No one cares.
This is the first camcorder in 3 years (since I bought my last camcorder) that I've found immediately appealing.
@texnote
Do you have a link that shows datarates for different modes of video recording? I assume 13 minutes on 4GB is at 720p, 60fps? I'm curious to know how many minutes at 480p, 30fps.
I'm totally buying this! Woo!
Yeah, data rates and storage would be some sweet info.
* New wide-screen setting 720P ( 1280 x 720) movie mode now possible; at 30 or 15 fps — highest movie resolution ever in a PowerShot digital camera – with stereo sound
* Flexible movie / still shooting Shoot a full-resolution still image during movie recording, or start movie recording by simply pressing record button (no need to switch into “movie mode” first)
* Continuous recording up to 4GB Movies can be continuously recorded with a fast SD card, up to 4GB per movie clip• Approx. 13 minutes of continuous movie recording at new 1280x720 resolution, 30 fps• Approx. 30 minutes of continuous movie recording at 640x480 resolution, 30 fps
* Continuous audio-only recording PowerShot TX1 can be used as a sound recorder• Sound recordings up to 2 hours in continuous length are possible• At highest quality (44.100 kHz) setting, up to 1.5 hours audio fit onto 1GB SD card• Choice of 11.025 kHz, 22.050 kHz, or 44.100 kHz quality settings
* “Component” output to HDTVs D-type terminal delivers 1080i signal for higher-quality movie and still reproduction on new hi-definition TVs
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0702/07022203canontx1.asp
This camera has no compresion in the video mode. It takes 13 minutes of HD video in .avi format on a 4GB SDHC card. That is pathetic. The Sanyo does MPEG-2 and stores 20 minutes per GB.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0702/07022203canontx1.asp#specs
@DHC
Yeah.. But de Sanyo does not have an optical image stabilizer, canon lens, and costs 200$ more..
The Sanyo HD2 is much bigger than this Canon.. 8.3 ounces & 3.1x4.7"x 1.4" vs 7.8 ounces & 3.5"x2.4"x1.1".
BTW I prefer "uncompressed" or less lousy codec video to Mpeg-4 (not Mpeg-2, not even h.264) video..
This Canon PowerShot TX1 is the smallest HD 720p camera in the world! ;)
The video format/size isn't a problem because this camera supports SDHC.. So you will be able to use 32Gb SDHC cards that will come out around Q407..
I'm sold unless Panasonic has a response to this Canon camera.. (The Lumix LX2 also has 720p video recording, but only at 15fps, i was waiting to the LX3/LX4..)
To be fair, the HD2 is taller, but slimmer. As far as weight, if you have used the HD1 it's really too light to hold steady. I don't see the TX1's lighter weigh as much advantage and at any rate it's an .oz. Also the TX1 doesn't use uncompressed AVI as you seem to allude to. It's AVI compressed with the MJPEG codec (which is lossy btw). One last thing: do you realize how expensive a 32GB SD card is going ot be when it comes out. It's not going to be a practical option for most consumers and I can't see pros doing anything but stickig their nose up at the TX1. Bottom line Canon screwed up by not using MPEG4/h.264. It's a more efficient codec. Canon just didn't want to pay the licensng fee. I'm disapponted b/c I'm not a big HD2 fan.
Think about having a 32GB SD with a camera, which uses MPEG4. You get 10x longer videos than with MJPEG. Video format really matters.
I have to agree with some of the sentiments here. Only 13 minutes on a 4GB card? That's pathetic at best. What on earth would someone be able to do with only thirteen minutes of recording time? Who would find this useful? Kids filming their friends skateboarding? No adult will find any practical use for this.
People need to know they have at least an hour and a half to two hours of recording time. Think of using this on vacation or for any other prosumer purpose. Thirteen minutes is useless.
Based on Canon's estimates, and the fact that anyone would want to know they could film for at least ninety minutes at a time, they should have integrated 20 GB of flash memory into this thing. And yes, it would raise the price, but then at least it would be useful.
And probably more importantly, they should have used a different codec.
You people are clearly not adults if you think you need 1hr. or more video on a card! Remember you won't be buying and keeping SD cards around like people keep video tapes of their kids... SD card is meant to be copied to a PC, where you can watch it, burn a DVD, or even a bluray disk.
No serious videographer would ever film a single scene that was more than 10 min long. It's simply not interesting to watch! You film a lot of short clips, edit them down to something interesting, and burn a disk! For that purpose having 2-5 4GB cards with you on a trip, or just 2 cards and a laptop is PLENTY!
Got to love the irony - no _actual_ adult would post a comment needing 1+ hours of recording time.
This looks like a neat new toy - not a replacement for the HD camcorder, but definitely something you can throw in the travel bad when going to the beach!
I do agree to the length of a single scene and the purpose of SD cards.What would you do if you had to do retakes. Do you have any idea that even proffesionals do takes a bare minimum of 5 to 10 times before they get it right? The rest of the stuff you're absolutely right? My opinion, a company as good as Canon should have used MPEG4 which will definitely give better quality and quantity even though the fact is it's a compressed one.
Oh, and one other thing... the LCD screen needs to be larger and a widescreen format, as well as double the resolution.
Not a bad first try from Canon, but not ready for prime time. I'll wait for version two.
If it was MPEG-4 I'd be all over it. But Motion JPEG? What were they thinking?
I guess the obvious question, considering the data rate - can it be used tethered, and dump directly to a PC or hard disk? (Does it have aa tripod mount? It must!)
If so, then it would make a nice home studio or on-location shooting setup.
Well, after reading the comments and the like, I think I will go after the HD2. I've been eying Sanyo's HD camcorders for a while now. Here's what's going on: this is Sanyo's 3rd try at a SD HD Camcorder and I think they may have ironed out all the bugs and included all the necessary features in the HD2.
I'm in the market for a new camcorder anyway and my biggest problem was dealing with those damn DV tapes... I don't care about tapes, because I immediately import what I'm using to the computer. (Also my current Cannon camcorder is now starting to eat tapes).
Nice try Cannon, but I'm going with Sanyo this time around.
I'd suspect those who are complaining about the 4GB limit per video shot make really really boring home movies.
A video shot longer than 30 seconds is almost 100% of the time soul-numbingly boring.
2GB cards, or 7 minutes of video, are what, $20?
I'm sure the TX1 has built in video cropping, so you can chop 99% of the boring crap in-camera.
I don't want to crop/edit inside camera.
I don't want to shoot my dog, my son or something, I need good enough recorder to fit my pockets most of the time.
I want to record stuff regularly (not only when I have my 'real' camera with me), have fun and eventually if something useful happens edit it on my mac.
I like this camera a lot! Motion JPG is a little suspect... But what do I know? I'd like to see reviews on how it deals with low lighting shots.
I agree with Jason's comments about complainers probably making long, boring videos. I agree, it is disappointing when comparing to MiniDV's length. However, after shooting a lot of home movies over the past 2 years, I have whittled my videos down to less than 1 minute shots. 30 seconds is the target size. Early on, I'd shoot WAY too many long 5 or 10 minute segments that were just terrible and took me WAY too long to edit down to something interesting.... so I just never edit them and hence never watch them. I tend to use the video recorder on my Canon S630 more than my Sony TRV17 MiniDV!
Congrats Canon on finally delivering a modern day video product that targets the digital camera fanatics. I'll jump.
@Tones Jom
You have some reason.. We now know the bitrates that the PowerShoot TX1 handles..
"In video mode, the camera records footage using Motion JPEG compression at data rates of up to 4.48Mbps at 720p/30fps. The other video quality settings include 720p/30fps LP (2.28Mbps); 640x480/30 fps (1.92Mbps); 640x480/30 fps LP (1.02Mbps); 320x240/60 fps (1.37Mbps); 320x240/30 fps (.746Mbps). Video and stills can be recorded to SD/SDHC, MMC, and MMC Plus flash memory cards at capacities up to 4GB."
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-TX1-Brings-HD-Video-Capture-to-a-Pocket-Digital-Camera.htm
4.48Mbps at 720p/30fps.
What i don't understand is how is possible that the Canon camera produces bigger files at half the bitrate of the Sanyo HD2..
I suppose that there might be some wrong numbers, or the 4,48Mbps refers to Megabytes/sec instead of Mbits/sec..
Which will be 35,84Mbits per second.. (The maximum bitrate of the Sanyo HD2 is 9Mbits per second..)
35,84Mbps should provide pretty good quality in MJPEG, probably even better than the Mpeg-4 files of the Sanyo..
The 4,48 Mbytes/second figure seems right, that means around 13-14 minutes of recording in a 4Gb card like the article says..
We'll find out what camera offers more quality soon.. PMA is coming ;)
¿Did i hear Aperture 2.0?
the people complaining about the "13 minutes of HD video" limitation are under the mistaken impression that whatever they want to film will be interesting for longer than 13 minutes
hibiscusroto:
Uh, no. I think you are under the mistaken impression that you can make a movie with 13 minutes of raw footage. This isn't 1950 where people just unleash their unedited 8mm film. To make a decent 10 minute movie you need an hour or more of raw footage. I don't think anyone feels the joy of schlepping around a dozen SD cards around. Kinda kills the whole point of a small video cam. Face it, Canon screwed the pooch on this one. Hopefully their learn there lesson next time. On the positive side Canon HV20 HDV cam looks pretty solid. I'll be picking that one up.
after reading all the comments concerning length of video shots per GB I did some extra research on the Canon site and found this:
512MB = 1min 42sec (1280x720 30fps)
512MB= 3min 17sec (1280x720 30fps LP)
so apparently there is a LP version of the 30fps mode....
interesting.
Yes, thank you. Couldn't have said it better myself. At least some of us here "get it".
It's about convenience and flexibility. If it's no big deal, then why aren't DV tapes only ten minutes in length? Coupled with Tones' remarks about one of the fundamentals of shooting video, did you guys ever think that maybe someone might want to record multiple events, not just one event? Can't exactly do that with only 13 minutes.
I know for the 30-second-You-Tube-generation with no attention span it's hard to understand, but the need is there.
So maybe for some who only want to shoot commercials, this product is fine, but for most of us who want our money's worth, Canon's going to have to try a little harder.
Geezers always forget how fast things change.
Sure SDHC is at 4/8GB today, but 32GB SD cards will be available faster than you can say "Moore's Law".
8GB SDHC ($54.99 at newegg) - 26 minutes uncompressed 720p video {over 1 hour LP}
16GB SDHC - 52 minutes uncompressed 720p video
{~3 hours LP}
32GB SDHC - 104 minutes uncompressed 720p video
(over 5 hours LP)
Bear in mind that there is a 4Gb single file size limit even if you have a 32Gb SDHC card installed (due to AVI format limitations I believe).
So in the future you may be able to record 104 minutes of HD video to that card, but you will have to stop and restart your recording 8 times to get it with 8 individual video files. I can think of many times where stopping and restarting like that would definetly have seen me miss some very important footage (or at least cause an editing headache stitching it all together).
You would need a powerful PC to be editing multiple 4Gb video files together like that, imagine the time needed also.
I've seen this marketed as a HD camera for travellers - on average most travellers wanting video footage if away from their PC or DVD Recorder for a few weeks will end up with pockets full of SDHC cards each with multiple's of 13 min's of HD video.
Sounds like a travellers nightmare compared to Mini DV or HDD video storage. I have a great camcorder already, I just want something that will do similar quality video that I can put in my pocket and take great stills with.
Unfortunately the TX1 is like a car manufacturer marketing a high performance car that runs out of fuel after driving it for 15 mins.
Man, people have got this all wrong.
Motion JPG vs mpg-2 or *gasp* mpg-4. Motion JPG wins in my book, a lot less lossy ( say that 4 times fast ... just did, guess it's a lot easier than I thought... ANYWAYS ). Totally awesome for grabbing short high-quality slice of life stuff. If you want to capture an hour of footage to make a movie, purchase a camera made for that for crying out loud. You guys are arguing to buy shop vac to clean up the exxon valdiz. ( a very cool shop vac mind you, and you could likely eventually clean up the exxon valdiz if you had the patience, by why the *$&% would you.)
MPEG2 and MPEG4 are also bad for video editing. Motion JPEG will work well with available video editing tools. It could also make for much higher quality video. The samples I have seen from previous flash based recorders doing MPEG4 have been terrible.
This thing, along with iMovie HD could be really great. I'm very anxious to see it in action.
My questions are: Does it have a firewire port, the standard for video transfer? Does it have a 16:9 lower resolution mode, like 720x480 (DVD resolution)?
@Tones Jom
"To be fair, the HD2 is taller, but slimmer." No, is not.
Canon is 3,50"x2,36"x1,14" and Sanyo is 3.1"x4.7"x1.4"..
"It's AVI compressed with the MJPEG codec (which is lossy btw)." But much less lossy than MPEG-4 or MPEG-2..
This camera, with MJPEG video at a bitrate of 35,84Mbits/second should provide VERY HIGH QUALITY.. For its size..
It's less than half the size of Sanyo HD2 at 9,41 cubic inches vs 20,39 cubic inches..
@ Todd
"My questions are: Does it have a firewire port" No, Only USB, but you could always use a firewire SDHC card reader if you want to go faster ;)
"the standard for video transfer? Does it have a 16:9 lower resolution mode, like 720x480 (DVD resolution)?" Apparently not, the only 16:9 video mode is 1280x720..
It is sold.
The only problem would be the camera itself which looks like the '70s.
@Jason
"Geezers always forget how fast things change."
Hey, just because you're old, doesn't mean to have to be hard on yourself. Nobody gets it right all the time. Besides, you being old probably means you don't have a lot of time left, anyway, so brevity is appropriate for you.
What's most important here is that you'll have fun with your 13, or 26 whole minutes! Yaaaaayyyy!
Avg DV tape length (at highest quality) = 80 min
TX1 "tape" length (at highest quality) = 13 min
DV:TX1 = 80:13 ~ 6.15
Avg car range ~ 350 miles ~ 5.5 hours highway / 9 hours city
To compare the manufacture of a car with the manufacture of the TX1, you'd have to use the same 80:13 ratio, which would mean that the correct way to phrase the metaphor above would be:
"That's like making a high performance sports car that runs out of gas after 53.65 min (highway) / 87.80 min (city)"
To me, this doesn't seem like that bad of a deal, and reminds me of the electric cars that everyone liked so much but that the car companies killed (see "Who killed the electric car?" -- http://imdb.com/title/tt0489037/ (imdb) or http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70052424&trkid=189530&strkid=477568119_0_0 (netflix).
Anyway, I think I'd buy it. I hate tapes. I have a whole drawer full of them. And it takes forever (1 minute for every minute of video) to import them into my computer. And I don't have enough space to keep them all on a hard drive. Ugh.
--dhc--
I'm buying this the day Canon puts out an underwater housing for it, like they do for most of the digital PowerShots. Filming in HD underwater makes me drool.
"So in the future you may be able to record 104 minutes of HD video to that card, but you will have to stop and restart your recording 8 times to get it with 8 individual video files."
If you're using the camera to do security surveillance, then you probably won't stop and start within 104 minutes of shooting. For the application that the camera's intended for, I'd imagine stopping and starting is a common occurrence.
Also, you'd need just as much processing power to edit eight 4GB files as you would one 32GB. And, organizationally, it'd be easier to manage and edit eight 13 minute clips than one 104 minute one.
is it just me or is the flash on that thing WAY too close to the lens. 1) that can cause some serious red-eye, although thers always photoshop. 2)it looks like the range of the flash may be somewhat blocked by the protuding lens; maybe the bottom of a picture may look slightly darker than the top.
You people don't get it. The primary function for this camera is a digital still cam. It looks like a video cam because Canon designed it that way to fit a 10x optical lens.
This was not designed as a true HD video cam! Just like a digital point-and-shoot that has the ability to capture short video, this does too albeit with HD and minutes worth of capacity.
If it's a proper HD vid camera you're looking for you'll have to pay quite a bit more than $500.
The last comment was "spot on!" Videographers should stick to the appropriate tools. I shot much video over the years, good enough to be invited often to shoot weddings and other important events. ALL of it sits on the shelf with little compulsion to either view it or convert it. However, I have taken 55,000 pictures with my Canon G2 (still takes outstanding shots of everything but fast motion in low light), put some music and panning to them as slide shows and maintain interest every time I show them. The G2 comes up short in the video area, however. 30 seconds of fuzzy film doesn't do much for us, but, has captured some wonderful moments with departed parents and growing grandchildren that are priceless at any quality. My own extensive experience is that NO ONE of ANY generation will sit through much video, even well edited video unless the subject is absolutely riveting. Hearing the roar of the ocean or a waterfall is only good for so long, unless you want to relax and go to sleep. The baby is cute for a while, but, only for a little while. Taking video of your child's high school concert or sports event? Take your camcorder and enjoy - don't take a digital camera. Then, carve out the time in your busy schedules to actually watch again. Wonder how much of our video will be retained by the generations that follow us?
I'm definitely interested here, and the price isn't too bad, too!
The thing that gets me is solely the lack of higher SD support. My thing is, I agree with others here that the 13 minutes for 4GB isn't bad at all. I NEVER take videos larger than that; to do so and then have people watch through it would be boring. Like others said, if you need a longer video, then get a camcorder, this is still a digital camera.
However, I usually take a lot of short videos, which can easily add to more than 4GB, in addition to pictures. But I don't want to take a bunch of 4GB SD cards on vacation with me, since carrying them around by themselves gets me ancy (they're easy to lose, misplace, etc!). Ok, fine, go with SDHC. Problem here: if I do that, then my laptop, which I would bring on vacation, would be useless as its SD reader (as I understand things) won't be able to read it. And I don't feel like having to carry an SDHC reader along with me everywhere I go.
So personally, I think those are my only problems, and at this point it's just a choice between two evils (in a way I guess). But I'm still very interested, and will take a look after it's come out and there are reviews on it. I personally like the design too...I don't think it looks 70s, its small size make it look modern, I think. Anyone who can record HD video on such a small product will easily look like they own something a lot more expensive than the guy next to him with a comparatively bulkier camcorder.
This link shows a Japanese review of the TX1 with sample video's.
http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20070307/zooma298.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dwatch%2Bimpress%2Bavwatch%26num%3D50%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3DGGGL,GGGL:2006-17,GGGL:en
I would like others opinion on the video samples in HD with the girl walking through the bush/forrest - it seems like the auto focus is hunting all over the place (maybe face detection was on and it was hunting to detect and focus on a face??). The 640 x 480 clip almost seemed to focus smoother?
Secondly I've noticed a synthetic sound pop up in different places in a few of the video samples (sounds like cutlery dropped onto a plate). I'm hoping it is from pressing a button on the camera and not some camera mechanism noise being recorded??
Also the large 271MB sample video compilation is quite jerky when trying to film the girl walking through the street in my opinion.
Hopefully steves-digicams or dpreview will do a review soon.
Have fun trying to decipher the review or translate it :)
It's funny because I replied to your post in the Steve's Digicams forums. Here is what I said there:
I noticed that the videos on that site that are wrapped in an MOV file have a lot more noise than the files wrapped in an AVI file. That makes me think that whatever he did to convert them to MOV files degraded the quality.
I took some of the AVI files from the site, dropped them into an iMovie 720p project, sent them to iDVD and burned a DVD (obviously, this wasn't HD). The resulting output was pretty nice. I think this is the camera I have been waiting for for quite some time now. From what I have read, because the camera uses MJPEG it means editing will be of a generally higher quality. (It uses a pretty high bitrate and all compression is entirely intraframe.) At $500, it is an exceptional deal.
I copied the link into a few forums thinking that some people interested in the TX1 samples may only monitor 1 or 2 forums etc.
I will try what you did with putting it to DVD, did you notice the sound in the video that I mentioned?
I'm still interested in the TX1 also :)
After putting the samples onto DVD and watching them on an SD TV I must say that I'm quite impressed, as long as the auto focus doesn't hunt all the time. Even the 1280 x 720 LP setting looks good - for me that means I'll get 26 mins out of each clip max :)
Well, the Sanyo VPC-HD2 seems to have the upper hand on this one in terms of looks, HD video length, grip, LCD screen size, etc. Too bad it lacks image stabilization for digital stills. The ridiculously short record time in HD mode of the TX1 makes it useless to me. The HD2 has plenty of length and looks better too, although I really hate the drab blue-grey color with speckles...YUCK! The HD1A is much better looking. I wonder if there will be an HD2a that will come in silver. HMMMM. Don't think I can wait. I've already given myself and ulcer waiting for the freaking TX1 and HD2 to come out. I have no patience. HD2 all the way for sure. The TX1 is just plain butt-ugly.
Some comments on what I've read above:
This does come with a high bitrate because of MJPEG, which has no interframe compression, every frame for itself. The Sanyo HC series uses at most 9MbPS for HD, which has quite a bit of noticeable compression with much movement at all. This Canon device's MJPEG comes down to about 170KB per frame, which isn't too low for 900KP. So, this thing probably does offer, based on compression(as well as the quality of the ccd, lenses, etc.) better video quality. The stabilized lens sounds great too.
However, I have a Sanyo, and the reasons I am not disappointed are these: The file size is still a little higher than what I would need on the Canon. The $200 price difference I read is realistically much less(according to my sources more like $60; at least with the HD1a). Interframe codecs allow stepping down to low data rates(6MbPS with Sanyo), saving extra space when filming low motion stuff(which I sometimes do). Where detail realism is sacrificed(typical of dark, fast motion filming), I can switch to the lower res VGA mode with 60fps for movement realism, which the Canon doesn't do. I'm not sure why. I love 60fps. I don't know how much it would cost to put in a more advanced video processor, but if they could at least just get the video down to half its size, and add a 60fps feature, (along with a few other minor things) that would be quite tempting. :)
More samples:
http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/review-75-PowerShot+TX1%3A+Getting+started+with+the+first+Canon+HD+camcorder.html
This is not intended to bring an end to the camcorder market, it is intended put HD video capabilities in your pocket. Just as pocket sized cameras are not intended to replace SRLs, pocket cams should not be judged by their ability to replace a camcorder. They should be evaluated by their ability to be ready to capture impromptu short film moments.
"It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby."
As to which video capture format is superior for a pocket cam, I prefer JMPEG as it offers superior frame capture over MPEG4. It's great to switch to video mode so that you can grab high quality stills that are not posed or composed. There are too many occasions when cameras and camcorders have failed to serve me in that way.
"Leave it to a dago to bring a knife to a gun fight."
If you need more that 30 minutes of video capture, it's typically something important. Why would you knowingly bring the limitations of a pocket cam into that situation? Would you want to be stuck holding a pocket cam that long?!? There are times when a dedicated camcorder is the order of the day; times when you should also have a tripod, an external mic, and a good idea of the shots you want. For everything else, there will be a TX1 in my pocket. As my two pockets also have to hold my wallet, phone, and iPod the TX1 is barely small enough for my carry everywhere needs.
I am using this for last 10 Days I have almost test all the function of this cam. Compare to HDD based cam this cam push more Quality. Soon 32G SD card will out by then it can rec long clip. I insist THIS CAM is for the Instant event recorder not to the wedding hall to rec long events..! I have a very best cam still I like it as it sit in my pocket. And travel with me with out ticket.! Good manual functions..!
long time since any input
I am on the fence about to fall over and purchase one of these.
Any input? Has anyone tried to use this with a 16GB card?