This camcorder looks very nice on paper, but I have two reservations:
1) Sensor size is very small 1/4″ sensor means 9.72 mm2 area per ccd multiplied by 3, so the combined area of the three ccds is approximately 29.16 mm2, when compared to single 1/2″ sensor with approximate area of 30.7 mm2, it turns out to be smaller than 1/2″ single sensor. As we are told this camcorder shoots in native 1080p. The native format will mean more pixels to fit into smaller area. This will mean very small pixels, and ultimately bad low light performance. When we talk about a professional camcorder worth $4000, bad low light performance is not acceptable.
Sony has done lot of research in this area and they have come up with EXMOR R BACKLIGHT SENSOR which is on test this year. Canon is trying to counter this problem by using larger lens and sensor and increasing the processing power, but this approach will produce larger and bulkier camcorders to achieve the same results as achieved by Sony’s camcorders. JVC and Canon and other manufacturer need to come up with some sensor based solution like Sony, otherwise they will need to buy sensors from Sony to make their camcorders.
2) The recording media is sdhc, which is going to be obsolete soon and taken over by sdxc announced this year in CES 2009, JVC must make some changes to ensure that camcorder is compatable with sdxc, otherwise any new camcorder offering sdxc will take over with the release of first sdxc card.
Overall this is good effort by JVC, there is no pro camcorder available with in this size with native 1080p resolution, 35 Mbps bit rate, NTSC/PAL switchable, Quick Time file format, and tons of other pro features. This camcorder will set a new trend and other manufacturers will be forced to come out with similar products. I think era of DV TAPE is over now.
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This camcorder looks very nice on paper, but I have two reservations:
1) Sensor size is very small 1/4″ sensor means 9.72 mm2 area per ccd multiplied by 3, so the combined area of the three ccds is approximately 29.16 mm2, when compared to single 1/2″ sensor with approximate area of 30.7 mm2, it turns out to be smaller than 1/2″ single sensor. As we are told this camcorder shoots in native 1080p. The native format will mean more pixels to fit into smaller area. This will mean very small pixels, and ultimately bad low light performance. When we talk about a professional camcorder worth $4000, bad low light performance is not acceptable.
Sony has done lot of research in this area and they have come up with EXMOR R BACKLIGHT SENSOR which is on test this year. Canon is trying to counter this problem by using larger lens and sensor and increasing the processing power, but this approach will produce larger and bulkier camcorders to achieve the same results as achieved by Sony’s camcorders. JVC and Canon and other manufacturer need to come up with some sensor based solution like Sony, otherwise they will need to buy sensors from Sony to make their camcorders.
2) The recording media is sdhc, which is going to be obsolete soon and taken over by sdxc announced this year in CES 2009, JVC must make some changes to ensure that camcorder is compatable with sdxc, otherwise any new camcorder offering sdxc will take over with the release of first sdxc card.
Overall this is good effort by JVC, there is no pro camcorder available with in this size with native 1080p resolution, 35 Mbps bit rate, NTSC/PAL switchable, Quick Time file format, and tons of other pro features. This camcorder will set a new trend and other manufacturers will be forced to come out with similar products. I think era of DV TAPE is over now.
Best of luck JVC.