Samsung HMX-S16 WiFi SSD camcorder shipping in Korea, due stateside any minute

While it's not surprising that a Korean electronics firm would let Korean natives get the first crack at their latest line of wares, it's not without some small jealousy that we tell you the Samsung HMX-S16 camcorder is shipping in South Korea today. After all, it's not every day we see a sexy black number like this sporting solid state storage and streaming video over WiFi. Still, we'll only have time to be envious for a couple more sunrises. Amazon is already taking preorders for the flagship 64GB model, which it says will ship May 28th for $1,200, and you can get the very same 10 megapixel CMOS chip, 1080/60i recording and 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD in a cheaper $1,000, 32GB package -- the HMX-S15 -- if you can manage to hold off until June 4th.

[Heliosphan Posted May 26th 2010 12:38PM]

Hmmm, 1080i?
I've seen 1080i footage and you do get some rather nasty interlacing artifacts during high motion footage.
So whats up with manufacturers not going straight to progressive scan?

[xavierpr14 Posted May 26th 2010 1:17PM]

@Heliosphan I though the same thing when I saw the picture. $1,200 for a cam that only does 1080i? It never looks the same when its 1080p. Unless it is able to do 1080p at 30 f/s.

[Quiglag Posted May 26th 2010 2:44PM]

@xavierpr14 According to the specs on Amazon it does indeed do 1080/30p

[Heliosphan Posted May 26th 2010 12:42PM]

...its also a little peculiar that it is 60fps, double that of the normal frame rate. I'd much rather have 1080p30 than 1080i60 any day.

[SlimSpaceman Posted May 26th 2010 12:51PM]

@Heliosphan Interlaced capture is typically twice the speed of progressive frame-rate due to the frames capturing only half of a frame's worth of information...

[SlimSpaceman Posted May 26th 2010 12:52PM]

INTERLACED VIDEO MUST DIE!@!!1

[camerafan Posted May 26th 2010 1:01PM]

I'll stick with the 1080p from my digital stills camera! Jeesh, what are these people thinking! They just keep on putting out the same out dated crap. We won't 1080p on these new cams. All this other pointless stuff is wasted. Picture quality has to be the bottom line. We are now in the 1080p age!!!

[Vuke Posted May 26th 2010 1:18PM]

That's one nice looking camera. I think I'll pick this one up if it comes.

[samialtas Posted May 26th 2010 1:23PM]

who buys a camera which has a samsung brand label on it? huh. lol

[lakersin2025 Posted May 26th 2010 2:00PM]

Why the hell can't we get 1080p 60fps!? Damn we have been fed this same 1080i crap for a few years now at it looks like shit. I returned my canon hg10 because it just looks like garbage.

[SurgeArrest Posted May 28th 2010 5:54PM]

@lakersin2025 1080p60 requires pretty crazy bandwidth. These requirements can be satisfied with components that are probably more expensive than you want to pay... easy (I'm not talking about bandwidth for already encoded video, but about raw video going into encoder).

Also, I have SONY 1080i60 (XR520) and when played on a good equipment (PS3 or even direct on my XBR4 TV) I get pretty amazing picture even in high motion. At the same time if I try to pan slightly faster with my 7D at 30p image no longer looks even half as smooth.