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Two new Sony Bravia lines for the European market
You can't be expected to buy up one of the newly-released PlayStation 3s in Europe without a Sony Bravia to back it up, can you? Soon you will have your chance, with two lines of LCDs set to be released in the near future. The S3000 series will initially come in 32- and 40-inch sizes -- with 20 to 46 coming later in the year -- and sport three HDMI and two SCART connectors, as well as a built-in DVB-T digital free-to-air tuner (or "over-the-air," if you're American). Stepping up to the D3000 series grabs you 24p movie-mode frame rate and 100Hz refresh rate for greater smoothness, as well as a 10-bit panel for better color gradations. Both series also come with Bravia Theatre Sync via HDMI, using any connected devices to pass command and control signals around and help reduce the pile of remote controls on your coffee table; what, you don't have a Pronto or Harmony universal remote yet? Pricing and release dates are forthcoming.
Canon's HV20 HDV camcorder reviewed: dubbed "the monster"
If camcorder sales are to recover, it'll be the ability to record in HD that sparks the resurrection. After all, just about any new digicam and some cellphones can do a passing job at recording VGA or better quality video thus making the purchase of a second dedicated device hard to justify for the average consumer. That's what makes Canon's new iVIS HV20 so interesting; it shoots 1920 x 1080 resolution natively in HDV format to miniDV tapes and includes a 24p cinema mode to boot, a first in this class of camcorders. Best of all, it does this for about $1,000 -- not bad considering the price of other pro-sumer HD cams. Japan's Impress Watch are first to get their hands on a unit for review and although we had to read it using machine translation, it's easy to see that they are, er, impressed. Issues with low light shooting that plagued the HV10 seem to have been resolved on the HV20. While the CMOS sensor remains the same size, they've added the noise reduction technology found in their EOS camera lineup to bring low-light sensitivity down from 5lux to 3lux. In fact, the HV20 "eradicates" the HV10's weaknesses "entirely." Impress will be hitting a review of Sony's comparable HDR-HC7 -- a similarly spec'd HDV camcorder that also supports the xvYCC standard found in HDMI 1.3 for wider color range and space -- to see how they stack up side-by-side. No worries, you can wait, the HV20 won't hit US stores until April. Be sure to click the "read" link below for plenty of sample pics and video.
Sony's new HVR-V1U HDV cam does 24p
Pro video types without the budget for a high-end HD setup have a new friend in Sony's HVR-V1U cam: the HDV camcorder is the first in its class to shoot 1080p video at 24fps, the holy grail of indie DV cinematography. Sony's V1U is the followup to their Z1U, and is the pro companion to that FX7 prosumer cam we saw the other week. Along with the 24p action, the cam can shoot full-res 30p and 60p flicks, along with with slow-mo vids at up to 240 fields per second. In another boon to pros, the camcorder can record to HDV tapes while simultaneously pushing video to the new HVR-DR60 hard-disk recording unit which offers 60GB of space for up to 4.5 hours of recording in either HDV or DVCAM/DV mode. Other highlights include dual XLR inputs, a 20x optical zoom lens and a 3.5-inch LCD. Of course, this stuff isn't exactly "cheap" in most literal senses of the word: the camera and HDD recording unit are dropping in December for $4,800 and $1,800, respectively. Still, plenty of good things going on here, and if you don't have need for Canon's interchangeable lens capabilities, you'll save a whole lot of cash in comparison to the XL H1, and get some 24p action to boot.
