Digital Camcorder Reviews

Articoli marcati con tag ‘Sanyo Xacti’

In the category of mini digital cameras proposed by the manufacturer within the Sanyo Xacti series, is also distinguished by the TH1 pattern, characterized by a high level of optical zoom, the ability to acquire digital images at 2 megapixel resolution, a design usual compact and minimalist structure. It ‘available in both Silver in the Blue

Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 resolution, zoom and display

And ‘absolute level of the focal length of the digital video camera Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 intact. In fact, it varies between a minimum of 2.5 and a maximum of 75 mm format in the so-called real, while in the film range is between 43 and 1290 mm. This creates an optical zoom above every traditional canon regarding the potential for magnification, whereas you can get the maximum value of no less than 30x. The digital zoom looks good by comparison, with a range between 25 and 50 magnification of the image. CMOS sensor camera Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 has a resolution of 1.10 megapixels reported at the click of photographic images, instead of 0.97 megapixels for video in HD quality. The size of the image sensor is estimated at 1 / 6 inch. Very interesting display: 3-inch diagonal, resolution of 230,000 pixels, TFT and filter up to 285 ° rotation.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1  design, supply and recording system

Compact lines, light and extreme ease of use have always been the distinguishing features of all the devices submitted by Sanyo as part of manufacturing of digital cameras (especially in the Xacti series). No exception even model VPC-TH1, with a net weight of each accessory only 226 grams, 269 grams, which become even considering the contribution of rechargeable battery power (about 41 grams), and integrated memory card (just 2 grams). The size of the camcorder Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 are: 105 mm depth, 57.3 mm in height, 53.3 mm wide. The camera is commercially available in classic silver version or the original coating as Blue Lithium Rechargeable Battery DB-L50 from 1900 mAh autonomy of 200 minutes of video recording, recording media via SD card and SDHC other characters be reported.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 Audio and main functions

The 16-bit sound system with 2 channels and the presence of AAC compressed storage is what distinguishes the sound performance of the new digital video camera Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1. This model provides a focal range of recovery ranging from a minimum of 50 cm to infinity, but thanks to the Super Macro, you can shoot very tight, even up to one centimeter away from the subject again. The camera requires a minimum of 3 lux light for shooting in High Quality sensivity. Sensitivity can be set between the values of 50 and ISO 1600. Is the stereo microphone, mono speakers instead. Do not miss the digital image stabilizer for greater image accuracy. The integrated 3-inch monitor has 7 different levels of brightness, wide 16:9 format and can be rotated 285 degrees. The main menu is available in several languages.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 Envelope, photo mode and connections

Appear to be considerable potential connection with the outside camera Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1, since that is including all kinds of connections are more advanced. Do not miss such an HDMI port for connecting high-definition displays. To this are added the USB 2.0 high speed, compatibility for NTSC and PAL video systems, the output audio / video related. Using the built-in battery mode video recording, the consumption of Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 is approximately 2.8 W. The autonomy of the device when playback instead of 570 consecutive minutes. The last resort for analysis on the use of the model as a digital camera. And ‘it can have photos with maximum resolution of 2 megapixels (1600×1200 pixels), in JPG format and storage on SD or SDHC memory card. You can also choose lower resolutions: 1184×888, 1280×720, 640×480 pixels.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 final verdict

You can highlight two main factors that distinguish in particular the camera VPC-TH1 by other similar devices, the same manufacturer or even the same range. They are: the optical zoom to 30x magnification of the image (the lens has a focal length of 2.5 to 75 mm), and the presence of a LCD monitor with a diagonal measuring 3 inches. Other information related to this monitor are the 7 different brightness levels, the ability to rotate up to 285 degrees and displaying images in wide format. Less advanced, however, the performance of the sensor, with resolution ranging around 1 megapixel to the user’s done. The sensitivity can reach ISO 1600, there are also digital image stabilizer and Super Macro for shots even up to 1 cm away from the subject. HDMI, USB 2.0 High Speed and Audio / Video.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1 user review

With this generation of horizontal handycam Sanyo is a big step forward. Vertical than the previous model (series C), which already owned in my opinion have improved many features:
- Optical zoom (30x, it is remarkable, although it would need a more powerful image stabilizer)

- Battery (with the minute and available remaining charge in the order of a few hours intensive)
- Ergonomics (now you can zoom with the index instead of the thumb)

Overall a camera in the perfect value for money for those who want to shoot movies of a quality suitable to the web (YouTube etc.) thanks to HD (720p).
Supplied a missing handbag or at least a little protection for the transport of the camera (and then be put into account before buying) and as previous models in the Xacti fatigue very poor light conditions giving his maximum sunlight.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-TH1  video review

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High-definition (HD) pocket camcorders, once a rare gadget represented by Kodak’s Zi6 () and Pure Digital’s Flip MinoHD (), are becoming more commonplace and starting to stray from the traditional candy bar-style design. One of the most striking and configurable of the diminutive HD camcorders is Sanyo’s Xacti VPC-CG10.

The Sanyo’s Xacti VPC-CG10 is a pistol-grip style camcorder that comes in black or pink. With its flip-out 3-inch LCD, extensive system of menus, 5x optical zoom, electronic image stabilization, ability to shoot 10 megapixel stills (with flash, if desired), and exposure, white balance, and focus controls, it appears to have more in common with full-sized camcorders than with such Big Red Button pocket camcorders as the Zi6 and MinoHD. Yet the affordable price, small size, and—most importantly—video quality, tell a different story. And because quality is king, it’s important to point out that if you rely solely on the Xacti’s automatic abilities, you’ll wind up with video that’s often oversaturated outdoors and a little murky when shooting indoors.

Capabilities

The Xacti is both a still and video camera. The LCD acts as the viewfinder and the controls are arrayed on the back, ready to be thumb-operated. Those controls include a Camera button for taking stills, a Record button for shooting video, a zoom toggle, a four-position joystick for accessing the menu and calling up shortcuts (which I discuss shortly), and a Menu button. The camera includes a flash that functions only when taking stills. You can take still images while shooting video simply by pressing the Camera button and the camera offers a macro mode that allows you to get within centimeters of your subject. At its 10 megapixel settings the camera captures images at a resolution of 3,648-by-2,736.

The Xacti runs off an included proprietary Lithium-Ion battery. The battery can be charged only by removing it and inserting it in the included battery charger so you lose the kind of in-camera charging convenience you get with the Flip camcorders. The Xacti stores images and video on an SD card (not included). It can shoot in three modes—30 frames per second (fps) 720p HD, 30 fps standard definition, and 60 fps standard definition. And it captures H.264 video at a data rate of just over 9mbps. On a 16GB card you can store nearly six hours of standard definition video and almost four hours of HD video.

You can import video from the camera either by stringing the included USB cable between the camera and a free USB port or remove the SD card and place it in a card reader. Do either and iPhoto opens by default so you can import both the stills and videos.

You can attach the camera to a TV via the included composite video cable for standard definition playback or purchase a £10 proprietary component video cable from Sanyo for HD output. The Xacti also includes a lens cap and sports a tripod mount on the bottom of the camera.

Configuration

As I mentioned, by default the Xacti’s outdoor video is oversaturated and indoor shooting can be murky. You have a number of ways to attempt to deal with this. As with point-and-shoot still cameras and larger camcorders, the Xacti includes a collection of scene selections, which automatically adjust settings based on the kind of conditions you’re in. The camera includes Full Auto, Sports, Portrait, Landscape, Night Portrait, Snow & Beach, Fireworks, and Lamp. You can also access exposure compensation controls for bumping exposure up or down. And you can adjust ISO and white balance. Doing this can mean diving into the camera’s menu to muck with settings, which largely defeats the purpose of a point-and-shoot camcorder. However, the Xacti includes a Shortcuts feature that lets you assign things like exposure, ISO, exposure compensation, flash, focus, auto-focus lock, and exposure lock to the four-position joystick on the back of the camera. Just push the joystick to the right, for example, and the exposure compensation slider appears, which you then adjust with this same joystick.

Compromises

Nice as it is to have these kinds of controls, they’re not always effective. For example, while you can definitely pump up the brightness by adjusting ISO settings, when you reach into the highest setting (the camera offers ISO 50, 100, 200, and 400) your images display more artifacts. The camera’s image stabilization fails to impress as well. Switch it on and your video gets soft. And this is where the Xacti disappoints. For an inexpensive camcorder it offers a load of promising configuration options. But, in many cases, it doesn’t deliver on those promises. You can tinker with many of those options and not end up with significantly better looking video as a result.

Datailed Performance

Lens & Imaging System

The Sanyo VPC-CG10 is manufactured with the same lens as last year’s VPC-CG9 from Sanyo. You still won’t find any filter threads surrounding the lens, nor an automatic lens enclosure. There is, however, a hard rubber cap that you can attach to the camcorder with a fine cord tether and cap to snap over the lens. The 1/2.33-inch sensor is the same size as the CG9′s but this year’s model has received an upgrade in resolution. The 9.1-megapixel sensor is now 10.66 megapixels. In theory, this should result in sharper still images and sharper video.

Color

The Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 demonstrated an incredibly impressive performance in color accuracy and saturation. Video recorded in bright lighting conditions had vivid, naturalistic color tones, with some slight inaccuracies in the skin tones and yellow hues. As with all of our testing, the CG10 bright light color testing was done with a manual white balance. The camcorder’s auto white balance would not produce colors this accurate. (More on how we test color.)

Noise

In terms of producing a clear, noise-free image, the Sanyo VPC-CG10 once again outclasses most of the competition. The CG10′s noise percentage (just 0.55%) is better than what you’ll see on most consumer camcorders, no matter what the price range. Of course, noise percentage doesn’t tell the whole story. Often, you will see very little noise in an image because the camcorder has a relatively low sharpness; smaller noise may not be visible because the sensor does not resolve the smallest details. That could very well be the case for the CG10: much of the noise may be obfuscated by the slight blurriness of the footage. (More on how we test noise.) With other ultracompact budget camcorders, the story is much the same: low sharpness makes for relatively low noise. Of the camcorders under £160, the CG10 does have the lowest noise percentage, beating out the Sony Webbie and the Flip series from Pure Digital. Among the ultracompact camcorders we’ve chosen for comparison, the worst noise percentage came from the Kodak Zx1, which had both poor sharpness and poor noise—an unusual combination.

Motion

While its color and noise performance may belie the camcorder’s low price point, our motion test showed the CG10′s true weakness. Motion captured on the VPC-CG10 has significant artifacting and frequency interference—more so than the competition. Compression artifacting, in particular, is less common with the Pure Digital Flip UltraHD. If there’s significant movement in your image, these chunky blocks of discoloration are fairly common on the CG10. Motion is also somewhat blurred compared to the competition. The one area in which the CG10 excels is in smoothness: the motion is less choppy than that recorded by the Sony Webbie camcorders or the Flip series. The video embedded above was recorded at the CG10′s maximum quality setting, in 720p. The CG10 records video at either 30p or 60p, but only the 30p frame rate is in the camcorder’s highest resolution. The Sony MHS-PM1 also records at only 30 frames per second (30p), which is a slower frame rate than regular HD camcorders use. (Most traditional camcorders record in 60i—60 interlaced fields per second.)This is one of the big problems with small budget camcorders; the Sanyo VPC-CG10 and Sony Webbie MHS-PM1 footage appears less fluid than most video recorded at 60i. The Webbie’s footage is particularly choppy—even more so than the CG10 video. When watching the YouTube videos here, remember they have all been heavily compressed during the upload process. The HD links will show you higher-quality footage, but it is still compressed quite a bit by YouTube. While the Sanyo VPC-CG10 can technically record in 60p, the resolution at this frame rate is a mere 640 x 480. By contrast, the Kodak Zx1 has an HD60 mode, which records 1280 x 720 video at a 60p frame rate. This unique ability to record 720p at 60fps means that the video you see below is captured at a more natural speed than the CG10 and has a smoother appearance than the 60i footage of most consumer camcorders. Only the Sanyo VPC-HD2000, which records 1920 x 1080 video at 60p, can rival the Kodak in its smooth, fast motion. Of course, the HD2000 is several hundred dollars more expensive for a reason: not only does the Zx1 lack all the controls and features of the HD2000, but it also shows considerably more compression artifacting, more noise, and less sharpness overall. The final comparison model in this set, the UltraHD, belongs to the most popular ultracompact brand on the market: the Flip series from Pure Digital. Though its popularity stems more from the simple, sleek design, the Flip is no slouch when it comes to capturing motion. There’s no flexibility to record at 60fps, so motion may have a slower appearance than you’re accustomed to seeing. However, the 30p video recorded by the Flip is relatively smooth and proves to have less compression artifacting than many of the budget competition.

Editing

The Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 does not with any kind of traditional editing software. Most camcorders ship with a free software CD, but this software usually isn’t anything impressive. The software that shipped with last year’s Sanyo camcorders was certainly functional, but offered nothing that users couldn’t do with iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. What the CG10 does include is some limited internal editing, including a simple trim feature that allows you to shorten your recorded clip and save is as a new video or overwrite your previous clip. For still photo editing, you can also rotate and resize, but this feature isn’t available for videos. Sanyo is also pushing several other post-production features, such as uploading to YouTube and watching videos on your iPod. However, these are really just features taking advantage of the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 codec. The CG10 doesn’t offer any options that help you in these processes, other than the online guide, called “Let’s Shoot More Movies!” This is in stark contrast to other inexpensive camcorders, like the Flip series from Pure Digital, the Kodak Zi6 and Zx1, and the Webbie HD models from Sony. These camcorders all offer built-in software that streamlines the editing and uploading processes.

Zoom

The Sanyo VPC-CG10 has a sliding zoom toggle that rests in the center of the rear controls. Technically, the slider could respond to variable finger pressure, but we could only really accomplish one very quick zoom speed—or a series of brief stutters. The slider doesn’t even engage the zoom until the switch has been pushed halfway up or down. The HD2000, by comparison, had a similar slider switch, but we could definitely get a couple speeds out of it. While zooming, a small scale appears to show you your relative position in the zoom range. There are no numerical values displayed to show a precise zoom ratio.

Of course, all of these controls are a significant improvement over what you will find on most camcorders in this price range. The Flip series of camcorders (and most of their clones) have only a measly 2x digital zoom, usually controlled by the up and down arrows on a directional pad. Even those with a more traditional zoom toggle—like the Sony MHS-PM1 still only offer 2x digital zoom.

Zoom Ratio

The Sanyo VPC-CG10 has a 5x optical zoom, which is more than most camcorders in this price range. The pistol-grip design allows for a longer lens barrel than you’ll see on the flat, iPod-like ultracompacts. That means there’s enough room for the lens elements necessary for an optical zoom. There is an additional 12x digital zoom, but we recommend that you leave that turned off, especially if you always want the highest quality video.

Focus

Many top-of-the-line camcorders these days are offering a smooth ring or dial control for adjusting manual focus. Sanyo, unfortunately, still employs an archaic joystick for this function. On both the VPC-CG10 and the VPC-HD2000, the joystick allows the user to select one of several hard focal increments. On the CG10, there are sixteen increments from 1cm to infinity. At the bottom end of that range, you have 1cm, 2cm, and 5cm. How do you focus on something that’s 3.5cm away? Move the camcorder until it’s 5cm away.

While we believe that focus should be a precise adjustment handled by a smooth control, the joystick is still better than touchscreen focus, where your finger blocks the viewfinder as you step through focus levels. It’s also better than the complete lack of manual focus offered by most of the competition. At least the CG10 allows some rudimentary control over focus. And if you don’t like the way focus is handled on the CG10, you can stick with the camcorder’s auto focus, which is really quite good.

Auto focus can handle objects from 50cm to infinity, while super macro focus is good for shooting 1cm to 1m.

Specifications

Dimensions (WHD): 2.8 x 4.4 x 1.5 inches
Weight (with battery and media): 6.6 ounces
Storage capacity, type: No internal storage/SDHC card (up to 32GB)
Resolution, sensor size, type: 10 megapixels, 2.3-inch CMOS
LCD size, resolution: 3-inch LCD, 230K dots
Lens (zoom, aperture, focal length): 5x, f3.5-3.7, 40-200mm (35mm equivalent)
Minimum illumination: 16 lux
File format (video, audio): MP4, AAC (stereo)
Resolution (video/photo): 1,280×720 (30fps) / 3,648×2,736
Recording time at highest quality: 3 hours, 51 minutes (per 16GB card)
Image stabilization type: Digital
Battery type, rated life (continuous): Lithium ion rechargeable, 70 minutes

Good: Very good 720p HD video for its class; 5x optical zoom; nice LCD; full featured for an inexpensive minicamcorder.

Bad: Component cable not included; slow AF, still-camera performance; poor photo quality; pistol grip not for everyone.

Conclusion

Taking all of this into consideration, there’s still the “Yeah, but” factor. While it’s true that there’s a lot of feature sizzle and not all of it produces the kind of results you get from a full-sized camcorder—yeah, but—it’s a £160 camcorder. And true, it doesn’t shoot perfect video out of the box—yeah, but—no pocket camcorder does. They’re all studies in compromise. Of those compromised cameras, I prefer the video that comes from the Flip UltraHD. But it’s a camera that doesn’t shoot stills and doesn’t allow me the option to tinker with its settings if I’m moved to do so.

If you’re interested in similar tinkering, want still shooting from a pocketable camcorder, and can rein in your expectations of just what a £160 camcorder can deliver, the Xacti VPC-CG10 is worth considering.

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