technabob » digital video

sony bloggie hd cameras: dumb name, great 1080p picture

technabob — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:15:04 +0000

I guess I’ve heard worse names for products than this one, but if you can look past the idiotic name of the new Sony Bloggie line of digital MP4 cameras, you’ll actually find a very nice bit of technology for the price.

The Sony Bloggie series offers two new compact digital camcorders, each capable of grabbing gorgeous 1080p video at 30fps, and can also shoot 5-megapixel stills. The MHS-CM5 (MSRP $200 USD) features a 5x optical zoom lens and a pistol grip body with a flip out 2.5″ LCD viewfinder.

The MHS-PM5 (MSRP $170) forgoes the optical zoom, and instead provides 4x digital zoom and a fixed 2.4″ viewfinder. Personall, I’d spend the extra 30 bucks for the real zoom lens. However, the cheaper model sports a funky 270-degree reversable lens that lets you shoot yourself, as well as a $189 version which includes a lens add-on that lets you shoot 360-degree panoramic videos and bundles a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo card.

Both Bloggie cams are available now over at the Sony Store, with the MHS-CM5 shipping now, and the MHS-PM5 models shipping early in February.

watch shoots high-def video (not really)

technabob — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:42:08 +0000

While a number of wristwatches have been released with tiny video cameras in them, this is the first one I’ve heard of that’s supposed to capture high-definition footage. And I emphasize – supposed to.

JTT’s WACAHD8GB wristwatch looks like an ordinary analog sports watch, but hiding beneath its inconspicuous cover is a digital camera, spec’d to shoot 1280 x 960 resolution at 30fps, somewhere between 720p and 1080i resolution. That’s 4-times the resolution of most of the crummy VGA video cameras crammed into watches so far. Unfortunately from the looks of these sample videos (here and here), I’m not bullish on those resolution claims.

In addition to theoretically shooting HD video, the watch is supposed to capture still images at 3264 x 2448 resolution, which works out to be just under 8 megapixels.

But from the looks of these terribly blurry sample images (1, 2, 3) I’d say the resolution is about as good as the first webcam I ever owned. It’s almost like the JPEG compression is dialed down to the minimum quality, or more likely they’re just interpolating “HD” resolution from a lower res, like 640 x 480 or worse.

While the stats surely sound impressive, I’m none too impressed with the sample pics and vids. If you really want to take a gamble on one of these, you can find the WACAHD8GB over at the JTT Online Shop for ¥15,800 (appx. $150 USD). And if you’re really adventurous, check out their PENCAHD8GB HD pen camera…

No thanks.
[via Le Journal du Geek]

record video directly into your ipod

technabob — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:15:46 +0000

At just under $200, the iLuv i180WHT Video System allows you to record VGA quality (640×480) video directly into your iPod.

Simply feed in your camcorder or other video source via Composite or S-Video and RCA inputs for audio. The i180WHT provides adjustments for recording quality and length, then encodes the video into MPEG-4 format. The system supports 5th gen (30gb / 60gb) and just announced, 5.5th gen (30gb / 80gb) iPods with video capabilities.