Sony Announces High Definition, Hard Disc Camcorder HDR-SR1

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:26 pm

Sony announced the HDR-SR1, a new High Definition, Hard Disc Camcorder. Sales are to begin in October with a price tag of about $1500. The first units will have a 30 GB hard drive and will store the video in a highly compressed H.264/Mpeg4 format. This format, known as ACVHD, is defined for bitrates as high as 24Mbps but the SR1 will use a 15Mbps bitrate to achive high definition picture quality, approximating that of the HC1 and HC3, at 1920x1080 pixels. The 30 GB hard drive is estimated to hold about four hours of high definition video at 15Mbps.

Link to announcement: http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/So ... DR-SR1.htm

Link to first discussion thread: http://www.sonyhdvinfo.com/showthread.php?t=5936

Link to SR1 forum: http://www.sonyhdvinfo.com/forumdisplay ... rune=&f=40

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:51 pm

John,
Suppose I upgraded to one of those and went on holiday for a couple of weeks.
I see it has a 30GB hard drive and holds about 4 hours.
last year I went to California for 16 days and ended up using 11 x 1 hour digital 8 camcorder tapes.

How would I go about shooting that amount of holiday footage with a 30GB hard drive camcorder - obviously my computer is 4 and a half thousand miles away. Are the hard drives removable or is there some other method?

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:20 pm

sjj1805 wrote:John,
Suppose I upgraded to one of those and went on holiday for a couple of weeks.
I see it has a 30GB hard drive and holds about 4 hours.
last year I went to California for 16 days and ended up using 11 x 1 hour digital 8 camcorder tapes.

How would I go about shooting that amount of holiday footage with a 30GB hard drive camcorder - obviously my computer is 4 and a half thousand miles away. Are the hard drives removable or is there some other method?

This and many other questions remain to be answered. Some pros say if its enough to do a wedding and reception, that's sufficient (2 hours). Others suggest that it might be a good idea to carry arround an inexpensive laptop on a long holiday. Others are speculating that Sony will actually release the unit with a 60GB hard drive.

I think that we will see portable hard drive products (100 - 200 GB) with a USB2 port that are specifically engineered for this purpose. For example, I still have a portable, battery powered hard drive (X-Drive), the size of a fat wallet, that I used to use for digital still photos on long trips, circa 2001. It just has a memory stick slot and a single button to copy photos. It worked fine. Smaller, lighter, cheaper than a laptop, for sure.

I think another question is "Will we be able to edit the ACVHD video format in Video Studio 10+ by October?" I hope that Sony will provide a codec and technical support for Ulead...

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 2:18 am

Update:
Here is a link to some pictures and a view of the inside of the SR-1 camcorder http://www.sonyhdvinfo.com/showthread.php?t=5948 The image quality is spectacular.

Here is an interesting note: The SR-1 has an onboard accelerometer, which detects a falling camera (zero G) and quickly retracts the heads from the disc surface to prevent damage when it hits the ground. This seems like a good idea most of the time.

However, I can't help thinking that this will prevent the use of the SR-1 in the space shuttle or even when shooting video from a roller coaster - unless it can be turned off.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 2:35 am

Another "Latest Gizmo" I'm going to pass on

Firstly, it's a Sony

secondly hard disk

Don't need HD right now and would want to wait until the HD/BlueRay war is over before I commit to anything.

Somehow, this announcement did not get me excited

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 2:40 am

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:00 am

MD,
I read about the UX1 but was confused about its ability to encode high definition video at 15Mbps on a standard DVD platter, which generally tops out at about 10Mbps. I also wonder if the user would need a special DVD player to copy it into the PC for editing.

I'll try to find out.

Edit: The disks are (evidently) conventional 8 cm miniDVDs, except for being dual layer. Estimated capacity is 2.7Gb, which is estimated to hold only about 20 minutes of HD video @ max bitrate. My guess is that the UX1 was designed for Blu-Ray discs, which, so far, seem to be non-existent...

Edit: Here is a link to some nice photos of the UX1 http://www.sonyhdvinfo.com/showthread.php?t=5999&page=1
Nota bene: the last photo on page 1 indicates that someone at Sony thinks that 50% of camcorder sales/revenue this year will be in high definition.

neonbob · Post by **neonbob** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:45 am

I have the Sony HC3... works well, and I am complete agreement with SJJ1805... I can change tapes fast and easy. When one fills up... just pop another one in. What the heck do I do with a full HDD when I'm 500 miles away from my computer???

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:17 am

neonbob wrote:I have the Sony HC3... works well, and I am complete agreement with SJJ1805... I can change tapes fast and easy. When one fills up... just pop another one in. What the heck do I do with a full HDD when I'm 500 miles away from my computer???

Take your computer with you, or, as someone else suggested here, take an inexpensive laptop

. Now, where would one find an inexpensive laptop?

That must also be the reason why cameras are getting smaller and smaller, we need the space in our luggage to take the laptop.

As far as I'm concerned, DVD or Hard disk, at least for now, is an absolute No No

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:32 am

Bob,
The simplest answer is that you copy the video from the SR-1 to a portable, battery powered hard drive - either a notebook (which you could use to edit immediately) or a portable hard drive. It would transport at USB2 bandwidth (480Mbps = 60MBps). and so would take about 8 minutes to transfer 30GB.

This is far faster than the miniDV tapes, which need an hour to capture an hour of video on the HC3 and my HC1.

rwernyei · Post by **rwernyei** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:15 am

One word, FIRESTORE. Focus Enhancement's Firestore has become the industry standard.
http://www.focusinfo.com/solutions/video_production.asp

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:19 am

rwernyei wrote:One word, FIRESTORE. Focus Enhancement's Firestore has become the industry standard.
http://www.focusinfo.com/solutions/video_production.asp

Sure, can you recommend a bank also???

I rather stick with MiniDV tapes. I can fit a lot of tapes into the space these gizmos need and I don't have to carry them with me wherever I go in fear of someone pinching them when I'm not at my hotel

because no one will.

rwernyei · Post by **rwernyei** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:07 am

Heinz,
Isn't pretty much everything for professional use in the video industry expensive. My 2 ENG cams can record to both mini-DV and standard DV videocassettes. That's 276 minutes of DV on one standard DV tape. Also, have the advantage of being able to rear mount firestore directly to cam. But then again, I paid a pretty penny for my cams too. Many times more than the ACVHD cam in this thread.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:22 am

Exactly my sentiment. I don't see too many real professionals mucking about with VS either.

For the majority of users on this forum their activities are purely hobby. If one can get the occassional paid gig, like a wedding or a small business presentation, great. The equipment you are talking about is way above justification levels for even a pro-sumer of which we have a few participating here as well.

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 2:34 pm