Been using my Sony HD CX7 Handycam. Time for Apple to make a proper video camera

[M. Malone]

So as the title says, I started using my Sony CX7 camera for the first time in a while.

It's really painful to use with Leopard and iMovie. The movies import fine into iMovie, but the import takes too long when it comes to importing AVCHD quality, even standard quality. And the files are HUGE! And I hate how iMovie doesn't give me the option to delete the videos off of the camera once they have been imported.

And then the camera, it's nice, sleek, small. But that's it, videos are quite grainy, the touch screen is terrible, the menu is so unintuitive.

What if Apple made a video camera for normal people who want to capture memories? Most people don't care if it has some super lens that can capture the impossible. Imagine, a multi touch screen menu like the iPhone's, the easy integration with Macs and a camera that produces file sizes that are manageable in terms of size (a full HD movie from itunes is no bigger than 4 gigs, why is a 10 minute video made by video cameras on iMovie 800MB, it would be nice to have that compression technology). I'm thinking something that can shoot video with DVD quality (doesn't have to be HD) and EASILY and quickly syncs with iMovie without the need to convert or modify the video quality.

I understand many will say that it's impossible, but 10 years ago the idea of Apple making a music device was impossible, 5 years ago the idea of Apple making a phone was also impossible.

I never was happy with syncing a phone to my mac until the iPhone came out. And I won't be completely happy with a video camera unless Apple makes one. And I'm no fanboy, I just like how Apple products play perfectly with each other.

 

[bigbossbmb]

will never happen....the ipod is a media player, you're asking for a media creation device. there is nothing Apple can do to improve existing devices.

you don't understand video file formats.

AVC and HDV are able to record HD video with similar bitrates to SD miniDV because of interframe compression (group frames together). The problem with this is that editing these streams requires a lot of processing power. Apps like iMovie transcode the video to a more editable format (sacrificing small file sizes).

small file sizes and editability do not go together.

 

[Le Big Mac]

A better question is why doesn't Apple improve its integration with existing videocams made by others? There's nothing wrong with the videocam market, just loading it into imovie.

 

[Exman]

(a full HD movie from itunes is no bigger than 4 gigs, why is a 10 minute video made by video cameras on iMovie 800MB, it would be nice to have that compression technology). I'm thinking something that can shoot video with DVD quality (doesn't have to be HD) and EASILY and quickly syncs with iMovie without the need to convert or modify the video quality.

The problem is with iMovie's poor handling of videos. I belive it tries to decode the movie into a manageable format. It isn't your camera.

When you import and edit your movie, you have to encode it into the ilife library (media browser), then to author into a DVD (in iDVD) you have to reencode it again. Everytime you transcode, you lose picture quality. iMovie and iDVD are pretty bad.

A standard DVD-mpeg2 is 720x480 @ 29.9fps. Check your camera settings, you might be able to shoot it straight into it. However, iDVD as mentioned above, will not accept the mpeg2 file for Authoring, you'll have to decode it into DV, then re-encode it back to mpeg2 (meaning, you'll waste time and lose picture quality).

And you have things quite mixed up, there is not a chance in hell a full HD movie is 4GB - full HD being 1920x1080 @ 60fps and around 15Mbps - 20Mbps. I don't use iTunes service, but I would guess the movie you are taling about is 1280x720 @ 24fps with around 3Mbps.

 

[nutmac]

I am sure Apple can build a fantastic camcorder if it really wants to, but I don't see much need. I would prefer Apple to put all of its resources into perfecting iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, Macs, software, etc. It can start by adding native AVCHD support to iMovie and Final Cut series, add Blu-Ray support (which uses superset of AVCHD), improve usability throughout, and beef up Apple TV to handle high definition home movies better.

Although native AVCHD editing demands powerful computers, most Macs on the market have sufficient power to do that today (with sufficient RAM at least). Grainy video seems more of your camera's limitations than the format. 3rd generation AVCHD camcorders from Canon and Sony are much better than 2nd generation CX7.

I am not a fan of Sony's touchscreen user interface personally (I prefer joystick-based Canon's, although that has issues of its own). I prefer not to touch click through myriads of menu options to change settings.