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Hitachi Announces HD Storage Boost
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Yvan256 said:
I don't believe there are any HD-based camcorders (at least consumer level.)
Maybe Apple could come out with one, it would really differentiate them from the current crop. It would have a simpler interface with less features, since it would be designed primarily for import into iMovie for editing and effects. That could keep the cost down as well. Better compression, Firewire 800, and the HD would make for super-speedy transfers! I think it would make the overall experience much better for the average Joe.
Also, I hate those complex mechanisms on Mini DV camcorders, I have a Canon which has broken twice. I'm sure it's mainly bad luck, but in general those things seem to be very delicate (of course so would a HD, but at least it would be completely enclosed in the unit.)
Maybe they could somhow fit in optical image stabilization, or just come out at a really low price point.
Plus, it would be white.
SD = standard definition, which is 525 lines in NTSC and 625 lines in PAL, with 480 visible for NTSC and 576 visible for PAL, @30 frames/second NTSC and 25 frames/second PAL.Yvan256 said:
There are MPEG4, flash-memory/solid-state camcorders out there, but none of them record in HD. They all record at 320x240 except for two JVC models which record (iirc) 640x480.
You can attach a hard drive to current DV camcorders today with devices such as the QuickStream DV or one of a number of FireStore devices.Porchland said:
The storage capacity on the cameras you're talking about are more likely to be 4-6GB because we're talking about the consumer level. The cameras would record H.264 in SD and maybe HD as well. 4-6GB will be enough for more than 2 hours of HD and maybe 6-8 hours of SD.
I think the first consumer HD camcorder at less than $1000 will be out by this Christmas or next summer at the latest. They won't have the optics, controls or imagers of the prosumer models, but that's how it is at lower price points.
Editing that H.264 source footage will be similar to how iMovie HD deals with HDV: there will be an intermediate transcode while loading. Transfer speeds will be fine no matter what. Remember, the competition is miniDV tape, which takes the duration of the tape to load, and any flash or hard drive media would be way faster than that.
Rod Rod said:
What format does iMovie natively work in? Does that change in iMovie HD?
It would be great to have a HD-based camera (like the Apple one I suggested above) that recorded in a format that iMovie could use without transcoding. Those devices you linked to look great, but are more than the average person can probably deal with. Even if they were easy to use (which they might be), for general shooting an add-on unit is inconvenient.
That would be another plus of a Apple camcorder (or co-designed by Apple.) I don't think it would ever happen, but it would be a very nice device...
Clive At Five said:
This is one hopeful development from this technology - the other is space for an FM Tuner and wifi + the bigger battery to power the extras and give better batery life
iMovie was always a DV tool, but iMovie 5 added MPEG4, iSight and 720p/1080i HDV. So, iMovie now has 5 formats it natively works in.madmaxmedia said:
HDV is a special case; when loading the MPEG2 transport stream off the tape, iMovie immediately transcodes it to the Apple Intermediate Codec. The transport stream is chucked out (of course it's still on the tape, but iMovie doesn't keep it anywhere). All other formats are handled without transcoding.
I like using MPEG Streamclip instead of iMovie to load HDV material. From there I can transcode to uncompressed, DVCProHD or whatever else I feel like. Then I add a timecode track to it by saying abacadabra and life is great in FCP.
GodBless said:
Usually technology jumps happen every 18 months to 2.5 years. This is a fairly big announcement when considering it is storage. Especially since the storage world has been thinking they were reaching the limits for a couple years right now. This technic will allow a fairly substantial growth in storage sizes for the next few years. 1TB drives in a standard 3.5 inch 2 platter format is huge.
Eric5h5 said:
That is why the future of desktop computing is going to be RAID in some form or another. Not everyone needs 800GB of space. Three 100GB drives RAIDed out would fit the bill for a lot of people.Actually what I would like to see is RAIDed drives built into one drive. So you would have 3 heads for 3 sets of platters all built into one housing or at the very lease 2 heads with 2 sets of platters for disk mirroring.
*shrugs* if nothing else Blue Ray will be here with uber storage capacity by then.
adzoox said:
With a 4800 RPM drive? I can't even imagine that the thing would be anything other then glacier slow. I'd be gnawing my arm off in frusteration before the OS was even loaded.
wow, that's incredible. Apple, if you haven't already, it is your job to negotiate an enormous contract with hitachi, preferably buying the world supply for six months like you did with the origional drives of that size. If not, though, just buy the absolute maximum number, and get the minimum cost. I would so quickly dump my classic ipod for a mini if it were 20 GB.
SiliconAddict said:
Hmmmm
I'm not sure that everyone doesn't need these uber amounts of space.
I'm relatively an old timer. I remember the days of 5 and 10 Meg hard drives and thought I would never be able to fill them up.
When I got my first 40 meg drive for a whopping $850 i couldn't believe the storage capacity.
I also did a network job for a guy back in 1991-92 and bought a 1 Gig Scsi drive for his server. The drive alone cost $4000.
Here we are just 13 years later and it isn't enough space to even hold a current OS.
I rip movies on my desktop and store them on my player for home theatre. I could easily use 10 to 20 TB of storage today.
While maybe my space requirements may be high for the average user today. 10 years from now they will seem like that old 1 GB drive I was so impressed with.
Heck you even have people who complain their 40 to 60 Gb iPods can't hold their music collections. And jeeze these music files are only at 128k compression. Imagine when DVD audio becomes mainstream.
Even some computer games are reaching 2 to 4 GB in size.
Wrong. That's just a lame attempt to redefine it in response to the hard drive industry being idiots; with regard to storage space, those are all based on powers of 2.cube said:
~J
ScubaDuc said:Apple store in Belgium is off line for updating NOW. Be back in the hour it says....
Could this be it?
No.
Kagetenshi said:
It also just happens to be the way system memory is calculated.
So to be technically correct memory and hard drive manufacturers use that method.
'cause 1 meg actually is 1024x1024 bytes.
Same for all the rest.
The problem is us people just don't think that way.
due to new tech in HD's and Batteries:
iPods will be smaller and more portable
iMacs will be slimmer
Powerbooks and iBooks will be lighter and longer-lasting
a new generation of mini microdrives will appear the size of big flash cards
rechargeable batteries will be way more awesome
Man...
I keep tellin myself: Tomorrow buy some apple stock. Sooner or later I should listen...maybe even some toshiba and hitatchi while I'm at it
iPods will be smaller and more portable
iMacs will be slimmer
Powerbooks and iBooks will be lighter and longer-lasting
a new generation of mini microdrives will appear the size of big flash cards
rechargeable batteries will be way more awesome
Man...
I keep tellin myself: Tomorrow buy some apple stock. Sooner or later I should listen...maybe even some toshiba and hitatchi while I'm at it
SiliconAddict said:
When my iBook's HD died, I installed os x on my iPod while waiting until I could organize a new one (I was on holiday, so it took a while). I didn't notice any performance issues, you'd have to time it to notice the difference. An iPod is perfectly acceptable as a boot HD.
I've heard it can shorten the life of your iPod though...
Looks like mobile phones are going to serious threaten ipods when they get those drive sizes and intergrated handsets...