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Sony HDR-HC7 HDV Camcorder

Do You Own or Plan To Own A Sony HDR-HC7 HDV Camcorder?

  • Total voters
    184
Multimedia said:
So here at the bottom of page 11 Post 275 we find ourselves with 90 voters representing:

30% on the HC7 team :cool: :apple:
20% on the other HDV teams :(
27% on the DV not ready for HDV team ;)
and 23% just curious :)

275 Posts :eek:
15,486 Views :eek:
in 40 days :eek:

That is amazing folks. Great job everyone. We're on to somethin'.

Next I'm posting an article on Sony's exclusive Smooth Slow Record capability no other cameras on the market have except the HC7 and the V1U or HD cameras that cost $500,000 like the ones used to produce the new HD nature series planet earth on the HD Discovery Channel premiering Sunday evening at 8pm ET/PT.

See you at the top of page 12 post 276 later this evening. Stay tuned to your Forum Spy for up to the minute participation. Bye for now. Thanks for reading, writing and watching. :)
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You sir, need to find something to do with all of your free time :D
 
HC7 Can Record What You Just Missed Or What's Next Fast So You Can Watch It Slowly

With all the debate brewing over this camcorder vs other would be wanna bes it's interesting to note that one of the most amazing powers to ever be given to a consumer lies within the Sony HDR-HC7. It's the power to record what just happened or what's about to happen FAST so you can watch it SLOW to appreciate all the details of what that was. Only HC7's big brother the V1U — around $4,000 street — can do this even longer apart from broadcast HD cameras that cost around $500,000.

This morning on the Today show this new power was demonstrated by the videographers and producers of a new nature series premiering on Discovery Channel Sunday evening, in HD if you have that hook up, at 8pm ET/PT entitled planet earth. If you have a chance to see it Sunday, you'll see this technology at work - the same technology you have in your tiny affordable HC7.

Here's how it works. You easily go into Smooth Slow Recording (SSR) mode. Within this mode you have four options:

Record 3 Seconds of what happened BEFORE you pushed the record button

OR

Record 3 seconds of what happened AFTER you push the record button in SLOW MOTION. i.e. it will playback at 1/4 the speed it happened over a 12 second period. V1U can do a sustained recording like this for 12 seconds or 48 seconds of playback.

You also have a choice of recording sound or not as the recording is being transfered from the RAM Buffer where it is initially located onto your HDV cassette tape after it enters recording mode for 12 seconds. I was trying to surprise you about the RAM but in this explanation I needed to mention it.

Here's how they do it. When you're in SSR mode whatever your camera is looking at could be the past 3 seconds you get in slow mo when you push the record button or it could be ready to record the next 3 seconds in slow mo. After it does that capture of 120 frames per second for 3 seconds for a total of 360 frames into a RAM buffer, it then records all those frames to tape at normal speed of 30 frames per second for a total of 12 seconds. A progress bar on the screen shows you when you're getting footage to the buffer and when the buffer is transfering all those frames to tape. Simple.

Unfortunately, that being said, the feature degrades the HD image as it transfers to too little RAM in the buffer for HD resolution to be stored and the recordings are very low resolution making the image look out of focus such that this feature is useless. Posts below explain more. I wrote the above before I looked at my results. I assumed they would be HD. They are not.
 
It could be useful but 3 seconds really isn't long enough imo. The 12 seconds of the V1 makes the feature worthwhile.
 
Calling All Owners. Please Test Smooth Slow Recording Mode For Resolution Problem

TheAnswer said:
That's too bad MM. Any chance it was lighting conditions or a settings error? After all you're only human and have only had the camera a couple of days.
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I doubt it. I might have had the digital zoom tunred on but I'm not sure. The manual says that shouldn't matter.

I shot quite a bit of live to tape footage that looks spectacular. But as soon as it switches to the slo mo recordings, the image looks nothing like the live footage at all. I'm gonna call Sony Monday and complain. Maybe they screwed up these early units. Can any other owners out there confirm we have a consistent resolution problem when recording in Smooth Slow Recording mode?
 
MM...do you have an specific as to how the HC7 and V1U implement the SSR mode? On film, you'd send more film through the gate during filming so it plays back slow...I can't imagine that you could do the same thing and temporarily increase the tape speed without some problems...so how are they doing this?
 
Writes 360 Frames To RAM Then Writes Real TIme To Tape

TheAnswer said:
MM...do you have an specific as to how the HC7 and V1U implement the SSR mode? On film, you'd send more film through the gate during filming so it plays back slow...I can't imagine that you could do the same thing and temporarily increase the tape speed without some problems...so how are they doing this?
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I explained it above. Did you not read my SSR Explanation post 277 above? It writes 360 frames to RAM then transfers from the RAM to the tape in normal speed afterwards. Full details above post 277.
 
Sorry...must have must have missed that part...I was reading along then my eye jumped to your next post that said you were having problems with it...hopefully Sony will address this issue promptly (and it really sucks that you got stuck with it as we all know you have been waiting for your HC7). I'm sure you'll keep us posted. Good luck!
 
The camera lowers resolution so that it can capture all those frames. It makes the feature completely worthless. Seems they put it on as a selling point, but make no mention of the degredation of quality in the product description. The only camera that shoots overcranked full rez video for under 10,000$ is the panasonic HVX200.

Edit: Seems the JVC HD200/250 also will shoot overcranked 60P.
 
Please Provide Source Of Smooth Slow Recording Mode Image Degradation Is Normal

faustfire said:
The camera lowers resolution so that it can capture all those frames. It makes the feature completely worthless. Seems they put it on as a selling point, but make no mention of the degredation of quality in the product description. The only camera that shoots overcranked full rez video for under 10,000$ is the panasonic HVX200.

Edit: Seems the JVC HD200/250 also will shoot overcranked 60P.
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Please site your source FaustFire. I need confirmation-verification the degradation is normal please. Where did you learn this? Are you saying the V1U also records this kind of crappy image for up to 48 seconds from 12 seconds of crappy RAM capture instead of less time at full quality? If so, that is insane engineering.

Would any other owners here please test their SSR mode to confirm image degradation in their recordings please? We just need one other witness for confirmation we've been dupped by marketing. Thanks. :eek: :mad:
 
Multimedia said:
Please site your source FaustFire. I need confirmation-verification the degradation is normal please. Where did you learn this?

Can any other owners here please test their SSR mode to confirm image degradation in their recordings please? We just need one other witness for confirmation we've been dupped by marketing. Thanks. :eek: :mad:
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Since the HC7 is so new there is no info on it, but it you search around you will find that the HC3 and the V1 both work this way. The V1 actually lowers the resolution more as you shoot longer slow mo sequences.

http://dvinfo.net/conf/archive/index.php/t-80013.html

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/The-Quality-of-Sony-HC3-Slow-Motion-Video.htm
 
faustfire said:
Since the HC7 is so new there is no info on it, but it you search around you will find that the HC3 and the V1 both work this way. The V1 actually lowers the resolution more as you shoot longer slow mo sequences.

http://dvinfo.net/conf/archive/index.php/t-80013.html

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/The-Quality-of-Sony-HC3-Slow-Motion-Video.htm
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I'm gonna cherry pick the info outta your first link (4rth post up from the bottom).

The Sony V1's rez:
3 sec= 640 x 360
6/12 sec= 512 x 240


Lethal
 
Why Couldn't They Have Required A 4GB Memory Stick To Exploit This Feature Properly?

LethalWolfe said:
The Sony V1's rez:
3 sec= 640 x 360
6/12 sec= 512 x 240
Click to expand...
Simple fix would have been to put more ram in the camcorder and raise the retail price $50 or whatever. RAM is not that expensive that they couldn't have put more in to solve this defect — particularly in light of the fact that this feature was introduced in last year's HC3 with the same defect. Very stupid design defect that should have been corrected in this year's models. Really quite rediculous.

After reading the camcorderinfo.com HC3 page on this feature, the ram buffer is only 256MB. They could have redesigend it to write to the memory stick where you can have 4GB, for example, and make a 4GB memory stick the requirement to be able to invoke that feature. MPEG2 HD would need just over 4.3MB of space to record 12 seconds. So I don't get why a 256MB RAM module inside isn't enough. :confused: Aparently the slo mo isn't being captured in HD MPEG2 at all. Must be capturing too fast for that. But allocating only 256MB for such a complex RAM hungy task is completely INSANE. It's not like RAM is expensive any more. They're selling fricking 8GB USB2 sticks at Fry's this wekend for $60. :eek: :rolleyes:

60 minutes of HDV =3600 seconds = 13GB of space
13GB/3600 seconds in an hour = 3.61 MB/second x 12 seconds = 43.33 MB of HDV MPEG2 transcoded from what high speed format to RAM recording? Error is in the the format or the transcoding process. While there's plenty of space in 256MB to put all the footage in the HDV MPEG2 Stream, it must not be recording in that format. What is going on? Some kind of transcoding? What format is the slo mo being recorded in? :confused:

I'm calling Sony PR Monday to get to the bottom of this.
 
This is just off the top of my head, but I dont think the amount of ram or the recording format is the problem. Capturing high frame rates is more complex than, more space = higher frame rates. If all that was needed was was more storage space than why doesnt the HVX200 shoot at 120 or 240fps, or for that matter why don't external drive product lines like the Firestore drives capture at high frame rates. The camera itself would have to be designed with special ccds/optics as HD is light hungry anyways, with higher frame rates needing even more light sensitive ccds to achive full resolution. If you look at the upper end sony cameras like the hdc-3300 that shoot full rez super slow mo, they always have at least 3x2/3" ccds which are more light sensitive. It seems to me that sony is using their regular sensors to record the higher frame rates of the HC3/HC7/V1. As they were not designed to accomplish this sort of thing, sony had to pretty much hack the camera to achieve it and what you are left with are reduced resolution images.
 
As faustfire said, this is a more complex problem than just not enough RAM. For example, polling the sensor that fast requires significantly more bandwidth and produces more heat. You also probably need a bigger/faster/hotter on-boad chip that can handle the encoding of the footage. That's additional R&D that they don't want to do for their low-end cameras.

One of the biggest engineering hurdles w/HD cameras (especially smaller consumer/prosumer models) is how to handle all the bandwidth coming of the imaging sensor 24, 30, 60, etc., times a second w/o the camera melting in your hands.

I chalk this up as another "digital zoom" type feature. Every manufacturer lists it as "feature" but everyone knows (or soon finds out) it turns your image quality into crap.


Lethal
 
LethalWolfe said:
As faustfire said, this is a more complex problem than just not enough RAM. For example, polling the sensor that fast requires significantly more bandwidth and produces more heat. You also probably need a bigger/faster/hotter on-boad chip that can handle the encoding of the footage. That's additional R&D that they don't want to do for their low-end cameras.

One of the biggest engineering hurdles w/HD cameras (especially smaller consumer/prosumer models) is how to handle all the bandwidth coming of the imaging sensor 24, 30, 60, etc., times a second w/o the camera melting in your hands.

I chalk this up as another "digital zoom" type feature. Every manufacturer lists it as "feature" but everyone knows (or soon finds out) it turns your image quality into crap.


Lethal
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Yea, what he said. :)
 
Multimedia said:
It gets worse. After writing that feature explanation, I played my recordings. They are all out of focus low res looking. :(
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On page 56 of the manual, at the end of the Smooth Slow Recording section, it says "The image quality of [SMTH SLW REC] is somewhat less than normal recording."
 
Slow Smooth Recording Image Quality Is Somewhat Less Than CRAP

divedude said:
On page 56 of the manual, at the end of the Smooth Slow Recording section, it says "The image quality of [SMTH SLW REC] is somewhat less than normal recording."
Click to expand...
Thank you for finding that. I would say that is the understatement of the year. "Somewhat less than normal" is manual-marketing-speak for "looks like CRAP". :eek: :mad: :(

Sorry I brought it up. You can forget that "feature" was ever added until they fix it to work in HD. As it is, it records in CRAP-D.
 
Just Got My Raynox .5x Wide & 2.2x Telephto HD Lenses, UV, ND & More Lens Accessories

kryptticAZ said:
"Why would you want to buy lenses from a company that doesn't specialize in engineering and manufacturing lenses ONLY?"

In Sony's defense, the Raynox wideangle lense (which I just purchased) is a bit cheaply made. The entire casing and adapter rings are made of plastic vs. the metal body of the Sony. I'm keeping the Raynox for the 0.5X vs. 0.7x, but I'm a little dissapointed at the materials.
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I couldn't disagree more strongly. I perceive the Raynox lenses to be super high quality made not "cheaply" at all. They're made in Japan which tells you right off the bat they are of superior quality. The telephoto comes with a padded bag with a thick string you can use to cinch lock closed while the wide lens comes with a hard plastic box. I couldn't be happier with the Raynox quality.

Raynox HD-5050PRO 0.5x Wideangle Lens at B&H for only $90
attachment.php


Get a 3.7oz Raynox HD-2200PRO 2.2x HD Telephoto Lens available at B&H for only $99.95.
attachment.php


Also, over the weekend at my local camera shop I bought a 37mm QUANTARAY UV Haze Filter, also made in Japan, for $10 and a 37mm Cokin® Neutral Density ND8, made in France, for $13. For only $8 I got a Quantaray Deluxe Lens Cleaning Kit in a waterproof case on a lanyard made in China. And I got a set of plastic screen protectors I can cut to cover my 2.7" LCD control screen for $10. I figure since we have to touch it all the time, better protect it from possible scratches. The kit has 15 sheets. But each sheet is big enough for 3 of our HC7 screens so it's really 45 for $10 or about 22¢ each. Cheap enough.
 
Need Mac for HC7

I bought an HC7 last month and used it on a very recent trip to Costa Rica - returned with ~11 hours of HDV recorded. HC7 was a dream to use. Being an old Windows guy I decided a while ago that this would be a great time to get a Mac to process the data for this and future trips. Advice on what to get would be appreciated.

I was thinking a 20" or 24" iMac with 500 GB and 2-3 GB RAM. It looks like iMovie would work fine with the HC7 as recorded, but I would like to experiment with Final Cut Express or even Studio in the near future, as this looks like it could be a fun hobby.
 
Multimedia said:
I couldn't disagree more strongly. I perceive the Raynox lenses to be super high quality made not "cheaply" at all. They're made in Japan which tells you right off the bat they are of superior quality. The telephoto comes with a padded bag with a thick string you can use to cinch lock closed while the wide lens comes with a hard plastic box.
Click to expand...

Huh?
 
What's You Budget?

HarryD said:
I bought an HC7 last month and used it on a very recent trip to Costa Rica - returned with ~11 hours of HDV recorded. HC7 was a dream to use. Being an old Windows guy I decided a while ago that this would be a great time to get a Mac to process the data for this and future trips. Advice on what to get would be appreciated.

I was thinking a 20" or 24" iMac with 500 GB and 2-3 GB RAM. It looks like iMovie would work fine with the HC7 as recorded, but I would like to experiment with Final Cut Express or even Studio in the near future, as this looks like it could be a fun hobby.
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If you expect to use Studio, a $2,199 Mac Pro refurb would be a lot better for the long run. Depends on your budget more than anything else. How much can you spend?
 
Have Some Bucks

Good question; I have some leeway here, probably $3-4k for the hardware. I noticed the new Mac Pros are pretty beefy and pricey. But I would like to do a fair amount of HD experimentation (playing around!) with products like Final Cut.
 
HarryD said:
Good question; I have some leeway here, probably $3-4k for the hardware. I noticed the new Mac Pros are pretty beefy and pricey. But I would like to do a fair amount of HD experimentation (playing around!) with products like Final Cut.
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At the moment I'm doing a cuts-only edit of HDV material using a 1.25GHz PowerBook G4. It works great. I'll bring the project over to my MBP when it comes time to add finishing touches and create an HD DVD.
 
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