Sony 3D Camcorder

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TheForce

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Oct 13, 2003
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First of all, note that I am a fanboy of Sony Broadcast cameras and therefore gravitate to Sony consumer products too.

I saw the surprise release of Sony's competing 3D Handycam. It did not disappoint me as far as quality , features and price.

The camcorder has a 12x optical zoom twin lens system with digital to 17x.

The unit shoots stills, SD and HD video in 2D and HD video in 3D. It uses 64Gn of solid state internal memory with a slot for SD and memory stick to add to this. In 3D mode, the recording time is 5 hours.

I was surprised to see its "amoled" screen was 3D glasses free and looked quite nice.

It had an excellent image stabilizer and also had the Sony blue tooth acessory socket on top for compatibility with all Sony camcorder accessories.

It is expected to be released in April for msrp $1500.
 

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Nice!
$1500 is kind of expensive, but it's less than what I paid for my first Sony camcorder. ;)
Did you see any clips shot with this camcorder on a big screen?
 
I don't consider it expensive on the basis of the competition for an equal quality camcorder in 2D. Feature-wise it is similar to my SR12 which sold for the same when it was first out. Probably after 6 months it will be at discount for around $1100.

Yes. It looked very nice on an active glasses 55" Sony 3D monitor. Smooth playback and excellent HD quality of the set up they had.

The one problem people will have showing demo clips of the 3D stuff is the image will be double you have to understand that in order to evaluate other aspects of the playback, such as color saturation in the 2 images. But you can't evaluate the saturation of the illusion of the 3D as this is created in your brain.

The competing 3D camcorders introduced do side by side when viewing without glasses. Those are half the resolution of the Sony.

Typical of Sony to have a complete solution in the latest Vegas Pro ver 10 editing package which allows you to edit 2D video to 3D conversion plus it handles 3D video clips from this camcorder in the timeline. The clips appear as file pairs labeled NameL and nameR for left eye and right eye and are dragged to the timeline as a file pair. With a 3D monitor, you can edit the video clips and view in 3D. If there is a frame alignment issue, the editing software has an alignment feature which is nice. Once youy edit your video you can then burn the video to a BluRay 3D HD with the package.
 
Can you shoot everything in 3D and playback 2D? It seems like it could just show "one eye" for 2D. If so, it would be nice to build up 3D footage and have it available without having to watch it on a 3D set.
 
Mike- Yes and with the Sony editing software, you can edit all your shot in 3D clips but edited to 2D by just using one of the files, either left or right, during the rendering.

Sorry, I didn't spend any time on the consumer version ( much lower cost) edit package as I was interested in the pro stuff.

I got a chance to sit with one of the Sony editors today and get a nice quick course on 3D editing.

Heres an even shorter version.
In 2D to 3D editing, what you can't do in this software is make a 2D video into 3D as the software isn't smart enough where to place things. What you can do is use your 2D scene as a background and put titles and picture in pictures, including mattes video ( cutouts of objects in a 2D scene with the surrounding scene transparent ( like Green screen chroma keying)) in a picture in picture way that makes them 3D or lifts them off the background, out in front. Real time 2D to 3D video conversion is being done at a broadcast level now and the quality is quite impressive but the equipment is quite above what individuals can afford.

The completed video can then be rendered for 2D, or 3D and burned to a Blu Ray disk with or without menus. You could set up both versions on a disk if you have the room and then select the appropriate version in the menu.

Also when editing you get a preview screen in anaglyph ( for colored red blue glasses)on your computer monitor or you can output to a panel 3D monitor. The rendering output can be done for all the present day standards, including side by side, top and bottom, many varieties of anaglyph, and overlay. Vegas version 10 is quite robust for 3D editing.

The editor rep was kind enough to import some of my footage from my SR12 and work with it and he also showed me a work around to fix a problem I have had with the LFE channel from my camcorder. I learned that it was not an issue with the camera but rather was a bug in version 8 of Vegas I use. He showed me that version 10 the bug has been fixed. Now I need to do the upgrade.

MIke- further answer to your question is that if you shoot everything in 3D you will use up your storage at slightly more than double the rate when it may not be necessary. Many scenes do not offer good 3D opportunity, like distant scenery or any flat surface. If the scene has good front to back depth, then all you do with this camcorder is switch a slide from 2D to 3D located just above the battery and in about a second, the camcorder will be ready for 3D recording. You will see this evident in the glasses free small monitor screen. As usual, Sony makes their stuff so easy to use. By contrast they didn't bury this function deep in some menu structure.
 
LOL now I have to decide if 3D is the future. Just when I thought I no longer needed a camcorder (vs a digital camera that happens to do video or even the iphone), I might have to consider a camcorder. Of course probably the iphone5 or 6 will probably do 3d.
 
diogen said:
It definitely is.
But maybe a distant one...

Diogen.
Click to expand...

Experts tell me that glasses free 3D display will be upon us this year on most small single viewer devices. Just not on multi viewer monitors for a few years. This show gave me a great insight on the pros and cons of each 3D display technology. It really boils down to the right tool for the job as opposed to one does all.
 
I ordered for the store. I was disapointed in the Open House demo, but instinctively knew that the end product would work much better. The Sony CCDTR101 was the first consumer optically image stabilized camcorder. That was 9 years ago and a different analog world. 1599 and we sold more of those than any of the other 50 models we sold, that year. Only 2 models were more expensive.:D
 
The 101 was in 1993. Where did the other 10 years go. Time goes by fast when one is approaching senility. Last years most expensive Sony consumer camcorder was the HDRXR550V, which entered the market at 1399. Sony has been excellent at maintaining price structure by improvements in product. :D
toto said:
I ordered for the store. I was disapointed in the Open House demo, but instinctively knew that the end product would work much better. The Sony CCDTR101 was the first consumer optically image stabilized camcorder. That was 9 years ago and a different analog world. 1599 and we sold more of those than any of the other 50 models we sold, that year. Only 2 models were more expensive.:D
Click to expand...
 
At NAB the reps there said that the camcorder was already in stock in the US Sony warehouses ready to be shipped on the 15th of April. They had both the consumer version and the new pro version which was said to be released in July. I have one on preorder from Amazon.com. I was planning a shoot at Disney with this in early May so it will be quite disappointing if the camcorder doesn't arrive and I need to push my travel plans there until after labor day. Disney after Memorial Day is brutally hot and excessively crowded.
 
Thanks for that info. The Sony website shows an update today that the camcorder has been released and begin to ship 4/27/2011 which is today. :)
 
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