New waterproof camera review

Just finished up a review of the Sanyo VPC-WH1, a new waterproof camcorder.

Sanyo VPC-WH1 Link

BK: would something like this handle the punishment of the endurance distance races day after day?

The spray would probably wreak havoc on the three sealed doors, but with a protective cover (non-waterproof) to block the spray, I think it would be ok. Daily baths in fresh water and a good cleaning would go a long way to keeping them running.

Brian: Have you tried the new GoPro HD-Hero yet? I'm thinking of getting one.
1920x1080 at 30fps (15Mbps) and 720p at 60fps. 32GB SD-Card and up to 2.5 hours continuous filming.

Judging from the website samples the quality is awesome for such a small device:
http://www.goprocamera.com/hdheropreview/

I have the old one already and that thing is basically bomb-proof and its cheap at $299.

Not yet, will do a review once we get the HD version. All of these sub $500 HD cameras are pretty nice for the price, just wish they allowed for higher bandwidth. Heres another one: http://www.vholdr.com/

bandwidth???

Think of the water hose analogy. High definition resolution is mainly 1920x1080 or 1280x720 pixels. In order to provide information about all those pixels, data must be sent to the tv or from the camera (thats the water flowing down the hose).

In general, the faster the data (or water) the more information and the higher the picture quality. Bandwidth is just as important as screen resolution.

The HD signals in our home cables boxes may be around 5 MBps. A Blu-ray DVD can be as high as 8 MBps. So a Blu-ray will generally look better than the home HD cable, especially with fast motion, water, flashing lights, etc. Video bandwidth directly from a pro camera sensor (called the HD-SDI spec) runs around 185 MBps! Pro cameras record around 100-150 MBps, semi-pro cameras record around 35-50 MBps.

One of the twists in all this is that quality vs bandwidth is also effected by the compression scheme used. The new HD bullet cams coming out are using the latest compression scheme called H264 (aka AVC, aka MPEG4 Part 10) running between 1 and 2 MBps. Pretty low, but for $300 not bad at all.

Next time your looking at HD tv's, ask what signal they are feeding them with. Our Sears was using a standard def signal from VCRs that was up-convertered to HD. I think Best Buy was using an HD signal. If your looking to compare TV's make sure your seeing an HD signal!

Bandwidth may be listed as MBps or Mbps (big B vs little b). Big B is byte, little b is bit. 1 Byte = 8 bits (1 MBps = 8 Mbps). Sales guys love using Mbps because is sounds higher.

Thanks, Brian. Wish something like that was around in 1989 when I first started doing my Sailing Seminars. I have since gone through at least a dozen cameras.., and not cheap ones either.
One thing I could not tell was how do you play back video quickly on a TV screen, i.e., I am out in the morning of a seminar shooting how the students are doing tacks. I need to quickly be able put this on a TV screen before the students get their boats secured and arrive for the de-briefing.
And, I must have the ability to show it in slow motion some of the time.
How would you suggest using this camera and accomplishing that (or any other means for that matter)

At the moment I am using a camcorder that records on mini-dvd. Works OK, except for having to (can't think of the word) it everytime, and then un do it to continue using the same disk.
And the cameras seem very fragile, and will of course be eaten by the salt air, like the dozens before.

Thanks for any insight. These days one has to watch one's pennies.
Rick

Rick, what about some form of DVR that you can download your raw video to? Don't DVR let you FF and RW, slow mo, and all that other jazz?

I see some high school football coaches using a little control board with a dial that lets them go forward, backward, slow, etc when looking at their "tapes" (which I suspect are DVD or harddrives from the cameras)

Like Stank said, you can usually use the slow motion playback options of the camera.

On the horizon though is what is called "overcranking". Basically the camcorder records at, for example, 60 frames per second, and plays back at 30 frames per second. So at play back, its at half speed. Slow motion looks much better when recorded this way.

There are consumer video cameras out that shoot up to 1000 frames per second! The only catch is the higher the frames per second, the smaller the resolution usually is. In other words, they use less pixels of the total sensor size in order to record at the higher frame rates.

I don't know of any DVR I could use at the beach. And using the camera would probably be pretty clumsy with those tiny little buttons.
Rick

StanK?

I think there are some portable DVR setups. I found some recently while looking at security monitors/systems (they also have multi-camera things that put all the shots on one screen, which I was thinking to use for multiple boats/cameras on wireless transmitters with the recorder on the PRO boat

I'm sure BK can build something for you. He's all electrical like that (weren't you a rocket scientitst too? Or the guy who built Ironman's Jehrico system?)