CES: Sanyo rolls out high-def digital media camera
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jan 3, 2006 at 9:51am
Sanyo has rolled out the Xacti HD1, which the company says is the world’s first high-definition compact digital media camera, at this week’s 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
The Xacti HD1 Digital Media Camera can record both 720p high-definition video and 5.1-megapixel digital still images to a standard SD flash memory card. It will be available in the U.S. in late March at a manufacturers suggested retail price of US $799.99. The camera’s high-precision LSI (large-scale integration) for image processing enables the HD1 to realize image processing functions such as high-definition 720p processing, real-time MPEG-4 compression and noise reduction.
The HD1 features a 2.2-inch OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) display with 210,000 total pixels. The display flips out from the camera and rotates up to 285 degrees on its axis. The HD2 has a 10x optical zoom lens with a maximum aperture of f/3.5 in both wide and telephoto angles. Combined with a 10x digital zoom capability, the HD1 is capable of a total 100x zoom.
It can record still images in addition to video clips. Its 5.36-megapixel (total) CCD captures beautiful 5.1- megapixel still images that are recorded directly onto a standard SD memory card. The camera can record both 5.1-megapixel still images and high-definition (1280×720-pixel) digital video at the same time with a press of the shutter button during the shooting of
a video clip.
The HD1 can record over 21 minutes of 720p HD video on a 1GB SD card or over 42 minutes on a 2-Gigabyte card. HD1 users can also choose to record in Standard Definition mode (640×480 pixels at 30fps progressive) for up to two hours on a 2GB SD card. Users can switch between high-definition and standard-definition recording modes by pressing the “HD/Norm” button located on display side of the camera body. (SD cards are sold separately.) The Sanyo HD1 weighs 8.3 ounces (including battery and a standard SD memory card) and measures 3.1 by 4.7 by 1.4 inches.
Ernie Medina DrPH Says:
Yes, I’d like to know if the HD1 can work with my Intel Duo and iMovie.
Posted on May 06, 2006
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
anon Says:
Any word on iMovie/FCP support? I’ve read that the HD1’s connection is USB 2.0 not Firewire (http://www.sanyodigital.com). iMovie only mentions Firewire transfer, so I assume direct import is not available in iMovie (yet). I also read that the HD1’s USB conn will allow mass-storage access, so at least a simple file transfer will allow one to get a MP4 video file to a Mac, then do a manual import to iMovie.
Posted on April 18, 2006