Sony Launches Smallest High-Def Camcorder

Titanium case shields from abuse
By Sean Captain Posted 04.03.2008 at 12:08 am 6 Comments
Sony HDR-TG1 Handycam: The smallest high-definition camcorder weighs just 10 ounces Photo by Courtesy Sony

Sony today announced what it claims to be the smallest high-definition camcorder, the 10-ounce HDR-TG1 Handycam. Into this small package (1.3x4.8x2.5 inches), Sony sueezes most of the features that go into bigger models: including 1920x1080i resolution, a 10X optical zoom lens and face-recognition. It’s packed in a titanium shell with a scratch resistant coating that Sony calls “quite fashionable.”

So what did Sony toss out to make it so nice? Not much. It doesn’t have optical image stabilization like some camcorders from Panasonic and Canon, and it doesn’t have a jack for an external microphone—but few cameras do have these features. But it has features that really do matter, like a largish (2.7-inch) LCD screen, and an HDMI port for plugging right into a high-def television. And the battery, which can’t be huge, still powers the camera for up to an hour and 35 minutes.

So can such a tiny camera take good video? We’ll know better when Sony starts selling them in May (no more details on the date), bundled with a four-gigabyte memory card for “about $900.”

6 Comments

Comments

Milkweed110
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 04/03/08 at 9:05 am

Is it just me, or is this a paraphrased press release?

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sublumjack1
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 04/03/08 at 1:01 pm

Yea..that pretty much sums up 90% of the articles on PopSci

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carlossilva
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 04/03/08 at 10:20 pm

I love small electronics and Sony does them well, but I would be concerned with the capacity and cost of flash based storage even on a normal resoultion.

How much 1080i can fit on a 4Gb card? I have done some calcs and it looks like that would be less than 10 minutes of uncompressed 1080i. I am sure there is compression going on here though. What compression are they using? It would be nice to know the claims of the manufacturer regading how many minutes at full resolution that card can hold. I am sure it is not impressive.

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carlossilva
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 04/03/08 at 10:25 pm

I said less than 10 minutes, it would actually be more like 21 minutes. Calc based on:

1080i uncompressed uses 3.125 Mb per second
which is 187.5 Mb per minute
which is 11.25 Gb per hour.

I got 3.125 Mb from a few sources online, wikipedia being one of them.

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Sean Captain
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 04/09/08 at 2:58 pm

I had a meeting with Sony, but all they had were specs and pictures. So there was nothing more to report. We'll know more when we get our hands on one. - Sean

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Milkweed110
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 04/10/08 at 9:30 am

Okay, thanks.

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