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the camcorderd *senses* it is attached to a Mac and delivers full AVCHD format to it. Senses a PC and warns it will deliver a lower resolution to the PC.
Imagine the new Get a Mac advert

How's that for one additional compelling reason to switch to a Mac for HD camcorders owners.

Do I smell an iCam?

The linked article in the MacDailyNews Note is interesting. That Microsoft would do such a thing to users to "gain favor" with the Hollywood powers is telling. That it did so voluntarily and defends the copy-protection scheme as being appropriate is delusional.

Lol @ MDN's take.

I just took a quick look at the linked article in the MacDailyNews Note and my question is this:

If Ballmer thinks Apple iPod users are music thieves, what are Windows Vista users? Why incorporate a copy protection system if Microsoft Windows Vista users are angels?

I must agree, it's holding up the works!!

It just seems Apple will have to produce it's own line of HD camcorders...

...in brilliant white first of course, then a eventual change over to metallic silver.

bad newz?

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9759132-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

more bad newz?

http://news.com.com/Customer+satisfaction+down+among+PC+buyers/2100-1011_3-6202366.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

I think MDN's "Note" is misplaced. It would be fine if they provided a proper Take on the article. There's no platform comparison going on in the article, so they have to create some.

Ian, if Apple was planning on making a camcorder do you think Jobs would be giving his competition suggestions on how to improve theirs?

Or were you just looking for a reason to say "iCam"?

@coolfactor

Are you on planet earth. Vista dumbs down HD content Mac OS X does not.

Hello? Do you not see what this could mean?

MW= products... as in I want products that do not limit my choice of end quality.

Steve Jobs is a pretty bright guy, but he's out of his depth here. ALL consumer HD gear "sucks" and it's not the cameras or their resolutions. The problem is that HD uncompressed video requires 1100 Mb/s. HDV which uses MPEG2 is 25 MB/s. AVCHD is a better CODEC but runs at a lower bit rate-15 Mb/s.
You don't need to do any math to see that a very large signal is beig squeezed into a very small one. And that means the images are going to suffer. Frankly, it's a miracle of technology that these consumer video cameras look as good as they do and cost so little. Just a few years ago you would be spending 100 grand for an HD camera, so to get one that approoaches anything ressembling that quality for 1% of the cost is pretty darned inpressive.

Im in the market for a HD camcorder, should I wait a bit longer to see if HD quality gets better or get one of these new AVCHD camcorders (im looking at getting Panasonic). Or should I wait to see if Apple release a camcorder?

@ Poddy, wait a bit longer if you can help it. At the moment CMOS sensors are deemed to provide a higher quality than CCD sensors, the problem is that CMOS sensors are extremely expensive, I repeat, EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE!

If you cannot wait, then get yourself a Camera that is video capable and has a CMOS sensor. You will probably looking at the thick end of the wedge in terms of cost. Roughly more expensive than an 8 core or quad core Mac pro 3.0GHz!

@ Kraig Bailey

I don't believe he is referring to the compression. Steve has been a supporter of AVC (aka h.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10) since it's inception. It even uses QuickTime's file format.

What I believe he was referring to is that there are no cameras out there that give true 1080p video at either 24 or 30 fps.

Sure there are Bayer array cameras that interpolate the colors.

Sure there are three CCD cameras with less than the full 1080x1920 at 24 or 30 frames per second.

But there are no consumer or "prosumer" cameras (none that I am aware of -- and apparently none that Steve is aware of) that have the full 1080x1920 progressive scanned with 3 CCDs (one for each RGB color).

Thus whatever camera you have gives you less than HD could really be. Will such cameras exist in the not to distant future? Yes. I believe Steve is just a little impatient.

Also with regard to the compression... While many people think 15 Mbps AVC for the video (not video and audio) is "acceptable" for viewing HD, a person would not want that bit rate as their permanent *source* material. If possible you want the source material to be 50+ Mbps or higher. (An International Telecommunications Union -- ITU -- did a study a while back and found that it took 110 Mbps or higher using AVC to have a compressed imagery that was indistinguishable from the original. Some purists might even push for that high a data rate.)

1. It will further give Apple another leverage point to purchase massive amounts of NAND Flash memory, furthering their economies of scale which no other company can match.

2. Sony, Canon, JVC, Panasonic dominate the market space, and in the pro world there isn't anything else to look at. These companies intentionally move the technology forward at an amazingly slow pace, in order to keep milking long-in-the-tooth products at premium pro prices.
Apple can carve into this market in a similar fashion to RED, but with a brand and economies of scale not seen in this market space.

A $899 Apple HD camcorder that can shoot 5 megapixel photos, that has a touch screen interface, is dead simple to use, and stores 32 GB of data on a built-in flash bank - how are Canon, Sony and the rest to respond?

- Flash is the direction fo all things digital gadget storage, but no one can match Apple's buying powers. Either they launch with less storage capacity in hopes to match Apple in pricing, or match Apple's storage specs. and charge more - or go broke trying to match Apple's price and storage abilities... Sony and the rest won't go for anything less than fat margins, so count on their products suddenly going from industry leading to "me too" on the cheap...

- If they ignore Apple (a large possibility) they can watch their still and high-end pro-sumer video camera sales start to die on a vine...

Odds are they would be slow to respond, but try to copy Apple - and do a horrible job at it.

I've wanted Apple to produce a camcorder for years, and hopefully Apple will storm into this market sooner than later as well.

@ Crabapple

As someone who actually works with and integrates high end focal plane arrays (both CCD and CMOS up through 125 Mpixels per FPA) I don't agree that CMOS sensors are significantly more expensive than CCDs. The implementation is a bit newer, and CCDs are still "the old standby" but CMOS is rapidly becoming equivalent to CCDs in all areas and in many cases becoming less expensive to manufacture -- especially very large format focal plane arrays.

Besides it is relatively easy to find prosumer cameras that Poddy would likely find acceptable for much less than an 8 core Mac Pro. However, if he's looking for a professional equivalent and does true 1080p using 3 FPAs he's not in the prosumer realm anymore. That's still professional realm only per Steve Jobs' complaint.

Apple will never produce a peripheral like a camcorder. This will be one of those areas where they will exert influence to raise the standard, like the way they forced the industry to truly start using USB or ditch the useless floppy drive.

HD Jockey

'Metallic' silver? Isn't silver always metallic.

Hey folks.

The HDV standard is 1440x1080. The required stretch of the width to get the 1920 width forces some rendering from iMovie and Quicktime to stretch it and therefore reduces the image quality.

Many of those cameras do uncompressed full HD video out to the monitor. It's just the HDV taping that is the lower resolution -- by design of manufacturers. I suppose they don't want to undercut their high-end cameras.

Re: Kraig Bailey

Steve Jobs CAN'T be referring to data compression because he says that the picture looks good in the camera, and then deteriorates in the Mac. Logically, this should be a lossless transfer of data. So it could be that Apple has been forced into doing the same thing Microsoft does.

I wish we had access to exactly what it was that Jobs said, as their are some very subtle distinctions that could be made here.

@ Shadowself, You are right in as far as the physical size of the chip goes. A larger sized CMOS sensor provides for much better quality as less image needs compression. But it is the manufacturing process that makes the large CMOS chips so much more expensive.

I imagine that Mr Jobs gripe is about the reluctance of the Photographic industry to push the development of CMOS & CCD chips as fast as the computer industry has done for the Processor and data storage.

The problem is that the lower end digital cameras have become so common place (mobile phones) and produce a "good enough" photo for most people to not feel the need to invest in a high end camera.

With isight, Mr Jobs could enter the Camera business, but the limitations are in the CMOS & CCD chips which I guess is what he is griping about.

Is it me or this sight ridiculously bad lately?

When the launch of iLife 08 he praised the panasonic SD1.

Not having true HD (1440 x 1920) - if that's the complaint, it will be rectified soon... the replacement HDC-SD5 has 'true' HD and will be out soon. Other camcorders are following suit.

The compression is another story. Many reviewers are saying that AVCHD isn't quite as good as HDV.

@ Shadowself, check this out.

http://www.foveon.com/article.php?a=67

Alright MDN you win! I give up trying to post the same page umpteen dozen times before it goes through or the password turns up.

"do you think Jobs would be giving his competition suggestions on how to improve theirs?"

Yes, because if they step up to the plate, then there's no reason for Apple to do one. At least not until they make theirs and suck at it.

"the camcorderd *senses* it is attached to a Mac and delivers full AVCHD format to it. Senses a PC and warns it will deliver a lower resolution to the PC."

Why would camcorder makers want to piss off 98% of their customers?

And in other news Steve Jobs blasted cellphone handset makers for using slow EDGE chipsets in their phones when much faster 3G networks are widely deployed by carriers.

Awesome ants.

Poor Steve .

Anyone want to be my friend ,: especially Girl? I am going back to New Zealand soon, I have given up on Sydney ,. I will work on my inventions will release them all on a file.

@Substandard,
There's a difference between using a slower chipset and calling something HD when it isn't. The difference is called honesty. If Steve advertised Edge as a 3G network, you'd have a point.

The camcorder market is controlled by Sony, who has "dumbed down" HDV camcorders. Sony doesn't want to see their broadcast market threatened by the consumer products, as it was with later generation DV products. US broadcasters & studios have also been dragging their feet in the transition to HDTV, and this has cascaded down into the consumer realm. The unnecessary HD DVD war has also had an effect, and consumers will end up paying the price, as they have with red laser DVD's. In short, until there is a full transition to HD (2009), don't expect too much progess in HD. As yet, there are no true HDV consumer camcorders, and important (yet unrealized) aspects of HDV color control are a long way off (e.g., REC. 709). Color control in HDTV is more antiquated than the US air traffic control system.

Why would camcorder makers want to piss off 98% of their customers?

They do it already, camcorders already dumbs down the content. What it is implied here is that while it can be necessary on Windows, it is not on OS X so the full resolution could be used on the Mac, not so on the Windows PC.

All that matter is - once more again - create eye-openers to the 80% or so
(98% ? good old day are gone forever) that use Windows thinking they have no better alternative around.

The article was nonsense. The author was reading something into Steve's comment that wasn't there. There was no dig at cam mfrs. It was the author taking Steve's quote out of context and using it for his own agenda.

"They do it already, camcorders already dumbs down the content."

"'HD camcorders don't have sensors for full high definition,"

So OS X magically creates more pixels in the camera sensor?

Great! I need to find an OSX box to plug all my cameras in to upgrade them to more megapixels.

So?

Are you deliberately trying to be dense?
Read the link.
Camcorders are sending lower quality content when connected to Windows Vista computers, at the OS's request.
When you connect to a Vista box, your content is intentionally degraded.

In case you're too lazy to read, I'll post the relevant bit.
Are you ready?

"Vista requires premium content like high-definition movies to be degraded in quality when sent to high-quality outputs, so users are seeing status codes that say "graphics OPM resolution too high." Gutmann calls this "probably the most bizarre status code ever."

Actually, Steve is reflecting on his disappointment that current camcorders aren't glossy enough. <ducks>

ok, about the flash camcorder comment....

look, i am glad the iPods are going in the flash direction, and the iPhone has o be there, but.... a flash true hd camcorder?

in a few years, i am sure, but is that really viable now?

note, i am really asking. i don't do a lot of video, i have no idea what kind of data rates and amounts we are talking here. enlighten me.

MW: with "friends" like MS degrading your video, who needs enemies?

"So OS X magically creates more pixels in the camera sensor?"

Yes, and the Apple patent carefully describes how their iPixies replicate through a mystical digital parthenogenesis. Their serendipitous breakthrough was captured over a drunken weekend in Atlantic City when lead engineer Nano Nanette began hallucinating from a tainted cup of Earl Grey. Many Apple discoveries have started this way.

apple could put iphone in a videocam because when it docks in landscape mode it can be a multitouch screen to view,organize,make and receive calls instantly without break the video audio inside the camera,the camera could also photografh a family moment with iphone in the videocam then all data are transferred to the flash disk in the video cam and then to the usb and mac so then we could enjoy it.GO APPLE

Poddy,
Consider looking at the Canon HV20. I have owned Canon's before and the images they produce are beautiful. I just got rid of a Sony FX1 that costs $3500 to get an HV20 that runs just under $1000.

Look at people's video that they've shot and posted online. It's stunning with that camera.

Oh, and it can shoot true 24P, not some fake crap like Sony's always do. Btw, I would add a wide-angle lens, too.

There's a fascinating discussion on this topic at ArsTechnica. Should be required reading for anyone buying a computer -- Mac or Windows.

Ooops! Here's the ArsTechnica link:

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/aacs-tentacles.ars

Funnily enough, I've just been listening to an old 78 of "No No Nanette", sung by Binne Hale in about 1925..

To Alex Mckenna:

Nice! You've moved up from wax cylinders?

@ Crabapple

I've been aware of Foveon for over two years. Their chip does not do it either as the sensitivity between red, green and blue is radically different. It's a nice idea but it requires a great deal of color balancing based upon the lowest common denominator color (the blue channel in their chips).

Personally, I'd prefer a four chip set beam splitter (RGBY with the panchromatic Y channel for normalizing intensity) but we won't see that in anything but high end professional systems for several years to come.

>MacDailyNews Note: Meanwhile, Microsoft's Windows Vista prevents users from playing high-definition content - Network World, Friday, August 10, 2007

DAMN that Microsoft and their crappy Vista camcorders!

High Definition camcorders currently capture video at 1440x1080 interlaced, i.e. 60/50 fields per second of 1440x540 pixels.

Annoyingly the non-US/Japan 50Hz cameras don't work with iMovie '08 -- it only works with 60Hz content. :(

The prosumer HD cameras are just about to start offering 1920x1080 progressive cameras, i.e. 60/50/30/25/24 fields per second of 1920x1080 pixels.

Hopefully iMovie '08 will work with all vertical refresh rates and not just 60Hz.

MDN Magic Word: world as is there is a world outside USA that sometimes uses different 'standards', Apple, please support them.

i enquired about the Panasonic HDC-SD1 (which Jobs championed), and its upcoming replacment which does 1080x1920, the HDC-SD1 (Japan only right now).
The sales guys said that these were good, but in terms of actual real world results the JVC Everio gives better results, and is what a lot of the pros use when they want a small portable camera.
I'm a newbie to video so all I have so far is reference and peoples opinions.
Video has always been a complex beast.

typo, the newer one is either the HDC-SD5 or HDC-SD3, cant remember.

I still cant figure out where I put my 35mm file into my MacPro....

Jobso is right. check this out:

http://www.red.com

They are about to rock the DV world big time, and the story is similar to Apple, in that the status quo needs a good, violent, babysitter-is-drunk kinda shake-up.

"Camcorders are sending lower quality content when connected to Windows Vista computers, at the OS's request."

Just because you're stupid, I'll bite.

To quote:

"Jobs seems to lay the blame on camcorder makers.

"HD camcorders don't have sensors for full high definition," Jobs said. As a consequence, when videos are transferred to a media center, "they produce images at slightly lower resolution than HD.""

Now to look at the VISTA issue:

"Vista requires premium content like high-definition movies to be degraded in quality when sent to high-quality outputs,"

You can transfer HD video from your camcorder to Vista just fine, and play it back on an HDCP compatible monitor and graphics card combo just fine (Any modern DVI/HDMI monitor or LCD TV and any modern ATI, Nvidia or Intel graphics card with HDCP) .

Just don't expect High Def without HDCP.

>razor wrote: I'm a newbie to video so all I have so far is reference and peoples opinions.

My suggestion - as a pro - is to do as much research about general videography as you can. Visit websites, manufacturer sites, and forums - I've been a regular on many of them (Chris Hurd's dvinfo.net is one of my favorites). Talk to someone who actually has the camera or has used it.

Store salespeople can be the worst to get advice from. At the heart of their job is to unload merchandise on you. Some are knowledgeable, many more aren't. And since they're trying to sell you something, they generally will answer every question whether they know what they're talking about or not.

You can always get a cheapo cam as practice and then upgrade as your skill and knowledge progress.

=====
=====

>"When the transfer is done, the picture quality loses some of its resolution"

He just said the resolution was there when the camera captured it, but loses it when it gets onto the computer. How is that the camera's fault?

"He just said the resolution was there when the camera captured it, but loses it when it gets onto the computer. How is that the camera's fault?"

No, he blamed the sensor

to quote:

“It turns out that the HD camcorders don’t yet have sensors that are full HD. They produce images that are slightly lower resolution than HD. They are still stellar. And so, we use that resolution which is close to HD but not quite HD. That’s the best you can capture right now with an under $!0,000 camera.”

The journalist who wrote the article re-interpreted his words and blamed the transfer.