craschworks

The New York Times

May 22, 2003

The High-Definition Camcorder Enters the Picture
By DAVID POGUE

HIGH-DEFINITION television picture is so bright, sharp and clear, it's causing a minor upheaval in the way TV shows and movies are filmed. Talk-show and newscast sets must be rebuilt because HDTV reveals that the existing desks are nothing more than plywood and contact paper. Composing a shot is more complicated because HDTV displays a wide, sweeping rectangle of life like a movie, not the blindered square of a conventional set. And actors must go to new extremes in skin care, because the HDTV lens reveals not only every speck and freckle, but even the caking of the makeup used to cover them up.

Don't laugh; these are about to become your problems, too.

Next month, JVC will release the GR-HD1, the first high-definition consumer camcorder. It makes a considerable dent in the HD universe: until now, capturing HDTV video has required a special professional TV camera that can be yours for the low, low price of $100,000.

Put another way, HDTV has been something you watch, not something you create.

But not anymore. The JVC model comes with a two-hour battery, a cleaning cassette, an AC adapter-charger, a remote control and TV connection cables (including the three-headed component video cable required by HDTV sets) – all for a reasonable $3,500.

Of course, not everyone will consider the use of the word “reasonable” reasonable. But this camera isn't a cheapie designed for birthday parties and trips to Disney World (although it performs spectacularly in such settings). It's what JVC calls a prosumer camera, intended for video purists like wedding videographers, amateur filmmakers, corporations and, of course, early-adopter masochists of any stripe.

The model costs about $1,000 more than three-chip camcorders, which until now were the finest camcorders you could buy. (In a three-chip camcorder, separate chips for red, green and blue light permit superb color fidelity in more lighting conditions.) Also like three-chip devices, the GR-HD1 looks more like a shrunken TV camera than like a pocket camcorder. It's long and black, with a removable aluminum handle on top (it doubles as the support for an external mike or video light) and a removable lens shade.

The feature list includes both artistic tools from the professional world (like a zoom ring on the lens barrel) and the best ideas from JVC's consumer-camcorder line. For example, the handgrip (and filming controls on it) rotate 90 degrees to the camera body, so that you can film comfortably at what would otherwise be wrist-twisting angles. The memory card, primarily designed to hold the 1.2-megapixel still photos that this camera can capture, automatically stores a thumbnail image for each scene that you film, resulting in a living, auto-rewinding table of contents for each tape.

And in an ingenious touch, the simple act of swinging open the large 3.5-inch L.C.D. viewfinder automatically switches the camera on and gets it ready to record.

When played back on an HDTV set, the video is gasp-inducing; if you're an image-quality purist, seeing your own backyard, living room or children in high definition will rock your world. Part of the effect comes from the widescreen picture, whose 16:9 horizontal-to-vertical proportions fill your field of view the way a movie-theater screen does. The rest of the impact comes from the HDTV picture itself, which is so pristine, you can barely see the individual pixels even with your retinas mashed to the glass.

In short, it looks like a movie, and no wonder. The GR-HD1 reproduces video using a method known by HDTV nerds as 720p (p for progressive scan) – that is, 720 extremely fine lines of color, progressing smoothly down the screen 30 times per second. In moving shots, the result is a subtle, cinemalike flicker.

(Regular TV uses a method called 480i – 480 interlaced lines, blasted to the screen in rapidly alternating sets, the odd-numbered lines followed by the even-numbered ones. Your brain melds the two sets into a solid picture.)

Some people call the flicker movielike; others call it annoying. If it bothers you, the flip of a switch scales the camera down into a lower-quality relative of HDTV called 480p. You still get the wide screen and the continuous (progressive) scanning of the picture tube. And that flicker is gone, because this mode repaints the screen 60 times per second instead of 30. But the picture sharpness is now only as good as a high-end DVD player (if “only” is the word).

At this point, film fans familiar with the electronics industry are surely filling with format fear. Sure, sure, the camcorder sounds great. But does the world really need yet another type of tape to join the boxes of 8-millimeter, VHS, and mini-DV cassettes in our closets? It takes years for a new tape format to make its way from expensive specialty stores to everyday drugstores. (See also

“MicroMV format, Sony .”)

Similarly, who would pay $3,500 for a camera whose video plays only on high-definition TV sets, which are still relatively rare?

Finally, what good is HDTV video if you can't edit it? Surely no Mac or Windows editing software is compatible with HDTV video, since there's been no such thing as an HDTV camcorder.

Fortunately, JVC has sweated these details so thoroughly, you feel like tossing it a towel.

First, the GR-HD1 does not, in fact, require special tapes. It uses ordinary one-hour mini-DV cassettes, which cost about $4 each when bought in six-packs. This brilliant, simple idea must have tied JVC's engineers in knots, but it has a huge payoff in availability, economy and convenience.

Second, remember that button on the barrel that switches between the 720p and 480p filming modes? It has a third position: DV. In other words, this camcorder can step into a phone booth and emerge as a standard mini-DV camcorder that captures regular non-widescreen video right on the same tape. When full HDTV quality is not required, you've got yourself a second camcorder hiding inside the first.

Furthermore, even if you've filmed in HDTV format, the camera can play back your video in any other format. If you've captured your child's soccer finals in thrilling widescreen 720p high definition, it will still play back beautifully when hooked up to the old 1985 Trinitron in the coach's living room (letterboxed, if you like).

Finally, the camera does indeed come with HDTV editing software, and even software that burns the result to a blank DVD for distribution to your admirers. Bizarrely, it's for Windows only, despite the fact that so much professional TV and film editing work is done on the Macintosh. (JVC says it's working on that issue.)

You can also transfer your work back and forth to other GR-HD1's or to a high-definition VCR, infinitely, with zero quality loss – and no copy-protection hassles.

You may have heard the saying “Never buy version 1.0 of anything,” and even this superbly designed camcorder harbors a few gotchas. Although the camera has a built-in optical stabilizer, the picture's wideness seems to magnify the effect of hand-held jitters; for maximum “ooh” factor, use a tripod.

Note, too, that in picture comparisons with a mini-DV camcorder, the JVC's color and sharpness are far superior – but also slightly more contrasty, sometimes turning what's merely shadowy into black. And when you're playing back video at 720p on a TV, note that the L.C.D. screen goes blank. The camera can't display the picture on both the TV and its own screen.

Even so, JVC has created a fabulous machine that may, in its way, help goose the progress of the nation's transition to high-definition TV. Because high-definition broadcasts aren't available in many parts of the country, certain video fans may jump at the chance to use this camcorder or its inevitable imitators, muttering: “If you want high definition done right, you have to do it yourself.”

In short, now anyone, even without a Directors Guild card, can decide what's HDTV-worthy and what's not. Just start taking good care of your skin.

– —————– R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA “… however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience.” — Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'