Kodak Zi6: 720x1280x60p

Laurence wrote on 12/9/2008, 9:07 PM
I just bought a Kodak Zi6 which shoots 720x1280x60p onto SD cards: On sale now for $130 at Best Buy for the rest of today (Dec. 10). Check it out http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8989348&productCategoryId=abcat0403006&type=product&id=1218008114694&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bestbuy.com%2Fsite%2Folspage.jsp%3FskuId%3D8989348%26productCategoryId%3Dabcat0403006%26type%3Dproduct%26id%3D1218008114694&ref=39&loc=01&AID=10597222&PID=249294&SID=here.[/link]

edit:

OK, a little more on this camera: There is some sample footage http://www.lawrenceingraham.com/kodak-zi6-review-by-a-normal-mac-user/here[/link]. When you look at it on Vimeo, it looks like jerky 30p. If you download the original 60p footage and play it back with Quicktime, it still looks like jerky 30p. But if you convert it to 720x1280x60p Cineform and drop it on a Vegas 720x60p timeline, it looks very smooth.

Comments

Laurence wrote on 12/14/2008, 5:43 PM
A little more on this camera. It fits really nicely into this construction worker type cell phone / walkie talkie case that I found at Lowes (and also use for my T-Mobile G1 Android),

If you put the video on a Vegas timeline, you get audio tracks but they are just a straight line with no actual sound. On top of that, you get a maximum of about 4 fps preview. Thus you need to use some sort of intermediate. AVCHD doesn't work with the footage but Cineform HD Link works just well and will keep the 1280x720x60fps format. The 60 fps 1280x720 Cineform AVIs are more than ten times as big as the original (data size wise) but they work well and will preview without dropped frames at preview resolution.

There is no stabilization whatsoever with this camera so it looks pretty jerky handheld. Pop it on top of a cheap monopod however and it looks really stunning. There are no settings aside from format and one landscape/macro switch which you can use for extreme close-ups. Everything else is full auto only: auto-focus, auto-whitebalance. Zoom is digital so you're best off forgetting that it's even there.

It comes with two rechargable double-A batteries and a charger. It doesn't come with a memory card though. There is a tiny amount of internal memory that is designed mostly for the built-in software. You will get less than a minute of video without an SD card. You can use up to a 32GB card with it.

Build quality feels pretty good. A USB port pops out like the popular Flip camcorders. Audio quality is about what you'd expect on a flash camcorder: better than an original Flip but nothing to write home about. There is no motor noise which is nice however.

Controls are very simple. There is a joystick between two switches. Moving the joystick to the right or left switches between the following modes: HD, HD 60p, VGA and still camera. Moving the joystick up or down operates the digital zoom. The switch on the right toggles between record and playback modes and the switch on the left will delete unwanted clips. In playback mode moving the joystick up or down raises and lowers the volume. Moving it to the right or left changes the playback speed. You can view videos in slow or fast motion with this control. Pop out the usb jack and as soon as you plug it into your computer it will go into flash memory mode.

When you first plug the camera into your computer, you can install the built in software. I recomend doing this because the media player it comes with will play back the 60p HD video beautifully. The same footage won't play back properly in Windows Media Player, and in Quicktime Pro you will see only every second frame of the 60p footage which looks quite jerky. When I installed it, the new media player wanted to be the new default player for all formats. I unchecked all of them except for .mov and that seems to work out well.

Do I like the camera? Well yes. Handheld it looks shaky like you would expect from a hand-held camera with virtually no mass, but pop it on a mono-pod and it looks quite stunning. I like pocket sized cameras and this is the best one I've seen yet. I like having a camera that I can pop in my pocket and forget about until I see something cool. I wouldn't use it for work, but for family stuff it is really quite nice. I would choose this one over the Mino HD simply because of the 60p modes which look as smooth as 60i.
LReavis wrote on 12/15/2008, 2:31 PM
I can't get any audio in vegas (all OK in VLC player). I must need a VFW audio codec for Vegas, but have no idea which. Any suggestions?
Laurence wrote on 12/15/2008, 3:18 PM
Yeah I get audio tracks, but there is no audio on them. Just a straight line. The preview with the raw footage is much to slow to use as well. The only way I've found to work with this footage in Vegas is to convert it to Cineform with Connect HD (the capture and conversion utility that comes with the paid versions of Cineform). From there it works fine (albiet at more than ten times the original file size). I wish that AVCHD Upshift would work but right now it doesn't.
John_Cline wrote on 12/15/2008, 4:24 PM
The Aiptek Action-HD camera, available exclusively the Walmart of all places, is also a pretty decent, cheap HD camera. It records 1440x1080-30p, 1280x720-60p, 1280x720-30p, 720x480-60p and 352x240-30p. It takes native 5-megapixel stills and has a 4x optical zoom. It uses up to 32GB SD-HC cards and sells for $200. Here are some videos on Vimeo that were shot with it:

http://www.vimeo.com/videos/search:Aiptek%20Action%20HD

Aiptek also just came out with a new version available through Amazon. It has a 5x optical zoom, gyroscopic stabilization, external microphone jack and in addition to the 1440x1080-30p and 1280x720-60p, it has 848x480 non-anamorphic 16x9 at 60fps. It's $249.

They both have HD component output and record around 8Mbit h.264 in .MOV format. There is a little trick to getting the video into Vegas though, you have to go through the Quicktime player and export it by passing the video untouched and recompressing the audio to 128kbps AAC.

None of them look quite as good as a dedicated HD camcorder, but they are certainly a whole lot better looking than one would expect for a $200-$250 camcorder. I've successfully used them for HD B-roll with a little tweaking.
Laurence wrote on 12/15/2008, 7:46 PM
Explain how you save the video from quicktime with just an audio re-encode. I can't figure it out.
John_Cline wrote on 12/15/2008, 9:13 PM
Open the .MOV in Quicktime
Go to "File" > "Export."
Select "Movie to MPEG4" and hit the "Options" button.
Just under "File Format" (which should be MP4) select the video stream and then select "Pass Through" as the vdeo format.

Now select the audio stream
Select "AAC-LC (Music) for the audio format,
128Kbps
stereo
48k output sample rate and "Best" encoding quality.

Then save the file, it will only take a minute or so to convert the file. This will create an .MP4 file which will load into Vegas and will also play just fine on a PlayStation3.
Laurence wrote on 12/15/2008, 9:58 PM
That trick worked. Now the only problem is that the preview rate is less than 2fps.

edit: In the case of the Zi6, it seems all I have to do is change the extension from .mov to .mp4.