OT: JVC twin lens Full HD 3D camcorder

Seth wrote on 1/11/2011, 10:37 AM

Here it is at B&H. Funny-looking, like all of JVC's consumer-oriented gear. Still, the specs are pretty impressive, on paper. A JVC rep said this on another forum discussing the cam:

"There are two 3D recording modes:

Apparently the image processor they've put in this camcorder is capable of 4k resolution, or so JVC claims.

Comments

kkolbo wrote on 1/11/2011, 11:00 AM

The MVC will probably be the best recording mode, but I do not know what editing software can process it. I am not sure if Vegas decodes it or not. I would be interested in finding out. Other than two independent streams this has the most potential for decent resolution. The side by side half just doesn't look that good in the end.

John_Cline wrote on 1/11/2011, 1:23 PM

One of the new 3D camcorders introduced by Sony (HDR-TD10) uses full 1920x1080 alternating L/R frames which will give you twice the horizontal resolution than side-by-side. It is being marketed by Sony as the world's first "Double Full HD" 3D consumer camcorder and uses two Sony G lenses, two "Exmor R" CMOS image sensors and two BIONZ image processors. The camera also has a 3.5-inch "Xtra Fine" LCD 3D touch screen with which you can view 3D footage without glasses. It uses MVC compression at 28 Mbps and comes with 64GB of flash memory and will be available in April for about $1,500.

An unbiased "First Impression" review can be read here:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sony-HDR-TD10-First-Impressions-Camcorder-Review.htm

Seth wrote on 1/11/2011, 1:24 PM

Agreed, which is precisely why I'm taking this camcorder seriously, whereas the Panasonic lens adapter seems, to me at least, to be a bit of a gimmick. I mean, you can always use your left or right eye stream as a mono channel if you have two full streams, but you can't recreate uncaptured data, at least not to that extent. Unless I'm missing something, MVC supports single-eye playback, effectively giving you all 3 views, right?

Another thing I'm getting a little excited about is the low light performance. It has an f1.2 lens, & in a review from CES, one report said that the low-light sensitivity of the two CMOS sensors resulted in visibly lower noise when piping the uncompressed signal out to a display, lower than other comparable 3D camcorders. So, combined, this should give you the option of really shallow 3D DOF, or really clean 3D deep focus in lower light.

Seth wrote on 1/11/2011, 1:31 PM

The Sony looks good too, and is listed at $500 less, but I get the sense that it has noisier output. Both cameras record to MVC wrapped in mp4, and Sony has officially listed the bitrate: 28Mbs. JVC hasn't listed very much official info yet, even though they claim it'll be ready by March.

I'm wondering if/how either one of these cameras could be matched up to a Black Magic Intensity Pro for uncompressed capture in frame-packing mode.

EDIT: This particular chorus keeps popping up in Sony's song:

"Unfortunately, none of these manual controls work in 3D record mode."

I guess the reason I created a post about the JVC is because I'm desperately hoping that it's not artificially crippled when shooting in 3D like the Panny and, now, the Sony. Of course, if nothing develops in this price range, I'm more than happy to continue using other solutions. I mean, if the net output resolution (both temporal and spacial) of a couple of $350 Canons is greater than either of these new cameras, and they have more manual control options then the choice is clear: wait till something better comes along.