Technology: Digital Recorders to the next level
Source: New York times
STATE OF THE ART
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.
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