Sanyo VPC-TH1 HD Compact Flash Memory Camcorder (Blue) Review

I bought this camcorder for a "cheap" way to enter the HD world of video capturing.I will wait to get a much better camcorder once I figure out how to get around editing AVCHD (and when I buy a new computer that can handle HD video editing with ease).My main use for this camcorder is capturing orchestral performances, editing it, and uploading the video to YouTube in HD quality.I also like taking video that requires no editing.In summary, this camcorder isn't the best in the world, but isn't the worst in the world.

Things you should be aware of before buying this camcorder:
1) The zoom button seems flimsy.It feels like it'll break any moment.

2) The image stabilizer is not that useful (especially from 15x-30x zoom if shooting with hands).However, the image stability is greatly improved with a tripod (the video is still shaky nonetheless).

3) Not that great in low lighting conditions.

4) You can hear noise when you zoom in or out.Not only that, you can hear other noises made from the camcorder in the audio recording in general.There's no mic input to work around this flaw.

Other Observations/Thoughts:
1) I use a Transcend 16GB SDHC that comes with a card reader, and it seems to work out.

2) All videos captured are saved as file type mp4.

3) It uses SDHC, which means it uses the FAT32 filing system, which means the biggest file you can create is 4GB.At the highest video setting, that would be about 1 hour of non-stop recording.I decided to test what would happen if I try to go over 4GB.So I left the camcorder on for about one hour and one minute.Then in the LCD screen, there's a countdown timer in red font indicating that it is running out of time to record.When it reached zero seconds, it auto-saves the recording, and then it starts a new recording.The file (in the SDHC) indicates that it is 3.99GB. However when I try to copy and paste this file to my computer, it won't let me.The file is now useless.So the moral of the story is, if you are using the highest video setting, don't go over 55 minutes of non-stop recording, and you'll be fine.

4) I don't really care about taking pictures on this, so I didn't test that.

5) Regarding the battery: [UPDATE: 4/14/2009] Out of the box the battery says it has 72 minutes left on it.So I started to recharge it.According to the manual, the LED will turn red if it's recharging and turn off if it's finished.Three hours pass and the LED is still red.I was wondering how can this thing charge for so long.So I unplugged it and checked the battery life.It says 207 minutes.I plugged it back in to recharge it again.The LED is off.In summary, it seems that the recharging indicator isn't reliable.

Video Editing/AVCHD section ------------------------------------------
Of course editing video in AVCHD is a different beast altogether. So my review rating is not affected by this.

My Computer Specs:
OS: Windows XP
CPU: AMD Athlon XP +1800
Memory: 2 x 512MB
Video Card: ATI Radeon 8500 LE 128MB

First, here is what I WANT done in the video editing process:
1) If the video doesn't need to be edited, I should be able to upload to YouTube in HD quality

2) If a video DOES need to be edited, there should be a way to "uncompress it" with a lossless technique (like huffYUV), or a way to edit the mp4 file directly with advanced editing techniques, compress it, and output to YouTube, DVD, or Blu-Ray.

Now I will tell you if steps 1) and 2) can be done based on my experience.

Step 1) can be done.Just upload the mp4 file to YouTube (it's in HD quality), and that's it.

Step 2) is rather interesting.Here's what I've done so far.
a) install lame mp3 and ffdshow codecs
b) install and load "pazera free mp4 to avi converter"
c) uncompress the mp4 file to HuffYUV lossless (this will be the intermediate file for editing). This may cause the frame rate to lag (but I'm using a slow computer).Also take note that HuffYUV will produce a big file (about 31 MB/s for me).We do step c) because VirtualDub can't load mp4 files.
d) install and load VirtualDub (or whatever video editor you use that can let you edit HuffYUV), and do your video editing.
e) compress video to ffdshow mpeg4 (fourcc = mp4v) 4000kbit/s: audio to lame mp3 192kbit/s
f) Done (the compressed file doesn't lag for me anymore).

I am still searching for software that can do advanced video editing for AVCHD (or an uncompressed format) since VirtualDub can only do simple editing.



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