Sanyo Xacti HD1010 4MP MPEG4 High Definition 1080i/1080p Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom
Get both the functionality of a digital camera and a digital camcorder in one with the Sanyo HD1010 Xacti Digital Media Camera/Camcorder. It is a high-definition, compact digital media device with a 10x optical zoom. The HD1010 offers advanced, next-generation video performance and high-quality stills in one small, lightweight camera. This powerful little device is designed to record either 1080P (30fps) or 1080i (60fps) high-definition video and 4-megapixel digital still images, all of which are handily stored to a SD or SDHC memory card.
10x Optical Zoom - the f/1.8 lens allows almost 4 times more light through. With 8 groups and 11 total lenses with a built-in neutral density filter, this lens provides a field-of-view of 38-380 mm range (35 mm equivalent) Video & Still Image Stabilization Sequential shooting - 7 frames per second Face detection ?still images? & Face chaser ?video? - up to 12 faces each - monitors the subject's face and adjust brightness and focus for clear photos High Quality Audio Recording - Record 48 kHz, 16-bit, 2-channel sound for AAC-LC (MPEG-4 Audio). An external microphone can be attached Wind Roar & Red Eye Reduction Web Cam Function PictBridge Compatible USB 2.0 & S-Video Output Built-in pop-up Flash SDHC Flash memory compatible - up to 1 hour and 27 minutes 1080P (30fps) video on a 8GB SDHC card or 1 hour and 14 minutes of 1080i (60fps) high-definition video on a single 8GB SDHC card (not included). Compatible with cards up to 32GB HDMI high-definition output Docking station Manual controls
Sanyo Xacti HD1010 4MP MPEG4 High Definition 1080i/1080p Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom Accessories
 Transcend 16GB SDHC CARD (SD 2.0 SPD CLASS 6) with Compact Card Reader
Sanyo DB-L50AU Lithium-Ion Battery for HD1000 Camcorder
Sanyo VCP-HCX3 Holster Case for the HD1000
Transcend 8GB SDHC CARD (SD 2.0 SPD Class 6)
Sanyo VAR-L50U Compact Battery Charger for Sanyo DB-L50AU Lithium-Ion Battery
Sanyo VCP-L07WU 0.7x Wide Angle Adapter Lens for HD1000 Camcorder
Transcend TS4GSDHC6 4GB SDHC SD 2.0 SPD Class 6 Card
Sanyo VCP-AL4049U 49mm Lens Filter Adapter for the HD1000 Camcorder
SanDisk Ultra II 16GB/15MB SDHC Card
A-DATA 16GB Turbo 150X Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Class 6 Memory Card - Retail Package
Sanyo Xacti HD1010 4MP MPEG4 High Definition 1080i/1080p Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom Reviews
As some have complained about the image stabilization control, it is true to some degree. It could be more intuitive in its functions, but once you learn it, it's easy. Walking while shooting will produce nearly as great a shaking image as not using the image stabilization. However, if your standing still and moving the camera in normal, non jarring movements, it will do a good job of stabilizing the image. Sanyo's advantage for me is in the ergonomics of the design and the price.It comes down to what's more important to you.Finally, the free Nero editing/DVD/Blu-Ray authoring is very good for editing even 1080p HD footage. This too is an improvement over the old HD 1 (which I still own), but I believe it's one area where Canon has an advantage, using optical instead of digital image stabilization. This is an excellent consumer or even prosumer grade camcorder. Image quality is great and indoor light image quality is much improved over the first Sanyo HD 1 from 2 years ago.
I am not impressed with them at all. I am a Mac user so I can't tell you about the windows software that comes bundled with it. To date (Aug 7, 2008) 1920 x 1080 /60 fps does not work with any software I have on my mac (imovie 08, VLC player, Visualhub video converter).
This is a very good little camera, its small enough to carry in your pocket (I wear cargo shorts a lot) and it has great start up and ready to shoot times (the time it takes you flip open the screen when in sleep mode, a few seconds more when complete off. I emailed Sanyo tech support 2 days ago and still no reply. Nothing, it shows a green screen or a static partial video fields with audio.
I've had the HD1010 for 2 weeks now, I have fiddled with most of the features and used it mainly for filming my kids. First the bad. All other formats 1920x1080 /30, 1280x720 /60, 1280x720/30, 1280x720 /60, 640 x480 /60, 640x480 / 30, 448x336 /300
I think this is a codec issue that will work it self out in later releases of the software.
Most people have a tendency to overuse the zoom lens and pan too quickly. You shouldn't rely on the image stabilization as a crutch. That's where a good optical image stabilizer will shine. However, I found that when I used the flash, it seem to oversaturate the image vs. Not really pocketable as some people claim (a jacket yes, pants, no), but small enough to put on your hip or dangle from your neck (I use a Canon neckstrap made for their Elph camera's). I received the Sanyo HD 1010 3 days ago, and had the entire weekend to play around with it. * Low light footage is FINE. I was looking for a camcorder that tooks great video, was portable and took decent still images.
I own a Sony PC9 which was a great camcorder in its day, but it has stayed at home the last five years. I should tell you that I am a professional wedding photographer (still images, 14 years) so that you have a reference point of who's telling you what. Conclusion: Great camcorder, great video results. This helps steady the camera and keep down the jerkiness when zooming in tight and also panning. ) With the software(Nero 8) that comes packaged with the product, I am able to burn a standard DVD taken from 1080i 60fps footage. Not bad. For the last few weeks I have been searching for as many reviews as I could on the Sanyo HD 1010 to help me make a decision on which camcorder to purchase. My wife and I love to travel.
This is a big plus and not to be overlooked. I shot 12 minutes of a family birthday party using the techniques I described and my videos were fine, no "motion sickness videos". I was very surprised. Here's my experience. Very clean and smooth. * I love the size. I bought a UV filter to protect the lens and the lens cap does not fit very snug on the filter. * The holster case from Sanyo is so-so.
That's the way it should be. . * You can "pull" high quality jpegs from your video footage. I haven't researched recording on to a Blu-Ray in Hi-def, but even if it's not till next year, the hi-def footage will be there when I'm ready to. Maybe if I shot longer footage, a faster card would make a difference.
However, if plan on buying the 1010 to videotape your young children or children's sports, I don't recommend this camera. I'm sure you techies know). Also, I use two hands to hold the camera and keep it steady. But the reason I'm going to leave it on the highest quality is two reasons: 1).
When the lights went back on, everything shifted back to normal. It produces beautiful videos, better than any camcorder I've ever owned. It's not Hi-def quality, but it's DVD quality and still better than any other home video that I have ever produced. * The controls/menus, etc, are GREAT.
(I like to have a camera that I can put on my belt clip or is light enough to dangle from my neck). * I find the pistol grip to be quite comfortable and easier to hold than the more common "palmcorders". Anyway, when the lights went off, the video went black for a split second until the ISO adjusted to the candle, and the video had some grain but was fine. The quick answer: For my purposes, I love this camcorder. It's smoother.
I had the camera ISO set to AUTO, which appears to me to set the lowest ISO that will take an acceptable video. NO. The 1080i and 720i at 60fps are very close in quality on the High Def set, but on my 36 inch Sony, the 720i when panned had some artifacts (don't know why; didn't happen on the Hi-def set. There was very little of it and it was not noticeable.
I looked at my brother in law's HI Def Sony with him. I plan on getting a separate USB drive to keep my "albums" in Hi-def and play them back on Hi-def TV, and use the DVD's as a lower quality (but still good) back up and/or to share with family/friends. It's ok for a house party or short term use, but the clip is not tight on the belt and there is nothing to prevent the camera from falling out if you snag the case on something or have excessive movement. FYI, the 12 minutes of footage took roughly 50 minutes to burn.
The video's that I've used have come from point and shoot cameras that took decent video clips. I don't have time anyway to edit videos on a PC. * The flash is pretty good. You should always record at the best setting. On this setting, I didn't see any artifacts, or lagging, when panning with image stabilization (IS) off.
I tried all the different quality settings and decided to stick with the 1080i 60fps as my permanent setting. Understand that I am not replacing my still camera (the Canon G7 is my travel camera) and don't recommend anyone to replace their still camera with this all in one camcorder. Most of my videos are taken at wide or mid range (travel, scenic footage and family gatherings). He's a computer/techie expert and we looked together and both agreed on the same things. In very, very low light you are going to get grain. I've looked at the Canon HF 100 and the Samsung HMX20C and they are also small, but the 1010 just feels smaller to me and more portable. If you use good techniques for average subjects your videos will be fine. Yes, I would have loved a 28mm equivalent, but the 38mm is fine.
It seemed no different from any other camcorder that I've owned. Because I could only base my decision on the 4 reviews that I read here (which did help immensely), I thought I'd share my opinion of this camcorder to help other potential consumers make up their mind. I was really amazed at how good the images are when you do this. As others have said, I cannot view the footage at normal speed (views jerky) on my PC(windows XP, laptop, dual core), but I can still burn it un-edited to a DVD which plays beautifully. * Battery life seems fine, not an issue. and/or edit them in camera, and then burn to the DVD.
However, the 1010 does take nice stills (a little oversaturated, but quite acceptable). People have complained about the grain in the low light footage. I keep my left hand on the LCD screen. * I use a Transcend 8gb class 6 card and it works fine.
* I'm thinking of getting the wide angle converter (for the travel usage), but don't really have an issue with the widest angle of view. It's not a professional camera. The image quality (from the point and shoot cameras) is certainly not as good as mini DV, which the PC9 is, but it was always there for the taking. You can always down convert, but you can't upconvert. * I had no problem with focus hunting.
I really need to do some more comparisons with IS on, but this is my initial impression. There was one time when the camcorder shifted completely out of focus but only for a split second. I will look around for an aftermarket case to use instead. Ok, my observations:. I do this whether or not the camcorder has image stabilization. I have never had a camera that navigates so easily and quickly when looking to change settings.
Again, haven't used it too much, but I did get two equivalent batteries on Amazon for twenty bucks. If the 1010 had optical image stabilization, it would be hands down perfect. I took my family footage at night at a well lit house (lighting from the ceiling, high-caps) and there was no grain. What I CAN do, is splice the mpeg 4 clips together in the camera (very easy to do). The reason this camcorder is not for everyone is the poor image stabilization. You obviously can only use one camera at a time, so when you are using the 1010 and want to snap a quick photo while you're shooting video or you stop shooting video, it's nice to know you can get a decent photo with this camcorder. when I turned the flash off and used natural light. However, this camcorder is not for everyone-you should determine what you plan on using the camera for before deciding to purchase (see below, two paragraphs down).
I know everyone makes a big deal about the 1080p setting, but 60fps LOOKS better. When we went to the dining room for the birthday cake singing, the lights went off, and a single candle lit the room. * As I said, I love this product. Did not seem to take a long time to write the file to the card, but my longest clip was only 3 minutes. I only recently became interested in shooting better quality video as the size of these new camcorders have come down recently. 2. Don't let the image stabilization issue stop you from buying this product unless your primary purpose is taking video of your young children and sports action.
The filter falls off EVERY time I put the camera in the holster. Of course. The 60fps settings on both the 1080i and 720i were better than the 1080p 30fps and 720p 30fps settings. When I do pan, I hold the camcorder as steady as possible and SLOWLY pan, almost exaggerated.
This low light problem that reviewers are complaining about is a non-issue. I don't have an issue with this. The 1010 does just that. I would not use the holster outside of the house.
Does this ruin it for me.
It doesn't get any easier than this. My first HD camera was Sony HDR-HC1. This is not a big camera by any means, but my expectations were set by the tiny Xacti C4, and compared to that camera the HD1010 seems big and heavy. Now the Sony and Sanyo quality seemed comparable. What about image quality.
For HD camcorders stabilization is important, and the HD1010 disappoints in this department. Another disappointment was that although the MP4 files from the Sanyo are compatible with QuickTime they are not compatible with AppleTV. I encoded the Sony footage into H.264 and adjusted the bitrate so that the resulting file is about the same size as the one from Sanyo. Needless to say, because of the hassle I wasn't making very many home movies. So I purchased an Xacti HD1010 hoping to repeat my success with the old Xacti C4 but in HD this time. That's a pretty decent camera. I held the Sony in one hand and the Sanyo in the other and simultaneously shot test footages using both cameras, in a semi-lowlight situation.
The Canon is more expensive but it has 16GB of internal memory which HD1010 doesn't. I was not impressed with the image quality. My first impression when I got the HD1010 was that it is larger and heavier than I expected. For comparison Sony charges $50 extra for a soft case for their competing HDR-TG1. I then decided to compare the HD1010 with my old Sony HDR-HC1.
This is annoying because you get file name conflicts with older movies when you copy new movies to the same folder on your computer. I shot a test footage in low light. In fact the Sanyo seemed to have more accurate color. Fine details seemed to be missing apparently due to heavy noise-reduction. For comparison the Canon HF10 has optical image stabilization and it has a 24 fps mode, both of which would have helped me. Bottom line: I am a little disappointed because the camera is bigger and heavier than the Xacti C4, the files are not immediately compatible with AppleTV, and most importantly the image stabilization is poor, which means you have to use a tripod.
Other cameras such as Canon remember the last number even if you erase existing files, so you don't have to manually rename files. This is with Sanyo's image stabilization on, and with zoom set to 1x. The Sanyo movie is very jittery. Sanyo supports 720p but it uses 30 fps, not 24 fps. But that was the raw uncompressed footage. This camera made a big difference. Before HD camcorders became available I had a DV (tape based; standard definition) camcorder.
The resulting file is 960x540 not 1280x720 because iTunes gives priority to preserving the fps and at 30 fps AppleTV only supports 960x540. AppleTV expects 720p 24 fps (frames per second). The trouble with DV camcorders is that it is time-consuming to (1) import the movie into the computer and (2) encode it into a suitable format. As a result the file has to be converted before being streamed to AppleTV. I like the fact that this camera comes with a soft case. But the big difference was in image stabilization.
Then HD cameras became available. No re-encoding needed either because the file format is already MP4. Initially the Sony appeared to have much better image quality. No waiting for the tape to wind. To watch the movie on TV all I had to do is drop the file into iTunes, then wirelessly stream the movie to AppleTV. An annoyance with the HD1010 worth mentioning is that the file names restart from SANYO0001.MP4 every time you erase existing files on the memory card. All you had to do was drag & drop files from the camera to the computer.
Then I purchased an Xacti C4. I didn't know how good Sony's image stabilization was until I compared it to the Sanyo. But once again I wasn't making very many movies because HDR-HC1 is tape based, which means a time-consuming process is needed to transfer the movie and to encode to H.264 MP4 format. It was tiny, easily fit in the jeans pocket, the image quality was decent for an SD camera, and most importantly, no post-processing was needed. It is easy enough to convert using iTunes, but it takes a long time. It won't fit in my jeans pocket either (unlike the Sony HDR-TG1, the smallest HD camcorder available today).
Love the thumb stick. I find myself really wanting to love this camera. When zoomed out it's fine. I really do.
Shake isn't too bad on a wide angle shot & when the W/Angle lens is on you'd have to look hard to see it. I have a Sony HDR-FX1 for when i want really good footage. With the form factor, i don't have a hard time tracking someone without staring hard at the screen. I just don't want to come home and not be a fan of watching all the beautiful footage i expect to get. Stable footage is un matched in its price point. I'm not thinking of sending the camera back or anything, just disappointed that Sanyo didn't include OPTICAL STABILIZATION.
We actually were expecting the handle to be longer. This is annoying as i want to shoot in 1080p on my trip. I just know they will release a camera this holiday with one. When zoomed in the CMOS (wiggle) starts to give me headaches on my 50 inch tv. I might cry if that happens.
So i turn the IS off and the slightest camera shake that my hand/arm do is very difficult to keep out of any telephoto shot. I 'm going on a big trip to the greek isles and the size/features makes this camera seem perfect for the trip. The picture is wonderful. One weird thing is when i place it in the docking station and play it on my HDTV all the settings play fine except the audio falls out of sync on 1080p (my tv's highest is 1080i). Test the image stabilization, and this is where I start to have problems.
The extra money was a small concern, but it is the 1080p that sold me. This camera is for convenience & Travel. Sharp, clear, and the color seems spot on. Some of the reviews i'd read on the HD1000 had concerned us about size (for my wife's hands) but we found the size to be no problem. I don't have the steadiest hand, but i'm only 30 so not an old man either.
I'm hoping i'm just worrying too much and i'll be able to come back up here in 4 weeks and rave, rave, rave. I read through all the reviews up here on amazon about the hd1000 before i bought this camera. This has me a little worried as i will be mostly on foot, wandering down cobble stone streets of greece. w/out having to haul a tripod and a camera i'd die if lost/stolen. Wasted my day at work doing tests. it's more natural.
I do videos occasionally as a hobby to pay for my habit, and I was also a professional sports photographer for several years. I bought a few extras (Wide angle Lens, Hoya Filter) My goal is to film greece on foot. It doesn't extend through your palm like a gun grip. I hope this is helpful for people who fell in love with this camera online, as i did. The editing feature is nice.
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