Sanyo's New Camcorders Tap Apple’s iFrame

[Michael Essany]

Image via Wired


Apple's latest video format, iFrame, is intended to make camcorders more efficient across the video production landscape (particularly in exporting video). And Apple has teamed with Sanyo to help push iFrame onto the world's digital video stage.

From Wired's Gadget Lab:

Apple is aiming to make camcorders more friendly to the user. Or at least, it wants to make importing and editing video easier. To this end, it has revealed a brand-new video format called iFrame, and it is included in the latest iMovie update. This would be useless on its own, but Apple has persuaded Sanyo to have its cameras default to iFrame, and two models have already been announced.

iMovie 8.0.5, which rolled out this past Tuesday, helps camcorders peacefully coexist with the iFrame video format. For now, though, only Sanyo's VPC-HD2000A and the VPC-FH1A support iFrame. But expect that to change.

To be sure, iFrame is a sweet offering from Apple, but its unorthodox video resolution of 960x540 (30fps) is somewhat puzzling, particularly since both Sanyo cameras shoot 1080p at 60fps. This leads Charlie Sorrel at Wired to postulate that "iFrame mode will be a little like shooting jpegs on a RAW-capable camera — easy and quick to use straight from the camera but also of lower quality."

Although iFrame is being billed through Sanyo as a "revolutionary new format" for optimal video production and computer editing, serious videographers take heed. This is more like a toy for an amateur than it is a tool for a professional. Then again, there will likely be no shortage of folks for whom the decrease in file size will compensate for the loss of quality.

Why bother? Because many video cameras shoot in formats that cannot be directly edited. When you hook up a camera to iMovie (or another program) and it says it is “importing”, it is converting the file to a format which can be edited. iFrame, on the other hand, can be edited directly as it comes from the camera.

[cssoz]

interesting but Apple = FTW and will always be!

First

[gthugballin]

Maybe a dumb question but can they put out and update to make iphone 3gs use this new format?

[khaoticsquirrel]

I would much rather shooting 1080p, import, edit, and just convert it to the format that I want. This is obviously for amateurs that just want a quick transfer and edit, but maybe this is a start to what may come in the future for professional equipment as well.. hmmmm

[rwin84]

iFrame will be updated I'm sure. Updated to higher FPS and resolution.

[VenomousSVT]

this is great news for me.. i have been looking at these sanyo recorders for a few weeks now.. looks like i may be picking up a new imac when they are released AND a new sanyo

I would much rather shooting 1080p, import, edit, and just convert it to the format that I want. This is obviously for amateurs that just want a quick transfer and edit, but maybe this is a start to what may come in the future for professional equipment as well.. hmmmm

i prefer to do the same with high quality stuff, but let face it with a cg-10 sanyo (for example) youre really not gonna make a magnificent quality picture with a $200 camera... this will work great for those of us that want to shoot better than average res videos and have them for out collections or youtube.

[T4R06]

this is cool! i have VPC-FH1

[nighthawk283]

Its a very Very nice camcorder

[ecd5000]

ahhh youtube servers are finally overloaded as every 13yr old with this camera will upload some *G*a*Y video, this is only the beginning¿

[gatorsm]

Looks like a great camcorder and camera but I am hesitant since it does not have a firewire port on it.

[robogobo]

HD is way overrated and bloated. I can get better quality out of my 5yo miniDV with a Leica lens.

So a slightly lower resolution would be welcome.