HD For Indies

Sony today announced a new camera, due in July, that will be a more consumer oriented HD camcorder.

The HDR-HC1 is a tiny little HDV camera aimed at consumers (OK, those with $1700 to spend on a vacation camera).

Features:

- one and a half pounds. Yep, tiny
-Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonar lens
-HDV 1080i
-also does 2.8 megapixel stills, store on Memory Stick PRO Duo
-can shoot video and take 1 megapixel stills at same time
-2.7" touchscreen flipout LCD
-DV 16:9 or 4:3
-10x optical zoom (120x digital, which is meaningless)
-zoom ring
-zebra pattern
-spot focus
-manual white balance, shutter speed, and focus (good!)
-"Cinematic" mode - probably like CineFrame, in that it stutters 60i to simulate 24p or 25p
-Super NightShot Plus Infrared System allows low/no light shooting
-FireWire interface (of course), Sony calls it i.Link.
-PictBridge printer compatibility for easy direct printing
-bunch o' accessories - cases, lights, lenses, mikes, batters, chargers, cables, etc.
-CMOS sensor - sounds like a single sensor
-"intelligent" pop up flash for stills
-from MacWorld article:

The HDR-HC1 measures 71 mm by 94 mm by 188 mm and weighs 680 grams without the battery. In contrast the previous model measured 151 mm by 181 mm by 365 mm and weighed 2 kilograms.

-Three outputs from camera: component video out, iLink (FireWire/1394a), and "Japanese D3/D4 format signal" which I've never heard of before-JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) only plug? I wonder if the US versions will even include that.

Pictures


Picture 1 - front angle shot
Picture 2 - top angle shot
Picture 3 - shot from back
Picture 4 - Accessories! These are my guesses based on the picture, so I could be wrong: tripod, backpack (probably with padded compartments), a hard carrying case, a shoulder bag, bigger batteries, single and dual battery chargers (nice!), three different battery sizes, three or four different flashes & lights, three different mikes, and two screw on lenses

Unanswered questions:

-What's the size of the CMOS sensor (I'm guessing 1/3" or smaller)
-What's the resolution of the sensor? (Is it 960/1440x1080 like the FX1/Z1U?)
-what's the light sensitivity?
-does it have real timecode (99% likely it doesn't since FX-1 doesn't)
-is the component video output upstream of the MPEG-2 engine? (Most likely, since you want realtime feedback on screen of what you're shooting, MPEG-2 takes a fraction of a second to encode)
-when exactly are they shipping (mid-July is best guess, July 7 quoted for Japan with US & Europe "soon thereafter")
-what kind of tripod mount does it have?
-how much are the accessories?

Articles used/cited:

MacNN | Sony unveils ultra-compact HD video camera has tiny picture with screen folded out

Sony press release (most info gleaned from this)

MacMinute article

MacWorld article (has picture of unit)