What's improving in video camcorders these days ?

[St Devious]

I see the latest camcorders being released every year. Most of them do 1080p now at 24Mbps now.

1. What is left to differentiate them now ?

2. Are they going to increase the bitrates beyond 24mbps ?

3. Are they coming out with 1080p/60 fps mode? or is that even necessary ?

4. When are 4K 2160p camcorders coming ?

5. Is AVCHD compression improving in these camera ?

[Ghitulescu]

0. Not all consumer camcorder do 1080p, most of them pack 1080p as 1080i and the IVTC is not always accurate, see the posts here.
1. optics and AVCHD algorithm as the essentials, and colour (for ladies), various features (for gadgetists)
2. nope, that's the maximum for AVCHD, but you should have known it if you have this read [at least] the wiki ;)
3. no, it will decrease the bitrate per frame with quality loss... They should better improve the real 24/25/30fps system. If they obtain the 1080p60 in real (not BOBing or otherwise interpolating the CMOS) then they should improve the optics as well, not sure how they can use the CMOS for such short exposure times (yet, tomorow could be another story).
4. they are already on the market, look for RED - but do you have a TV that does 4k?

[reepa]

3. no, it will decrease the bitrate per frame with quality loss... They should better improve the real 24/25/30fps system. If they obtain the 1080p60 in real (not BOBing or otherwise interpolating the CMOS) then they should improve the optics as well, not sure how they can use the CMOS for such short exposure times (yet, tomorow could be another story).

Sanyo Xacti HD2000 does 1080p at 60fps.

[Ghitulescu]

Sanyo Xacti HD2000 does 1080p at 60fps.

Just see the reviews: how perform the Xacti in low light conditions? It's similar to increasing the number of pixels - there you have a less surface for photons (low sensitivity), here you have a shorter time to "impact" (again low sensitivity).

Are you sure that Xacti does not deinterlace - the reviews says it has a lower detail resolution (compared to Canon)

[St Devious]

so is AVCHD codec improving ?

[radiant chains]

1. optics and AVCHD algorithm as the essentials, and colour (for ladies), various features (for gadgetists)


Yep, those two can never overlap. Surely women don't know anything about technology and make their decisions solely based on color.