I-5 to Highway 1 [HD Video]

Playing with my Lensbaby Composer and the star disk from the creative aperture kit on my D90 while driving back from Seattle:

Sometimes it’s fun when you don’t have to drive.

Kodak Zx1 vs Zi6 low light test

I’ve gotten a lot of requests for a low light sample with the Kodak Zx1 and thought it might be good to see how it compares to the Zi6 so I strapped them together on a tripod:

While the cameras aren’t perfectly lined up, the video below should demonstrate low light well enough. Both clips were shot at 60 fps.

Kodak Zi6 vs Zx1 low light test from John Biehler on Vimeo.

I think that the Zi6 is marginally better in low light than the Zx1…but the Zx1 seems a little less noisy. My Zi6 has the 1.1.0 firmware update which was supposed to improve low light performance and I think it did…even if they simply turned up the gain a little.

It seems to me that both cameras share the same image sensor and the only real difference between them is the firmware tweaks to the image processing and the form factor changes. I still like the Zx1 better even if the video is the same. The form factor is very comfortable and the buttons are much easier to use than on the Zi6.

Both cameras are great for their price point and features, but the Zx1 is slightly greater to me.

Kodak Zx1 First Impressions

Last year I was able to check out Kodak’s first foray into the handheld HD camera arena when they lent me a Zi6 for a month. When I sent it back, I immediately picked one up as soon as they were available locally. While not perfect, it was a great little camera for my purposes. It was small, had easily replaceable batteries as well as virtually unlimited capacity thanks to it’s SD card slot. The HD video quality was pretty decent as was the price point.

I like to stick my cameras onto things as well as stick things onto them so the size and form factor was ideal.

Except now, Kodak managed to improve upon this great little camera and the new model is called the Zx1 (which sounds like something Bond would drive). Kodak was kind enough to send me an advance unit to play with again and here are my initial impressions, photos and sample video:

The box is a little bit smaller than the Zi6 box…which makes sense since the unit is smaller although it actually comes with more in the box including: a set of rechargable batteries and charger, a cloth bag, wrist strap, USB cable, A/V cable, an HDMI cable (!) and an extra battery door cover.

Kodak sent me a blue one which I quite like. The main directional pad in the middle is actually backlit blue too. The Zx1 will come in 5 different colours but unfortuantely no green for me. The unit feels comfortable in the hand, even more so than the Zi6. The size and shape feels like a Nokia N95 or some kind of MP3 player (remember the Olympus M:Robe?) and makes me wonder how long before the iPhone or some other cellphone has HD video recording capabilities built in.

Zi6 on the left, Zx1 on the right

Zx1, iPhone 3G and Zi6

From top to bottom: Zx1, iPhone 3G and Zi6

Rubberized port door which includes an HDMI port!

It’s weather resistant as I can attest after getting caught in a brief downpour.

Sample video uploaded to YouTube (view in HD):

You can check out the original, unaltered video file,straight from the camera [20mb .MOV, right click to download]

I haven’t had a chance to shoot much video with it yet but my initial thoughts on the device are:

Pro:

• smaller size
• rubberized & ruggedized form factor is very comfortable
• buttons are easily pressed, much more so than the Zi6
• screen seems sharper/clearer but could simply be because it’s smaller than the Zi6
• faster startup and record
• HDMI port and included cable
• no goofy pop out USB plug – I know some people like this but it never seemed to line up with any of my computers (laptops/desktops) so it felt like a liability and may break off – besides, people should be using a card reader anyways…faster and doesn’t kill the batteries
• lens feels wider than on the Zi6
• easier to open rubber port doors

Con:

• smaller screen
• video doesn’t appear to be any better than the Zi6
• still no stablization
• no included SD card – considering smaller SD cards cost next to nothing these days
• no macro mode, unlike the Zi6 which has a great one
• still no indicator for the remaining video you can capture on your SD card
• not sure if it’s a Kodak issue or Flickr issue, but the Zi6 and now the Zx1 doesn’t seem to use a compatible codec that works on Flickr

I think the smaller, more rugged form factor alone has me wanting to sell my Zi6 and switch to the Zx1. I’ll post some more video once I’ve had a chance to play more with it and compare it to the Zi6…including testing out the low light improvements the Zx1 supposedly has.

The Kodak page I linked above says the Zx1 comes out in April…but Amazon says May 15th.

Update (November 18, 2009): I ended up buying a Zx1 for myself…after selling my Zi6, I bought the Zi8 when it first came out but missed the weatherization and AA battery support. After finding a smoking deal on the Zx1, I returned the Zi8. All are great cameras…but there are features I like on each of them. So for ME, the Zx1 is the better choice.

AppleTV HD Movie Rentals

Last night, Duane came over and we decided to test out the new HD Movie rental options on my new AppleTV. We choose Michael Clayton as neither of us had seen it and figured it was a good choice because we didn’t really know much about the story. Note: the HD movie rentals are currently only available from the US iTunes store (so you need a US iTunes account). Canada is due to get them “by the end of 2008″.

I wasn’t sure how this would work since presumably the HD movie file is ginormous and perhaps we should have ordered it earlier so that more of it would be downloaded. Fortunately, it only took a few minutes before it was ready to begin watching and it was streaming the rest down in the background. So we settled in and started watching the movie.

Initially there was a little stutter but that was only during the studio intros and then once the movie got going it was playing back like normal. The picture quality was pretty decent and the sound was Dolby 5.1. I might need to have Mr. Bollwitt over soon to help me rewire things to get rid of the ground hum I have.

Anytime you have compressed video playing back on a high definition monitor (I have a 37″ HDTV that tops out at 1080i), you’ll notice any imperfections in the source video. I wasn’t expecting HD-DVD quality from a downloaded source but it was pretty decent….as good as my Shaw HDTV receiver.

Until the movie got dark that is. At first we noticed some heavy compression artifacts in some of the opening outdoor scenes. These scenes seem to take place in the early morning but I’m pretty sure they weren’t meant to look like they had been rotoscoped (ala A Scanner Darkly). See for yourself in these shots I took below….keep in mind the blacks around the movie are in fact true and my camera was just blowing them out…you should still see the effect I’m talking about.

You can also see some of the artifacts around George here:

While this wasn’t quite what I was expecting from a quality standpoint, it was really only an issue during very low light scenes. All the other scenes seemed fine and since I’ve never seen the movie another way, I can only assume this ‘look’ isn’t something the director was going after and was in fact a byproduct of the digital download. Still it was pretty slick to have Duane come over and within minutes we were watching a big Hollywood movie in HD with no media involved.

This also didn’t seem to deter Duane from picking up his own Apple TV today as well. Stay tuned for future rental reports from both of us.

What’s on the Apple TV?

I’ve been looking for a better way to use my HDTV lately. The Xbox360 (and XBox 1 running XBMC) I currently have works fine but the biggest issue I have with it, when watching any kind of media is how loud it is. Specifically the fan(s) inside it and the (now obsolete) HDDVD drive. It’s fine when you’re playing Halo 3 or Team Fortress because the games are usually loud and I have the stereo cranked. But when you’re trying to watch a movie or tv show, the fans are just annoying.

So after hearing from Tod about his experience with the recent ‘Take Two’ software upgrade, I decided to take the plunge and pick one up – the 40gb model since that’s all the store had in stock. I figured I could always return it if it wasn’t quite was I was looking for (and/or upgrade to the 160gb version if I decided I need more storage).

Setup was quick and simple. The package consists of the Apple TV unit itself, a remote (just like you get with most Macs) and a power cable. That’s it. No other cables are included. It has a number of connection options on the back as you can see above. I connected to my TV via a HDMI cable. My TV’s audio is connected to my stereo separately so I was done with the setup. I powered it on and was treated to a cool, but brief, intro movie and then a menu similar (but different) to Front Row on a Mac. I figured I would need to download the software update since it had just come out and that process took about 10 minutes.

Once I was back up and running again (after 3 restarts while the firmware upgraded) I started connecting things up. If you launch iTunes on another local machine on your network, you’ll be given the option to add the Apple TV to your iTunes. The Apple TV will provide a pairing code that you need to enter on your computer in order to allow them to talk to each other. Once that was done, it started syncing my iTunes library from my iMac to the Apple TV (which you can turn off if you just want to stream content).

I was most interested in the Flickr integration and so far, it almost makes the purchase worthwhile for me on it’s own, let alone the other things which I’ll talk about in a minute. There is a Flickr option in the Photos menu. While you can easily access any photos you have on your other computers (PC or Mac), having the ability to pull in Flickr directly is amazing. You add Flickr accounts to the menu screen and by simply putting in your username, it goes and grabs all your public photos (well, links to them at least). You can browse all your sets and photos from here. You can also browse your contacts as well and add them to the accounts list. There is a ‘recent photos’ option at the top of your list so you can view the last 500 (!) photos on the account. I wish there was a ‘your contacts latest’ option like there is on the Flickr homepage. Once you start viewing the photos, you can set the transitions, music, speed, etc of the slideshows. There is a much cooler screensaver option built into the Apple TV that I wish was a transition option which is simply a random bunch of images (from a set you choose or the recents) that just float up the screen in various sizes. Then after a minute or two, the images rotate around in 3D and keep floating up. It’s really pretty cool. I made a quick video of it:

Another compelling thing was that I had seen online was the podcast functions were vastly improved and that there is quite a lot of cool HD content available. To me, this is where the future of online media is going. Despite my HD DVD purchase, I had pretty much given up on physical media as a way to get video content and the Apple TV seems to be one of the better ways to access that online repository. Sure the Xbox has movie rentals but it doesn’t have access to Podcasts or easy access to the rest of my ‘digital life’ like my music or my photos. There is something to be said for seamless integration across my network.

There is also the ability to rent movies directly off the device, with many available in HD. Unfortunately, you need a US iTunes account to access all the really good stuff but Canada is supposed to get more later this year. Fortunately I have a US account although someone managed to spend the last of the store credit so I won’t be able to try out the HD movie rentals until I get a refill card next time I’m across the line. There is a fair bit of free content available and you can preview everything which is great.

I’ll let you know if a few weeks if it was worthwhile but so far I don’t see this thing going back to the store.