Sample footage of the Canon PowerShot TX1 courtesy of Oceanline. I’m seriously considering getting one of these and selling my Panasonic PV-GS320. Don’t get me wrong, the PV-GS320 is an excellent camcorder, but transferring the video to your computer is kind of a pain in the neck. I think the main reason I want one of these is I’d rather store video on and SD card instead of Mini-DV. The TX1 is smaller than a deck of cards, shoots high definition video and goes for around $499.

Here’s some sample TX1 footage showing off the slow motion features…

And more sample TX1 footage which looks like was encoded very well for YouTube:

Don’t let these YouTube clips discourage you… if you really want a good example of the quality, watch these two sample videos on DPReview (scroll near the bottom of the page).

Also see this Canon PowerShot TX1 review

A few weeks ago I posted about a homemade steadicam you can build for around $20 from materials you can find at your local Home Depot or Lowes. I finally built one of these, only I used PVC caps for the ends of the pipes instead of steel as they are much easier to drill.

The homemade steadicam definitely makes things smoother, but it takes some time to master it. From the official Poor Man’s Steadicam site, Johnny gives this advice:

How you use it is 80% of the smoothness…Don’t expect this thing to perform miracles, you have to practice using your arms and body to create a smooth motion…Keep your legs bent and learn how to “glide”. Getting good results is not so much about the equipment, but how you use it.

This is some short sample video footage from the Sony DCR-DVD505 camcorder which currently sells for about $739.95.  This footage came from this raw footage at ListVideo.com, so you might want to take a look at the raw footage to compare the quality.

Elyuma has made an excellent video showing some sample video footage from the Canon HV10 High Definition camcorder. The Canon HV10 is currently retailing for $899 and is Canon’s first consumer HD camcorder. If you would like to see the original, uncompressed footage, you can download it here.

This is sample video footage from the Canon Elura 100 camcorder. The Canon Elura 100 has replaced all of the other Elura models as the MiniDV format is starting to fade away. This camcorder retails for $399. Go here for an in depth review of the Canon Elura 100.

I was searching around last night on how to make better quality videos on YouTube and stumbled upon this insanely awesome video site called Stage6 which is basically DivX’s version of YouTube. A word of warning… once you start watching videos on Stage6 it will make your videos on YouTube look like complete garbage! The quality is amazing! I suppose you could call it DVD quality?

The down side is that you do have to install their DivX web video viewer, but I think it is well worth it. I downloaded Dr. DivX and encoded a some videos and the quality is excellent. I uploaded some samples to both Stage6 and YouTube and found the quality on YouTube to be excellent.  So maybe uploading videos in DivX format is the key on YouTube?

Here’s a high quality video on Stage6 and that same video on YouTube.

More examples:

Geese in the Morning taken with Panasonic PV-GS300:

DivX encoding on YouTube
DivX encoding on Stage6

Red Flowers taken with a Sony HDR-HC5:

DivX encoding on YouTube
DivX encoding on Stage6

I think in order for Stage6 to take on YouTube they will definitely need to make it as easy as possible for people to watch the videos (i.e. super easy installation) and they need to make video embedding easier. Here is a solution I found for embedding videos, but it is kind of clunky.

Overall, I love Stage6, but wish it had the popularity of YouTube.  Maybe one day we will think back to the days of low quality video on YouTube in the way some people look back and laugh about the days of dial-up internet. If you’re on dial-up right now… me so sorry!

This is sample video footage from a Sony HDR-HC5 High Definition Handycam Camcorder which has a list price of $1,099.99. This video was encoded with Sony Vegas 7 with best video rendering quality, 30 fps, 2mbps bit rate. I wonder… for sites like YouTube does it really matter if you use an HD camcorder? From this example the quality doesn’t seem to look that much better than this lower priced Panasonic PV-GS300.

This footage is courtesy of ListVideo.com digital video camera community.

If you would like to add depth of field effects to your videos on a low budget, take a look at this sample video footage taken with a homebrew depth of field adapter on a Panasonic DVX 100. This was made for about $80 from parts bought from eBay and the hardware store.

Here are the instructions for building this adapter. A video tutorial is supposed to be coming soon. If you have a less expensive camera such as the Panasonic PV-GS300, check this site out for info on building one for that model.

This is sample footage from the Panasonic PV-GS300, one of the lowest priced/highest quality camcorders on the market. The Panasonic PV-GS300 has a 3CCD sensor which greatly improves your video quality. I just ordered a Panasonic PV-GS320 which is very similar for a little over $400 from BuyDig.com. As soon as I get it, I’ll put more footage up.