New Panasonic AG-HMC150 HD camcorder (NAB Show 2008)

NAB 2008 started yesterday and is going to be the center of attention this week. Panasonic announced the new prosumer AG-HMC150 of the AVCCAM family, a handheld videocamera that uses AVCHD MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 algorithms and SD/SDHC flash card storage. Capture reaches a maximum of 1,440×1,080 with three CCDs and output is the usual 16:9 HD.

Do not be put off by the chosen type of storage as a 32GB SDHC card can get you up to 12 hours of recording in full resolution and its lower quality HE mode at 6Mbps. However higher quality modes of course provide better results and the best one is PH mode with a maximum flow rate of 24Mbps and an average of 21Mbps. The optics include optical stabilisation and 13X Leica Dicomar lens starting from a useful 28mm wide angle.

Sony Alpha A350 DSLR review at CNET

In PMA 2008 Sony made a surprise move by announcing two and not only one new DSLR body. The Alpha A350 is the more impressive of the two since it packs 14.2 megapixels, together with a long list of concentrated features like sensor based stabilisation, swivel screen and live preview. CNET has reviewed the A350 and finds that it is a good camera with good dynamic range, performance and build quality.

Samsung and Pentax to possibly join the full-frame DSLR race

ElectronRun covers DSLR developments and only last week I listed 7 reasons DSLRs are so important to manufacturers. From PMA 2008 it is becoming apparent that the reflex camera entry category is already incredibly crowded. Manufacturers respond with an increasing number of models and the inclusion of as many features as possible.

This however leads to more price competition and a distinct difficulty to achieve product differentiation. This time the safety valve seems to be full-frame sensors. Canon had them first, Nikon followed with the excellent D3 -that is surely going to cut a lot of business from Canon’s formerly exclusive domain- and Sony has plans to join the club with a 24.8 megapixel sensor.

Panasonic announces 64GB P2 card

Only last week we talked about how Fujifilm will sell P2 cards and how the 64GB model will offer enough capacity to avoid changing storage media while recording longer events. The fact that Panasonic -the company that brought us P2 cards- responds with its own P2 card is no coincidence.

2 ways to get reliable Internet connections in Greece

At the end of 2007 I wrote about the troubles of Greek broadband users. Since then, we have heard a lot of nice statistics about how Greece has the highest broadband growth rate in the EU and how a lot of Greek homes are coming online. But are statistics the true picture? Far from it…

In the last two months a lot has changed in terms of speeds offered, but not much in terms of quality of service. In February, under pressure from competitors and in order to stop defections, OTEnet-the ISP branch of OTE- decided to offer 24Mbps ADSL+, up from the 8Mbps that was the maximum till then. I was one of the first to apply but do not want to get in the details of the mess that ensued to get a barely working line after three whole weeks!

To cut things short, I ended up with a 2Mbps DSL connection that disconnects many times every hour -should it be called a disconnection?- and cannot be used reliably for many tasks I need to undertake. Maybe I will get in the details of the story above in a separate post, but what is important here is that I am not the only one to have these problems.