A tale of two cameras: Panasonic SD5 versus Sanyo Xacti HD1000

This review has been a long time coming. Now that the students are safely nestled away in their bunks, I can turn my attention to what really matters. The duel of the century. The battle to end all battles. The moderately-priced supposedly-hd direct-to-memory camcorder showdown! It’s the Panasonic HDC-SD5 versus the Sanyo Xacti HD1000.

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Quicktime 7.3.1 ruins Christmas for many

So. There were some serious security issues with Flash support in Quicktime. Apple released 7.3.1 to fix them. Unfortunately, they fixed them by disabling Flash support.

Let us step back for a moment. Quicktime plays Flash files? Yup, Quicktime will playback SWF files that are compatible with Flash version 5 or earlier. They can also be embedded as tracks within other quicktime files. Many content producers take advantage of this to add interactivity to Quicktime movies.

Needless to say, an update suddenly removing that capability has created some serious issues for a number of users. No warning, no downgrade path and no comments about workarounds. Sounds like classic Apple to me. Jerks.

Sony does it right? My review of the XDCam EX

Normally, I’m rather mean to Sony. Usually, they deserve it. Prepare to have your collective internet minds blown.

The Sony XDcam EX is the best camera you can buy for less than $15,000. It’s my new favorite camera. It’s the first camera in years that I’ve actually wanted to own personally. Read on to find out why. Thanks very much to Pat Hart at AVI Systems for making this camera available to me.

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