Tools of the Trade: Sanyo Xacti E1

I've been to the Ottawa Animation Festival many times, first time was in '94. And I've been to the festival wearing many hats. Student Volunteer. Film Fan. Filmmaker workin' on a project. Game animator. Job hunter. Corporate Whore. Like I sed, I've been to a few of these.

Now I get to (with a bit of trepidation) add 'Blogger' to the list. Guys in Ottawa just cleared my Media Pass, which means I'll be up there in an official capacity, grabbin' all the news whats fit to print about the fest and fest-goers, and posting to the blog and the Youtube.

To cover the Youtube end of things, I've aquired a new toy...the Sanyo Xacti E1. It records directly to SD cards in h.264 MPEG4 format, and even has two modes just for online embeds, 320 x 240 30fps. and 320 x 240 15 fps. So you can grab a video, pop the SD card into a portable USB SD-Card reader, plug it in to a webcafe computer and upload. Cake. Max resolution is a DVD friendly 640x480 at six megapixels, and yeah, it takes great stills, too. 5x optical zoom is fast, although 10 woulda been better, and the battery tops out at about 80 minutes, but they're small and fairly cheap, so I'll get me a couple more.

To top it all off, the sucker is packaged in a sturdy body that's reminiscent of a high-8 camera. And that body is waterproof to 1.5 meters. Yep, you read right, 1.5 meters, based on an international standard for waterproof gear. Choice. Should be able to get some great footage from the Animarket, at the parties and workshops and of course the Animator's Picnic. The current plan is to grab high-res and web-res, and post the web-res stuff while I'm at the fest. The High-res stuff I'll bring home so's Madi can edit together a DVD of footage from the fest. More details later.