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HD TV goes from Everest to North Pole
19:01 p.m. EST Feb 20, 2004
Well, not the TV itself, but your chance to watch authentic HD quality material from a North Pole expedition.
Last year JVC shattered the heavy weights and steep prices for HD cameras and Wave Vidmar, an author of several video editing books, is soon checking out from Cape Arktichevsky with one of them on his sled.
HDTV is bringing up your TV resolution to 1280 x 720 pixels. If you watch a HD image side by side with a standard TV image – you don’t ever want to go back.
While HD TV has been a new toy only for the wealthy and bored (even if you had one – there were no HD shows to watch), that's all changing now. Big networks like HBO, ESPN and Discovery are airing more and more in HDTV.
When Eric Weihenmayer became the first blind climber to summit Everest in 2001, filmmaker Michael Brown was right next to him with a HD camera on his shoulder. The resulting film that premiered this autumn is awesome.
Michaels HD camera was at $50000 and 25 lb (10 kg) - far from a main-stream product.
This is what’s changing: The new JVC that Wave is bringing is $3000 and - check this out – weighs 1.4 kg!
The power consumption is 8 W/hour not using the viewfinder (a good idea in -50 temperatures), which gives you 7 hours of filming using a top-of-the line 250 gram 60W Expedition battery (automatedmedia.com).
Custom make a Neoprene case and the total weigh with two batteries would be app. 2 kg.
Wave is planning to leave his camera out on the sled during the arctic nights and in two months time we’ll have a first hand report on how the unit took the cold.
Besides the JVC, Wave is also bringing a Sony TRV-22 MiniDV and a Nikon Coolpix 5400 digital camera.
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