Sanyo C40

[Divmstr223]

Does anyone have one of the Sanyo digital cams? I have the Sanyo Xacti C40 with an Epoque housing. My main reason for purchasing this was for taking digital video. Just small clips to upload and mess around with. It takes 640x480 video (which most digital cameras do anyway) but it's in MP4 and it seems that I'm limited as to what editing software I can use without converting it and losing resolution.

Any good suggestions as to what editing software works great with MP4?

Click on the picture below for small clip from the Coronado Islands from this past Monday.

 

[JamesD]

I use a Sanyo VPC-C5 which is the same, MP4.

Depending on what software you have there are a couple of suggested options. I use Vegas 6.0 and that works fine for reading the MP4 files (no need to convert or mess around with them at all) you can use this utility

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp4cam2avi/

Which converts to AVI container without losing any quality, the MP4 is just a container, the actual video appears to be .MOV style (Apple codec).

 

[Divmstr223]

I use a Sanyo VPC-C5 which is the same, MP4.

Depending on what software you have there are a couple of suggested options. I use Vegas 6.0 and that works fine for reading the MP4 files (no need to convert or mess around with them at all) you can use this utility

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp4cam2avi/

Which converts to AVI container without losing any quality, the MP4 is just a container, the actual video appears to be .MOV style (Apple codec).

Thanks James!! How do you like your camera by the way? and do you use a light with yours? I'd give mine about a B+ so far and I haven't even messed with settings or anything yet. I'm anxious to get it back out there and take more video. :14:

 

[JamesD]

Interesting question I guess it has Pros and Cons

What I like is

1. Small Camera, with fairly small form factor underwater housing (no more carrying around a huge camera case with a 20lb lead weight stuck to the bottom).

2. Takes reasonable quality (640x480x30FPS or above) video onto SD card (no more messing around with MINI-DV which I always found the "best parts" seemed to be were the tape messed up and didn't record right.

3. Takes reasonable quality pictures (5MP+)

4. Manual White Balance control which is accessible from the underwater housing.

What I dislike

1. Lighting levels aren't that great, I don't use lights (yet, haven't gotten the money to do so) so diving out here in CA I find it's a bit dark for stills and the video is quite dark.

2. Video quality isn't the best, it's good, but not great

3. Photo quality isn't the best, again it's good, but not great

4. Battery life (my biggest complaint) STINKS!

Overall I would recommend this camera to anyone looking to take holiday snaps/video and wanting to be able to do both with reasonable quality, having said that I've not looked at the latest offerings from Canon so I'm not sure where they are upto in terms of video. If you want to make professional videos, don't bother with this one, and again if you want to take the best photos in the world, it's just not going to do it for you. If they could improve the battery life to a couple of hours on one charge I'd be much happier, as it is it gets about 45 minutes which is a tad shy for my liking.

 

[Divmstr223]

Interesting question I guess it has Pros and Cons

What I like is

1. Small Camera, with fairly small form factor underwater housing (no more carrying around a huge camera case with a 20lb lead weight stuck to the bottom).

2. Takes reasonable quality (640x480x30FPS or above) video onto SD card (no more messing around with MINI-DV which I always found the "best parts" seemed to be were the tape messed up and didn't record right.

3. Takes reasonable quality pictures (5MP+)

4. Manual White Balance control which is accessible from the underwater housing.

What I dislike

1. Lighting levels aren't that great, I don't use lights (yet, haven't gotten the money to do so) so diving out here in CA I find it's a bit dark for stills and the video is quite dark.

2. Video quality isn't the best, it's good, but not great

3. Photo quality isn't the best, again it's good, but not great

4. Battery life (my biggest complaint) STINKS!

Overall I would recommend this camera to anyone looking to take holiday snaps/video and wanting to be able to do both with reasonable quality, having said that I've not looked at the latest offerings from Canon so I'm not sure where they are upto in terms of video. If you want to make professional videos, don't bother with this one, and again if you want to take the best photos in the world, it's just not going to do it for you. If they could improve the battery life to a couple of hours on one charge I'd be much happier, as it is it gets about 45 minutes which is a tad shy for my liking.

I think I would agree with your assessment even though we have different models of camera (they are close enough).

The video clip posted above was in excellent vis with alot of light...yet it came out with adequate lighting. Even at 56-60 feet, the vis was very good and lighting good also...yet the video was considerably darker. I guess I'll make adjustments.

My biggest pet peeve about the camera is that I cannot power it on and off while it is inside the housing. I just left the camera on until the battery died...Yes, it goes to standby which uses less power and one button wakes it back up which is nice. But having to take the camera out of the housing between dives is a hassle and looking for trouble so I just leave it alone. I managed two dives with the camera on a couple of hours before is died....I'm happy with that. I may just bring an extra battery for it in the future.

thanks for the input James!

 

[JamesD]

The one advantage of the VPC-C5 (over both yours and the VPC-C4 from what I hear) I can turn it off in the case, they seemed to learn on that one.

 

[Divmstr223]

The one advantage of the VPC-C5 (over both yours and the VPC-C4 from what I hear) I can turn it off in the case, they seemed to learn on that one.

They sure did..lol...Having known that... I may have spent the extra $$ for the newer model...

Oh well...