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View Camera Pics, Videos on TV Via Canon Set-Top Box

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View Camera Pics, Videos on TV Via Canon Set-Top Box

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Canon is using this year’s CES to launch a product that’s new to the company’s lineup, a set-top box that’s designed to make it easy to view images and videos from your Canon camera on an HDTV.

The Connect Station CS100 was previewed at the Canon press event at the recent Photokina show, but details were scant. Now we know that the CS100 is a $299 device with an internal 1TB hard disk, 1080p output via HDMI, and the ability to ingest images and video via Wi-Fi from select Canon cameras, or from any device via Secure Digital or CompactFlash memory.

It plays images and video on your TV, and can be used as a bridge to social media sites via the Canon Image Gateway service. It’s also possible to share photos to another CS100, even if it’s in a different location—which makes it appealing for sharing family photos with relatives who are separated via distance, and not avid users of social media.

In order to communicate via Wi-Fi, you’ve got to have a camera equipped with NFC, and it has to be the latest version of NFC with an active tag. That means that current Canon cameras can’t simply tap and share, but Wi-Fi models announced starting this year can. It supports the standard file formats that Canon cameras support. This does include Raw images, but when viewing a Raw photo it will only display the embedded low-resolution JPG preview, so you’ll want to shoot in Raw+JPG if you want to utilize the CS100 to display photos from your camera.

If the CS100 seems a bit dated, that’s because it is. The internal 1TB hard drive isn’t much by today’s standards; there is a USB port, but it can’t be used to expand capacity, only back up the internal drive to an external one. The video output is capped at 1080p—it looks like 2015 is the year that 4K is hitting the mainstream, and digital photos have more than enough resolution to fully take advantage of the latest high-resolution displays, but the CS100 can’t. And the Wi-Fi is 802.11n is fine for connecting to today’s cameras, but it’s a slower protocol than the 802.11ac standard that you’ll find in newer routers.

The interface is pretty nice, however. Canon walked PCMag through the interface of a prototype version of the device, and it was quick to display photos that were stored on a new PowerShot camera. Photos are shown against a flat black background, and can be organized automatically by date or placed into albums. And, while the company obviously wants you to buy a Canon camera, if you have JPGs or compatible video clips from other camera brands stored on a memory card, it’s easy enough to download them to the CS100. We’ll reserve judgment until we get a production unit in for review, but the Connect Station seems like a tough sell if you already have a Roku, Apple TV, or another device that can stream images from a computer or a Flickr account, especially when you consider its asking price.

Canon PowerShot SX710 HS

Also at CES, Canon is announcing the latest batch of PowerShot compact cameras. These include the PowerShot SX530 HS, a 50x (24-1,200mm) zoom model with a 16-megapixel CMOS image sensor, integrated Wi-Fi, and 1080p30 video support. Its body design is similar to the SX520 HS and, like the SX520, it omits an EVF. It’s going on sale in February for $430.

Next up is the SX710 HS, an update to last year’s SX700 HS ($189.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . The new camera sports the same 30x (25-750mm) zoom lens, but it increases the resolution to 20 megapixels. It’s powered by a Digic 6 processor, so it can record video at up to 1080p60 quality, and supports in-camera editing tools. Wi-Fi is built in, and Canon has added manual controls to the Wi-Fi remote control function of this camera. It’s also going on sale in February for $350.

If you don’t need quite as much zoom range, there’s the new SX610 HS, an update to the SX600 HS ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . Its 18x lens covers a 25-450mm range, and its image sensor is also a 20-megapixel chip. But it’s powered by an older Digic 4+ image processor, so video tops out at 1080p30. Wi-Fi is built in, and the camera will be available in black, white, or red. It will be available in February for $250.

The final two models are the only ones of the bunch to omit Wi-Fi and use CCD image sensors. The Elph 170 IS is a budget compact with a 12x (25-300mm) zoom lens, a 2.7-inch 230k-dot rear display, and 720p video recording capability. It’s priced at $150. There’s also the Elph 160, which features an 8x (28-224mm) zoom and the same image sensor and video capabilities as the Elph 170 IS; it’s priced at just $120. Both will go on sale in February.

Canon Vixia HF R62

Finally, Canon is updating its Vixia camcorder line. The new models include the HF R62, which includes 32GB of internal storage and an SD card slot, and the HF R60, which is the same camcorder with just 8GB of internal storage. Both of these models include Wi-Fi with active NFC and are priced at $449 and $399, respectively. Aside from the addition of the active NFC support, they’re identical to the Vixia HF R52 and HF R50 that are currently on sale.

The last camcorder, the HF R600, doesn’t include Wi-Fi or internal memory, but it’s priced at just $299. All three camcorders are set to go on sale in February.

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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/news/view-camera-pics-videos-on-tv-via-canon-set-top-box