Upgrading to an HD Camcorder

The Next Wave in television is upon us. Wider screens are selling like hotcakes and prices are coming down. True, in the U.S., traditional 4:3 size TV screens will be around for quite a while, but they are likely to become quaint artifacts of the past pretty quickly as Digital Television becomes the only kind the government allows within only a couple of years.

Only recently have High Definition camcorders been released that fall into the high consumer price range, but becoming an early adopter can be risky. There are several competing technologies, and if you pick the wrong one, you could find yourself owning an orphan that has become technologically obsolete in the market. Let your research begin here, and proceed forearmed with knowledge.

What is HDTV?
The first thing to be aware of is that there are many different types of devices that qualify within a rather broad definition of "High Definition Television". Full HDTV resolution is 1920 pixels across the screen (horizontal resolution) with 1080 side to side lines stacked up the screen from bottom to top (vertical resolution). So HDTV is 1920 x 1080, right? Not necessarily.

Confusingly, a video picture can qualify as HD if it has as few as 1440 x 720 pixels resolution. That is almost twice as detailed as a traditional Standard Definition TV picture, but its not even close to the fullest realization of the HDTV standard. Muddying the waters further, pixels themselves can have different shapes, becoming fatter or skinnier to accomodate the different possible HD resolution combinations while preserving the correct shape of objects on the screen.

While there are some good arguments for the existence of various different HD resolutions, it is the opinion of the editors of Video Top Secrets that as technology progresses 1920 x 1080 will emerge as the dominant HDTV flavor. Therefore, consider carefully one of the new HD camcorders that is 1920 x 1080 capable. Much marketing literature today touts "full 1080 line mode". Be aware that the 1080 number only tells half the story. Dig deeper before you buy. While 1440 x 1080 (HDV) may meet your immediate needs, the camcorder could become obsolete sooner than a unit that supports full HDTV resolution. Of course, if the price is right, either can be a good deal.

Compression formats
A High Definition video picture contains a lot of data, which takes a lot of space to store. Actually, the same can be said of Standard Definition video. In the 1990's the DV standard was developed to make it possible to store SD video pictures on a small sized tape. Basically, DV uses a standardized data compression technique to make the amount of data stored a lot smaller. This results in a loss of picture detail, but far less than originally expected. DV worked so well that it has become the standard for Standard Definition camcorders not only for home users, but for industrial video and even TV news gathering.

However, each HD frame may contain more than four times as much data as found in SD. New compression techniques had to be developed to be able to make the data even smaller while preserving acceptable quality. The first format to make it into the consumer market is HDV, more recently followed by AVCHD.

HDV
HDV format provides really good looking pictures using an well established compression technique called MPEG-2. The HDV standard, published in 2003 by a consortium of Sony, Canon, Sharp, and JVC (a.k.a. Victor Company of Japan) makes it possible to store video and sound in two different HD resolutions, on standard MiniDV tapes, and at a data rate that can be transferred between computer devices using existing standard FireWire (IEEE-1394) at a nominal 25 Mbps bandwidth. The wide-screen (16:9) HD resolutions supported by HDV are:

720p (1280 x 720, progressive scan) - Data rate: about 19 Mbps
1080i (1440 x 1080, interlaced) - Data rate: about 25 Mbps

AVCHD
AVCHD is a new high definition recording format introduced by Sony and Panasonic. Unlike HDV, which nearly always records to standard MiniDV tapes, AVCHD camcorders may store their video/audio streams to a variety of different types of media including memory cards, small DVD disks, or hard disk drives. AVCHD uses newer MPEG-4 compression technology in the form of the H.264 AVC video codec. AVCHD camcorders may support full 1920 x 1080 HD resolution. However, a single-layer DVD may only hold about 15 minutes of footage at the highest resolution. AVCHD created DVDs are also not playable on traditional set-top DVD players because they use the newest Blu-Ray technology. This is the pain of being on the bleeding edge. If you don't mind waiting for other technologies to catch up, AVCHD can be a great choice.

Viewfinder?
An increasing number of consumer camcorders are being released with no viewfinder that you can put up to your eye. Instead, the typical side mounted color LCD screens have been made larger, brighter, and higher resolution. This saves space, weight, and cost, but it is a simple fact of life that LCD screens are of limited use in very bright sunlight. If you know you are going to do a lot of outdoor shooting in very bright conditions, consider paying a little more for a little larger camcorder with a traditional viewfinder that can be used in any lighting conditions.

Lens
Every nuance of every part of every frame of your videos must pass through the lens, making it the most important (but often overlooked) part of the camera. Pay extra for the best available quality lens. As cameras have gotten smaller, it has become more difficult to hold them steady, so a variety of image stabilization techniques, both optical and digital, have been diveloped. Recently Canon announced a partnership with Vinten tripods to produce a combination stabilization system that includes sensors in the tripod in addition to those in the camera. For most hobbyist shooters, the best stabilization system is a combination of avoiding excessive zooming in and using a good quality tripod whenever practical.

The stylish Canon HV20 gives you the ultimate in HD video and digital photo quality with advanced features for the knowledgeable and demanding videographer. Its 10x optical zoom lens, 2.96 Megapixel CMOS image sensor and Canon's advanced DIGIC DVII image processor ensures meticulous detail and superior color reproduction. 24p Cinema Mode brings "film-look" options to the HV20 owner- as never before in this class. And, with its HD and Standard Definition recording modes, you can make the move to HD without making your SD equipment obsolete.

Record HD video direct to SDHC cards; up to 1 hour on a 4 GB SDHC card 3CCD system delivers improved color, detail, and gradation Leica Dicomar lens with 12x optical zoom; built-in O.I.S. 5.1-channel audio recording; Zoom mic function adjusts audio to match camcorder movement 4 GB SDHC memory card included