CES 2006 Camcorder Round-Up

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.designtechnica.com/featured_article36_page1.html' target='_blank'>http://news.designtechnica.com/featured_article36_page1.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Although hard to find, there were a ton of new camcorders nestled among the overwhelming forest of flat panel televisions at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in lovely Las Vegas. DVD camcorders are more prevalent than ever as almost all manufacturers have jumped onto the disk-based bandwagon. Companies have cut back on the number of MiniDV tape models and cut prices. A gradual shift is occurring as non-tape formats (DVD, hard disk drive, solid state) become more common and less expensive. And since America has gone widescreen TV crazy, more camcorders than ever take true widescreen video rather than stretching it like the old days (three years ago)."</i><br /><br />If you are in the market for a new camcorder, DesignTechnica has put together a very nice article on the current state of the camcorder market. I really found two Sony features interesting. They have implemented Dolby 5.1 recording and a Bluetooth wireless microphone for recording center channel audio. Pretty neat.

[Philip Colmer]

I'm sort of glad that there isn't any news on the HDV front - I wouldn't have wanted my HC1 to become out of date quite that quickly :-).

Smart move on the Bluetooth microphone front. Wireless mics make a big difference to the quality of the recording and Sony do some great kit here, as my previous review of their wireless mic product will attest.

I think that harddrive storage is a good move for camcorders - I'm looking at getting the Firestore for use wit the HC1. Unfortunately, it does move the issue of where to keep the raw footage, though, from tape to ... ? Also, is it my imagination or do all of the harddisc camcorders record MPEG2 instead of DV? I think that is a mistake - MPEG2 is not a good format for editing, as users of HDV camcorders have been finding out. You need to move it into a different format first, preferably without further loss.

--Philip