camcorders

Kids these days don't know how good they've got it. When I was a kid, you were lucky to get one megapixel in your camera, and that megapixel would be written to a single 3.5-inch floppy disk. We didn't have MP3 players or pocket camcorders or any of those fancy things. The only moving pictures we had were on our CRT monitors. And don't get me started on the regular ritual of taking the mouse ball out of your beige mouse and picking lint out of the rollers.

Today, kids have their Facebooks and Myspaces … Read more

We've been concerned about misplacing some media players because of their petite frames, but never video cameras. And certainly not high-definition ones. But at a barely more than 1.5 by 3 inches and "smaller than a bar of soap," the "MicroHDTV" from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute could easily slip out of our pocket and into the lost-and-found category.

Engadget says the camcorder is purportedly small enough to fit in "a racing-car cockpit, helmet or any other tiny space you'd like to broadcast HDTV from." That's a euro in the photo … Read more

Though it's probably heretical to say this in consumer electronics' circles, sometimes it's nice when nothing new happens. Take for instance Canon's HV20 HDV camcorder. On the inside, it's pretty much identical to the HV10--the same 3-megapixel 1/2.7-inch, 1,920x1,080 CMOS sensor, the same 10X zoom Canon HD lens, the same Super-Range Optical Image Stabilizer and Instant AF focus support, and the same Digic DV II HD processor. All that similarity means we're probably going to be as impressed with the video from the HV20 as with the HV10's.

So you'… Read more

If there's one technology that continues to remind us of the bad old days of dial-up modems, it's Webcams. The grainy transmissions often look only slightly better than night-vision camera images of a decade ago--especially if you try their useless digital zooms. But riding to the rescue is Hanwha's "Digital Cowboy" (with a name like this, it has to be Japanese). Its new offering, the DC-NCP130, is essentially a 1.3-megapixel telephoto Webcam with a removable 7x optical zoom that connects to your computer's USB port, according to CNET Asia. The camera is going … Read more

So you've found the perfect spying device, a pinhole camera built into a tie that's "virtually impossible to detect with the naked eye." Its high-resolution video can also be seen on a 2.4-inch LCD screen that fits neatly on its cigarette-pack-sized recorder that holds up to 4GB of data, complete with remote control. All this doesn't come cheap--nearly $1,300, actually--but it's worth it because no one will ever suspect a thing, right? There's just one problem: You never wear a tie.

If there's a buzzword in camcorders at CES 2007, it's probably still "high definition," but hybrid is a close second. Unfortunately, we think the latter is being used a little too freely. For instance, Samsung is calling its latest flagship DVD camcorder a hybrid because it includes 4GB of flash memory, but we think that label is a bit of a stretch. The SCDX-10 includes a 1-megapixel CCD, electronic image stabilization, and lets you record to that 4GB of built-in flash, or single or dual-layer 8cm DVDs.

In addition to that "hybrid" model, Samsung … Read more

As if heading up a ramp to Noah's ark, the Flash and DVD models move in pairs. Panasonic at least manages to differentiate the models a bit. The DVD-based HDC-DX1, announced this week, and the SD card-based HDC-SD1 (announced in late 2006), are the latest pair of AVCHD cancorders to get on the boat. Both incorporate a trio of 1/4-inch, 580K-pixel CCDs, a 12x zoom, and an optical image stabilizer. The DX1 has dual-layer support, as well as DVD-RAM capability.

The difference? Aside from some design tweaks made necessary by the different media support, the DX1 seems … Read more

HD is more than just high resolution and huge TV screens--it's also better color. In this case, XvYCC color, a space that's able to encode a larger variety of colors that predecessors such as sRGB or YCC. Sony is first out of the gate to support XvYCC with its 2007 prosumer models, the HDR-HC5/7 and HDR-UX5/7, hard drive and DVD-based AVCHD models, respectively.

Of course, Sony being Sony, the company has branded its own version of the space as "x.v.Color". (Why the names always include random periods--think "i.Link"--escapes … Read more

Sure, they took their time, but now Samsung has officially announced their intention to join the HD camcorder revolution with the SC-HMX10, which records AVCHD video to either 4GB of built-in flash memory, or SD/MMC cards . As is typical of higher-end camcorders, the SC-HMX10 has a relatively short, 10x optical zoom lens, but it does sport a 2.7-inch 16:9 touch screen LCD screen.

Samsung hasn't yet shared very many details about this camcorder, but given the relatively small amount of built-in memory, and its somewhat anemic 1.5-megapixel CCD sensor, the outlook is seems less than … Read more