Three Cameras That Put HD In Your Pocket

Why it's too soon for HD

Camcorder makers always seem to be one step ahead of the technological curve. Which is cool if you're a professional videographer, not so much if you're Joe Shmoe struggling to edit together a simple five-minute video of your greatest vacation moments. Go to any big-box electronics store and you'll find that HD camcorders are quickly eclipsing the last generation of mini-DV models. This seems fine—hey, HD is better quality, right? Except that, since all of the other technology required to deal with these new cameras isn't quite up to speed (in most cases), your new HD videos may end up lost in translation.

The first obvious pitfall is that if you don't own an HDTV, then you can't even watch your home videos anywhere except on your computer. Not a big deal at first blush, however because high def video is extremely data intensive, it both takes up a ton of space on your hard drive, and in many cases requires a really powerful computer to view and edit it. Unlike the old days where you could shoot a video and then chuck the videotape in a drawer until you want to watch it again, the movement right now is for so-called ''tapeless'' video cameras which either record video and store it as a computer file on a memory card, or in many cases, on a computer hard drive built into the camera itself. That means that if you want to save your precious home videos for the future, you're stuck with putting them on your computer. And as of now, there's no great way to get them off there again: You can't burn your footage to a regular DVD, because those aren't HD quality, and even Blu-Ray and HDDVD won't necessarily work. In short, you may end up with footage that's doomed to purgatory living on your PC's hard drive.

To make things even more confusing, the latest popular trend is for cameras to record video using the AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) video format; you don't need to know what that means other than the fact that all but the very highest-end computers can't even play that format, much less edit it without buying special editing software (and even then there's no hard guarantee it'll work and there are plenty of pitfalls).

Our buying recommendation for HD for now is: avoid AVCHD camcorders altogether, and stick with models that use tapes, or tapeless ones like those we have recommended which record video using common video formats (AVI, MOV, H.264). And again, buy extra makeup for your close-up shots—HD is merciless.