I recently struggled through the somewhat agonizing decision-making process of researching, choosing, and buying a new HD camcorder to replace an ancient Sony clunker that I bought a whole five years ago. In technological terms, that’s a lifetime! We’re talking full-frame, standard-resolution, mono-aural memories. My seven-year-old watches video of past birthdays and asks, “Daddy, what’s wrong with the TV?”

The decision to upgrade to an HD video camera was easy not only because of my child’s discerning taste but also because our home has embraced HD content fairly heartily. We jumped on the HDTV pretty early and drooled over HD cable content. I’ve immersed myself—way too often, my wife would say—in HD gaming on the Xbox 360. (Have you played Call of Duty 4 yet? Holy crap!) And before HD DVD tanked, yes, I bought a player and now have a nice little library of two dozen cheaply purchased HD DVDs that I’ll enjoy for years. So it was only a matter of time before I demanded that my family’s recorded memories feature HD-quality sight and sound.

My decision-making process required significant head-scratching. Should I go with a tape-based, hard-drive-based, or DVD-based camera? I came this close to choosing a hard-drive model, but then I asked myself the rather obvious, deal-breaking question, “Where will I store all my large HD video files?” I like the notion of the hard-drive-based camera, but I didn’t want to also invest in a huge storage server. At least, not yet. And what of the DVD-based camera? Would DVDs, in the end, be as reliable a storage medium as tape? I finally decided that my best bet was the tried-and-true tape-based camera.

After further research and forum-trolling and review-gazing, I landed on the Canon HV20, a nifty little powerhouse that actually cost less than my original standard-def Sony behemoth. I’ve recorded about an hour’s worth of HD video and tested it on the HDTV—truly astounding. This is the kind of camera that makes me want to become a better filmmaker.

What kind of camera to you use to record your memories? I know I have some very large HD files to content with in my future, and editing them will be a little more time-consuming. But I can’t get over the Wow factor of playing these videos for family and friends who visit. And when my daughter turns 8, she can rest assured that I’ll capture every detail of the celebration.

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I too am looking to upgrade my digital camera. I own a Sony Digital Handycam (DVR-TRV310). In the past eight years, I have used it when I went on a vacation cruises. The probem is I will end-up with 5-10 one hour tapes.(Hi8MP). In the end, I have not shared the video trips because they need to be edited. There are redundant scenes and scenses with poor lighting. I have not found a way to edit ten hours of tapes conventiently. I assume that I would have to transfer 75 hours of tapes (up to ten per trip) and edit them using some software (Photoshop video?). Does Sony a propriority digital format? So from my experience, I do not end up sharing all my travels. Unless I am missing something, this is the problem I have with tape based recording. Carl Michigan Carl -February 20, 2008 I'm so happy for you that you can afford all that nice HD equipment. Perhaps you ought to stop bragging about all the things you can buy yourself and just do reviews without the personal touch. Don't mean to be rude, but really, all I ever read from you is bragging. I got this laptop, I got that desktop, I got this server, I got that HDTV, I spent the weekend in France, etc, etc, etc. Cut it out already. Karl -February 21, 2008 Karl, actually, the purchases I've made in the HD realm have been pretty modest. Over 2.5 years, yes, I've bought an HDTV, an Xbox 360, a bargain-basement HD DVD player, and this video camera, but all told, it hasn't been a gigantic investment. And I've never been to France. I'd like to be able to afford that some day. Sigh. Jason Bovberg -February 21, 2008 Interesting decisions. I find standard definition DV more than satisfactory. On the other hand, the #1 lame technology that I'm committed to overcoming in my next camcorder purchase is the storage to tape headache. Besides being pricey, the "tried and true" tape mechanism still eats tapes from time to time. And the tape handling and transport mechanisms are problem prone and expensive to fix. This is all unacceptable in this age of nearly transitioning to solid state storage. Right now, I have nearly 30 MiniDV tapes which, even if I got a DVD-based camcorder today, I'd still have to rip to some other format before I could get rid of my camera. And I certainly don't have room to put that content (@ ~13GB/hour) on my hard drive and in my backup strategy. Since solid state storage probably won't be affordable anytime soon, I'm leaning towards a DVD-based camera next. My main frustration is the fact that the Mac's slot-loading DVD drives cannot accept these smaller discs. But I heard a rumor that Apple is developing a workaround for this problem... Dave Dave -February 22, 2008 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -February 9, 2010 READER COMMENTS: We want to hear what you have to say about this article!     Acceptable Use Policy Your Comments (required): Your email is only used if our editors need to contact you. It is not used or stored for any other purpose, nor posted with your comments. Enter the text from the image below Please refresh the page if you have trouble reading this text.