It was not an unexpected development that the high definition camcorder would become an everyday purchase that you could find at any Wal Mart or Best Buy. We have already witnessed the coming of high definition televisions and DVD players. So if your wondering what exactly is high definition your not alone.
The easiest way to understand what high definition is all about is to explain it this way, high definition delivers a clearer, brighter, more colorful picture then any standard definition television or camcorder can hope to achieve. It is a high definition source that can bring to you between 1 and 2 million pixels per frame. With that many pixels the picture you will be looking at will have a 5 fold increase in brightness and sharpness then what a standard definition picture will show you.
Some people will find it interesting that HD is not a new technology. It was discovered back in the early 1930′s but nobody really had a use for it. But there is a use for it today. In just about every house there is a flat panel TV that is just waiting to be fed a high definition signal. Most people didn’t realize that a high def TV would not be any better then a SDTV without a high def source. You should think about it like this: High definition is to clarity to what color used to be to black and white. Really there is no comparison. The first time you see high definition you can’t help but stare in amazement.
The picture is unlike anything you have ever seen before. Another advantage of high definition is the audio that accompanies it. You will be listening to digital sound that is very lifelike. With digital audio you will think that you are actually in the middle of the action. The new digital high definition cameras are no longer just for rich people. HD camcorders can be had for just a few hundred dollars at just about any store that sells cameras.
When the time comes for you to buy a camcorder you should expect to pay a bit more for HD. Standard definition is cheaper but really who cares? Prices for cameras will be available for all budgets. You can find professional cameras that will run thousands of dollars. But you will also find some that run only a few hundred dollars. It is the bells and whistles of the camera that often turn up the price. Your goal should be to find the camera that you can afford and that will be of use to you. Prices for a digital high definition camcorder will start at just $100 and work their way up to many thousands of dollars.
If your old enough to remember when people shot their home movies on super 8 film and then had to transfer all of the film to DVD when film became obsolete, then you can envision why shooting footage on a SD camera will make no sense in the years to come. It will be a wise decision to film with a digital high definition camcorder now so that your movies will not have to be transferred or upgraded later on.
The big advantage that the DVD brought to the field of photography was a storage medium that was portable and digital. It was a perfect fit for people that were looking for a camcorder that could record with better clarity then what had been available at the time. Today it is hard to imagine going from super 8 to DVD but that is what people experienced.
The mini DVD opened peoples eyes to what was available to the ordinary consumer. It was then just a short leap in technology to the digital high definition camcorder that used a DVD or solid state memory device to deliver superb pictures.
