1080 camcorders?

[Tony Marino]

I heard there is or is going to be camcorders that will record 1080 lines of resolution. Does anyone know anything about this?

Will frame captures from a high end camcorder ever be equal to that of a still camera? It's amazing how a cheap $150 digital still camera will take better stills than a $3,000 camcorder.

Thank you,
Tony

[Boyd Ostroff]

<<<-- Originally posted by Tony Marino : It's amazing how a cheap $150 digital still camera will take better stills than a $3,000 camcorder. -->>>

... not when you consider that the camcorder must take 30 stills each second while compressing and saving them in real time! ;-)

[Adrian Douglas]

It's also amazing just how bad the video produced by these $150 video cameras is considering their 2Megapixel sensors.

The reason is that you are comparing two totally different tools. DV cameras are not designed to shoot still photos. The inclusion of this feature is more of a gimick to increase sales points, as is the video capability of digital still cameras. Each camera has it's primary function and the other is really just a secondary extra.

[Boyd Ostroff]

You know, this is one of my pet peeves with all the prosumer level camcorders. Why don't they just strip away all those stupid still camera functions and devote their engineering expertise to making better video cameras? From reading various posts here, I realize that some people do take stills with these cameras. But it really seems to be the wrong tool for the job. For $300 to $400 you can get a really nice Nikon 4 megapixel still camera and tuck it away in your camera bag. This will give you way better results for stills.I get the feeling that the still camera features are something that the Japanese engineers and public must be fascinated with, sort of a "swiss army knife" syndrome maybe?

[Adrian Douglas]

I'm hearin ya Boyd. The crazy thing about it is that very few Japanese buy the prosumer level cameras. I've seen a few around but they are all being used for video. These days a lot of Japanese have both digital cameras as well as their cell phone cameras for still pics. I'd say that the still capabilities of the prosumer cameras is just some marketing idiots idea to increase sales points that is based on a 5 year old survey.

[Nathan Gifford]

I agree that the digital still in a prosumer cam is a waste of time. HOWEVER, I had a conversation with one wedding videographer who uses the digital still feature for capturing candid shots. He said it saves him the time of switching cams.

I have my doubts of how effective that would be. My guess is that you have to switch modes to take a still. That would seem to me as taking to much time to do this.