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August 15, 2009

Ok, it might exist.  Just not at a price point that I want to pay.

I was trying to come up with items for my birthday wish list for hubby, and I was thinking new video cam.  Not that my old camera is bad or anything (JVC GZ-MG505U), but … there’s new stuff that I want .

So, I started looking, and I came up with:

*Flash based storage.  Because my current camera has a 30 GB hard drive, and it still makes me nervous that it’ll crash, and I’ll lose everything

*Optical zoom.  At least 10X, but 20X if the camera has good built-in stabilization.  Screw digital zoom, it’s useless.  I’ll just turn it off, so better if it’s not even there.

*Still picture capable, minimum of 5 megapixels.  Because it’s nice to get pics sometimes, and they easier to share, too.

*If it has extra removable storage, it has to be SD/SDHC or something like that.

*Good stabilization.  Because hand-held just isn’t steady, and it takes too long to fix that crap in post-processing

*Forward facing mic.  Seriously… why do I see top/side mics on all these new vidcams?  Not good for sound at all.

*Full HD (1080p) resolution

And, I want it all for about $500. 

HA!!!!!! Yup, I looked.  I can get almost all of that, but it’ll set me back over $1300.  Not likely.  Guess I’ll just have to go with the JVC for a little while longer.  Sigh.