Sometime late next year (over a year from now), my wife and I are taking a trip to Africa, likely to last a month or more.

We want to purchase an HD videocamera to shoot footage of ourselves, the scenery, the cities, the people, the safari's etc.

On the one hand, I am concerned about being robbed so i want something small and inconspicuous. On the other hand, I want to capture the best quality video footage and audio available at the time (considering I don't need to purchase for a year from now).

We are not professionals, in fact this will be our first video camera. But since getting into Blu Ray, etc, I have developed such a taste for HD, that I want my home videos to look as close as possible to that type of quality (obviously won't even be close in reality). But let's try anyway.

Please list for me some of the technologies and models that I should keep my eye on for a purchase sometime next year (possibly black friday '09).

Right now I am thinking:

1080p
16x or higher optical zoom
32 gig flash card storage
good image stabilization
good low light capabilities
5.1 audio a plus
xvycc a plus

any brands, models or other features I should be thinking about? and projection on a budget? (i'm pretty open minded about this, but $1000 seems about right.... hate to spend that or more and get robbed...)

Thanks!

don't know any camcorders with 16x optical, but they're getting close. If you thinking to purchase in a year, most likely there will be 4 or 5 new products by then.

A year is a long time for technology advances and its anybodys guess what could/will come out by next summer. My crystal ball currently is holding a couple of goldfish, so....
CEDIA might have some new announcements for you.

Mike

don't know any camcorders with 16x optical, but they're getting close. If you thinking to purchase in a year, most likely there will be 4 or 5 new products by then.

We've already surpassed that zoom ratio with up to 30x on some models with 1/6" CCDs from many years ago. The reason why zooms ratios are smaller now, expecially on good camcorders is that those camcorders have large 1/3" imaging chips, unless the same camcorders are larger, the zoom will be restricted.

There is no "small and inconspicuous" consumer camcorder with 16X optical zoom. Very large zoom in a very small lens would probably result in a big loss of quality and a terrible low light performance. There are great choices today with 10-12 X zoom and you can always buy a good teleconverter and/or wide-angle adapter and make it much longer. I expect 2009 cameras improving the electronics and storage capacity but nothing revolucionary in the optical field. The new Canon HF11, Sony CX12 and many others can make you a Spielberg in Africa and in a trip like this it's worthy a few months of practice before you go, specially since you say this is your first camcorder.

Sergio

We've already surpassed that zoom ratio with up to 30x on some models with 1/6" CCDs from many years ago. The reason why zooms ratios are smaller now, expecially on good camcorders is that those camcorders have large 1/3" imaging chips, unless the same camcorders are larger, the zoom will be restricted.

except that the op is asking about high definition camcorders, not standard def.

What high def consumer camcorder has a 16 x optical zoom?

"Right now I am thinking:"

1080p - I doubt it on your overall desires.

16x or higher optical zoom - Usually on cheaper camcorders. Research the subject...

good image stabilization - Good is relative. I guess you might consider OIS rather than EIS.

good low light capabilities - everybodies dream...

5.1 audio a plus - Some people claim it's great. Can you really, really get good 5.1 with five microphones jammed into a small camcorder?

xvycc a plus - Probably only on Sony. (I think)



Rich

Panasonic HDC-HS100 baby! Don't know if it's available in the US yet since I bought mine in Asia.

Your specs are way high so this camera misses the mark by just a little (1080p?!, 16X optical zoom? - no way!).

More like 1080i (full, not 1440x1080 like HDV), 12x optical zoom, "good image stabilization" - somewhat, "good low light capabilities" - yes, but with some grain, "5.1 audio" - yes, "xvycc" - yes.

Also comes with 3 CMOS sensors, 60GB HDD, takes SD card, Leica lens. Been using it for about 2 weeks, like it a lot. Love the color saturation and contrast. Prefer it to my Sony HC7 if that says anything, though HDV does seem to have some advantages in terms of motion. Also resolution may be an issue. Hard to tell between the tiny LCD viewfinders of the camcorders and my 130" PJ screen, need a good 42" 1080p LCD to really tell, which I don't have yet. :(

But it's also small and inconspicuous, might be what you need, check it out!

Panasonic HDC-HS100 baby! Don't know if it's available in the US yet since I bought mine in Asia.

Your specs are way high so this camera misses the mark by just a little (1080p?!, 16X optical zoom? - no way!).

More like 1080i (full, not 1440x1080 like HDV), 12x optical zoom, "good image stabilization" - somewhat, "good low light capabilities" - yes, but with some grain, "5.1 audio" - yes, "xvycc" - yes.

Also comes with 3 CMOS sensors, 60GB HDD, takes SD card, Leica lens. Been using it for about 2 weeks, like it a lot. Love the color saturation and contrast. Prefer it to my Sony HC7 if that says anything, though HDV does seem to have some advantages in terms of motion. Also resolution may be an issue. Hard to tell between the tiny LCD viewfinders of the camcorders and my 130" PJ screen, need a good 42" 1080p LCD to really tell, which I don't have yet. :(

But it's also small and inconspicuous, might be what you need, check it out!

do you have any footage out there we could review?

Canon HF11 may come close on some points. Look at the Sony cx12 (I think). That has 5.1.

As for the whole list, not right now......

Seggers

do you have any footage out there we could review?

Yes, what's the best site to upload? Files are huge, 30-40MBs for just a few seconds!

Your best stabilization device is a good tripod. Not really inconspicuous, but a reasonable substitute might be a small "bean bag" or rice or fine gravel in a bag, that you can plunk down on a car hood, door sill, fence or rock. The most important assessory will be the operator and his/her techniques, so I urge heeding slimoli's advice to get a few month's practice with the camera before you leave.

The Panasonic HDC-HS100 was mentioned; I very much like the idea of the Pre-record feature (records starting 3 seconds before you hit the Record button). I've lost shots because the action was over before I could hit record and get the camera activated. The SD100 is supposed to be the same camera, without the bulk and mechanics of the hard drive.

Another essential (to me) feature is connection for remote microphone and audio input.

Take one or two adequate spare batteries. You'll probably be able to buy any power plugin adapters you might need over there, but batteries and recording media you'll want to take with you, and maybe even a wireless remote microphone (with batteries).

Happy planning, and have a great trip.

I m a very glad owner of Sony HDR- SR10E HD digital camcorder. I highly recommend this... Its small, lightweight, has good control menu system, good quality 15x optical zoom, excellent battery life.
I bought it from
checkcost.co.uk/camcorders/c/4354/
Here I found large number of sellers for this product and could compare the prices they offered.. To have better knowledge about it have a look at the expert review..
Hope this will help u out..

Right now, in order for xvycc to work, you have to match the camera company with the tv company. My understanding is sony xvycc has to be shown on a sony tv that supports 10 bit color while I would guess panasonic's has to be shown on a panasonic tv. If you're using a receiver, the receiver will need to support hdmi 1.3a and I think it also has to state it supports xvycc. Since the receiver is just feeding bits, it doesn't have to be a particular brand.

xvycc is a very open standard and only part of it is implemented now. I believe the standard supports 12 bits/color but right now all anyone has implemented is 10 bits/color. Sony implements their 10 bits differently than others.

I last looked in xvycc a month or so ago, so things may have changed. I decided it wasn't worth the effort to get this right now. In a couple of years when things have settled down, it will be worth looking into.

You won't get 1080p at 60 frames/second. I don't think avchd has enough bandwidth to support it since it maxes out at 24mbps. Or at least it won't look good with an avchd camcorder. Many newer camcorders support 1080p at 24 or 30 frames.

Thanks for all the great input so far, guys. Please keep the suggestion coming.

I am going to sit more with some of the suggestions and reseach more as well.

I am pretty open as to the features, I am not particularly dead set on anything I just want to bring home some nice videos from Africa.

Sure I want my own private Planet Earth, so I'd like to come as reasonably close to that within means of a $1k or so budget (give or take), and size/weight considerations. I am open to microphones if it will be practical to use.

I was thinking 1080p mainly because LCD's typically are at their best at native RES, and both my Sharp LCD TV and my Westinghouse LCD PC monitor are 1080p.

I also have the Onkyo 905 receiver, though which can deinterlace well, and is HDMI 1.3 (as per that question above).

Thanks again.