Big news on the HD camcorder front. The second half of February should see the UK availability of the VPC-SH1 HD Dual Camera. I am bringing you this news early, as I am uber excited that I will be bringing you a series of reviews covering the product features and performance. This will be followed by my regular reviews being recorded with the SH1 so you get a good idea of what sort of picture and sound it delivers.
The VPC-SH1 is approximately 190cc in volume, 204g in weight, and 43mm in thickness. Its excellent portability dramatically expands the situations in which a video camera can be used. In fact, the actual dimensions are very small measuring just 42.8mm wide by 117.9mm long and 59.2mm high. It looks pretty snazzy to in black/silver or a black/silver/red combo.
It also sports something Sanyo is calling a "Double Sub REC Button"... what this basically offers is extra recording buttons (in addition to the regular ones) at the upper front part of the body. So you can hold the camcorder low down and still easily start/stop recording and take pictures from a creative angle.
It may be small, but it still captures full HD video at up to 1920x1080 pixels and at up to 60 frames per second. The bitrate is decent too, maxing out at 16Mbps. On top of this you get 10 megapixel still capture, which sounds pretty cool. All captured onto SD memory cards, with SDHC and SDXC support. A 35mm wide angle lens, with 23x optical and 30x advanced digital zoom, plus a 2.7-inch full colour screen round off what sounds like a very compelling package. I certainly cannot wait to get my hands on one. In the mean time, head on over to the Sanyo website to take a look.