Sony Handycam HDR-SR7 Hard Drive Camcorder

It puts 1080i play from the camera and 1080p once you take time to burn the HD content to the mini blu-ray disc ($30 piece stores on hour 1080p high def video.) Very easy to use, not disimilar to previous camcorders. Must be sure you have adequate light or the picture becomes very grainy. It is a good size camera, not too small, and easy to operate (user friendly button placement.) Has a neat stand-by mode to preserve the battery life, and you can shoot using the eye-piece to extend battery life as well. I purchased the 4 hour battery and it lasted at least that long, making for ample energy. The HD holds about 4 hours of 1080p HD video. searching video segments is as easy as on a DVD player. It has HDMI port, so hooking up to show high-def takes a matter of seconds. I recommend getting the filters (especially UV for outside and general lense protection.) A tri-pod or uni-pod are a good idea, too, especially for far away video, The high def is great, but it makes motion that much more obvious. The HUGE advantage this camera has right now is a way to long term archive and still have access to HD video on the blu-ray discs. A standard blu-ray disc recorder will cost you more than this camera by itself. you can record at lower resolution if you prefer, and you can record any definiton level to DVD (NOTE that the 1080HD will not burn onto DVD (480p), so if you want true full HD video you will have to burn to blu-ray)