Compare Panasonic HDC-SD1 Flash Media Camcorder to AgfaPhoto eClipse Explorer Camcorder

The HDC-SD1 high definition video camera from Panasonic is designed to spearhead a digital video revolution in that it enables recording of high definition video clips to a high capacity SD card (SDHC Class 2) of 4GB (Gigabytes) and higher. What's more, it uses the relatively new AVCHD recording system to achieve very high quality images when displayed on large high definition LCD and Plasma television sets. AVCHD is a format that has been developed jointly by Panasonic and Sony in partnership with several other leading companies (see here for info on AVCHD) and uses a MPEG4-AVC/H.264 compression system to effectively squeeze a lot of very high quality data into a small space. For this reason, it is being tipped to succeed the more common MPEG2-based devices such as standard definition DVD. However, despite the major advantages it brings in terms of quality and efficient use of storage space, the use of the AVCHD format isn't without its negative points - more of which later. Less