The Sanyo Xacti VPC-ZH1R is an HD camcorder that is worth every penny. I was able to grab mine from woot.com for just under $140. It came with an extra battery, 1GB SD card, and case. I seldom come across products that are actually a really good deal, so when I got my hands on this camera I though I needed to let you all in on what I found so impressive about it.

What I liked:

• Solid construction. Doesn’t feel cheap at all. Easy to hold
• Direct recording of video to SD+SD HC cards. (32GB Max)
• Awesome recording structure. The 720p video is captured at ~9Mb/s and is stored into a convenient h.264 MPEG-4 file.
• 3″ WideScreen TFT screen looks amazing. Video is crisp and the colors are vibrant.
• HDMI out via mini-HDMI port. (HDMI cable included)
• Long battery life. Good two hours per battery. Two batteries included.

What I didn’t like:

• Auto-focus didn’t always work the best. Your HD video becomes fuzzy if the lens isn’t focused.
• No optical image stabilization, the digital version lacks much, but at this price point you can’t expect more
• Quality of video drops significantly as the light decreases.
• 2MP CMOS sensor means your stills are capped at 1200×1600. That means nothing bigger than 5×7

If you can get this camcorder for less than $170 I suggest you go for it. It works seamlessly with YouTube HD as well as iMovie. It sells in a bonus pack that comes with a case, extra battery, and 1GB SD card.

I have also posted a quick HD video of some trains on YouTube to test the quality. You can see it here. (Sanyo Xacti HD test video)