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)

The Western Digital HD Media Player Set-top box!
Pirated copy of Planet Earth, meet huge HD LCD TV!

The Western Digital HD Media center is essentially a gateway for your digital entertainment files.

Whether it be photos, music, or videos, the WD TV will deliver in up 1080p goodness. It features both HDMI and SPDIF out for true HD sound and video. The part of this product that really makes it stand out from the rest is its likable list of supported audio and video formats:

Video

• MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264),
  MTS, TP, TS (If your curious, almost all HD downloads use some form of H.264 and/or .MKV)

Audio

• MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA

All you have to do is connect an external USB hard drive or thumbdrive. The slick and elegant user interface will help you navigate your drive in order to find your media.

You can pick on up to day for as little as $89.99 Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player

More and more HD displays are making there way into our houses. Today the issue isn’t really the TV, its the source. You all know the TV can only look as good as the content passing through it. A high quality source is required to make any TV shine.

Here are 4 sources for top quality video.

1. Physical Media. Nothing can really beat a Blu-ray player and a well mastered Blu-ray title. If you were to try and streaming Blu-ray quality media over the net, everyone would need at least a 27Mbps internet connection. Most of residential America is still limited to 10Mbps. Supposed HD web content usually has an HD resolution but bitrates top out at around 1-2Mbps. If you adverse to the prices of buying, why not give Netflix a try.
2. OTA/Cable/Satellite. While the later two can get kid of pricey, if you live in a big city you can usually receive somewhere around 15-30 HD Channels for free. All you need is a digital HD antenna. OTA (Over The Air) quality is usually much great then that of cable and satellite due to the lack of bandwidth restrictions.

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