The Canon HGI0 is a one of the few high-defini tion camcorders to run on a hard drive-40 GB, to be precise. The design is attractive and it looks a lot like most tape- and optical discbased camcorders. Although slightly heavy, the HGI0 is quite comfortable to hold and use for long periods.

The HGlO records videos at a maximum resolution of 1440 x 1080. When it comes to performance, it does a decent job. It has a good zoom lens that goes up to lOx. There is little grain in bright areas and very fine grain in the dark areas. The frame rate is stable all throughout the video recording and the exposure meter works rather well. It is easy to go from low light to dark areas without a sudden jolt in exposures. There is also a powerful light that can be used in total darkness.

Name: HCI0.jpg Views: 975 Size: 24.7 KB

The user interface is colourful and most of the controls for it are on the LCD screen. Movies and files can be copied and moved about freely without the need of bulky software. The camera uses a kind of AVC standard¬AVCHD to record movies, so any media player capable of playing H.264 content can play them¬VLC or Media Player Classic with ffdshow. At Rs 89,995, it is a very costly camcorder for a home user to buy or even consider.

Specifications

1/2.7-inch CMOS Sensor, lOx optical zoom, still photo resolution: 2048x1536 (3.1 MP), 40 GB hard drive.