Best HD Camcorder

The hunt for the best HD camcorder was on in earnest by the owner of a large auto dealership in Florida. The man had a weekly Saturday morning drive by show where thirty new and used vehicles were displayed in an almost continual parade on a local television station at seven thirty in the morning. If it was a good show, the dealership could have a swamp full of potential customers roaming the four acres of cars and trucks. But the show was produced by the same television station that ran the program and production costs were eating into the monthly profit to the tune of four thousand dollars. For the owner, that was four thousand dollars that could be going in a college fund for his four children, all in high school and set to graduate the next four years in a row. Local cable promised the same time slot for three hundred dollars a week if the owner would produce the show in house. The guy built his business on taking risks and challenges, and producing the dealership's own show meant the first priority was to find one of the best professional high definition camcorders the budget would allow.

No one can be an expert in everything and this guy was a prime example of that truth. The owner didn't know a tripod from a tricycle and a camcorder from a tape recorder. But the weekend show was a very simple format. Set up a camera on a tripod, show the car rumbling up to the host who would tell a little bit about the car and then mark the car down dramatically on air. People eating their French toast would sit on the edge of their chairs at home to see what the real bargains would be for that week.

The dealer thought that it couldn't be too hard to find a deal on the best camcorder. But then the hot shot cyclist thought a jaunt over the Snake River Canyon would be a breeze also. Of course, the owner's first idea was to find the cheapest and best HD camcorder, but frankly, those two words, cheapest and best don't go together when a person is talking about high end electronics. But let the man go ahead and try to jump the canyon. The worst that can happen is everyone on the show will be the same color as the giant on the front of the can of peas.

The dealer began on a Monday morning talking to his buddy at the TV station that the man was about to leave for a cable station. He asked him some questions about video equipment and about where to buy the best HD camcorders. The friend stopped the dealer in mid sentence with a palm up signal and said that there were only two words the dealer needed to remember: broadcast quality. End of lesson, class is over and leave my office. Buying the best HD camcorder at one of the big box stores would be a horrible decision and would be regretted. So why doesn't the friend tell the dealer how he really feels? But our dealer still drove over to the big box store for a lesson in reality.

The dealer found out that the best HD camcorder available from Electronic Heaven was not what the man needed. The car dealer asked the young man in the red shirt if the best camcorder sold under the store's roof was broadcast quality. The young man asked what that meant. I smell trouble. Armed with a number of questions given by his TV station friend, the dealer unloaded. "How many frames a second can it record, what are its aspect ratios, can the display modes be selected manually, does it have shot transition and lag and image burn elimination, does the camera have zebra, gain, white balance and full shutter control, and does it have focus assist?" Remember that our hero doesn't have a clue what these mean, but those things plus a whole lot more adds up to making broadcast quality professional high definition camcorders.

By the time the dealer was finished, the young man had the shoulder shrug down pretty well. If a salesperson didn't know what those things were, then a trip back to the dealer's friend where the station employee would help the dealer pick one of the right professional high definition camcorders was in order. The friend helped the dealer pick out a very fine camera that would cost the dealer about two months of television production time with the local television station or about nine thousand dollars. To seal the deal, the auto dealer offered the friend a job on Saturday mornings producing the show, starting with giving lessons on how to run the camera. The friend needed the money and the dealer needed all the help available.

The bottom line of all this is that if a person needs the best HD camcorder for filming the Little League game, the big box stores have the perfect product. A person can easily get such a camera for under a thousand dollars, even less for one of the mini models. Picking out one of the many professional high definition camcorders that shoots video that forty thousand people will see on a Saturday morning is a whole different kettle of fish because cameras are not the same, even if they have the same name. This writer has often imagined that standing in the grocery line is a whole lot different than standing in front of Almighty God will be some day because standing is not always the same as standing. "For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:10)

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