Here at home the development of HD camcorders is far ahead of HDTV. Instead of waiting for HDTV you can make high resolution films yourself. With HDV and AVCHD there are two suitable video formates. HDV for high definition films on DV tapes: HDV recordes films in 16:9 format onto DV tapes. It is a MPEG 2 video with either 1280x720 pixels progressive or 1440x1080 pixels interlace. Despite a higher resolution, the DV data-rate of 25 MBit/s remains the same. Different to (full) HDTV format 1080i with 1920x1080 pixels the HDV format loses a quater of the resolution because the pixels are saved as rectangles and not as squares. The 16:9 format stays. Normally you can hardly see that HDV 1080i has a lesser resolution. In 2003 Canon, JVC, Sharp and Sony created HDV for ambitious hobby filmers, but because of the cheap DV tapes it got really popular with semi-professionals. HDV camcorders are not as good as real professional equipment, but they cost only between 1,000 and 1,500 Euros and are affordebale for filmfreaks. You will need a FireWire to be able to transfer the video onto your computer. AVCHD for hard drive, flash, and DVD camcordes: AVCHD is a highdefinition video format for camcorders. Unlike HDV, it is for multiple camcorder types. You can record onto hard drives, DVD, SD card or memory stick. With seven different AVCHD models Sony has the best choice: one for DVD, one for SD, one for memory stick and even four for camcorders with hard drive. The video format is the same than HDV: max. 1440x1080 pixels and a data rate of up to 25 MBit/s. Different to MPEG 2, AVCHD recordes as MPEG 4 with effective compression H.264. Disadvantage: if you are going to transfer these films onto your computer, you will need a very fast computer to decode the videos. Editing will be the next challenge for your hardware. Suitable HDTV equipment is a must. If you want to edit the video on your computer you will need high quality hardware. Your computer cannot be too fast for AVCHD Codec but even then the editing program might have compatiliby problems with the MPEG 4 format. HDV is easier but you still need a PC with a Dual Core processor and at least 1 GB RAM. Video editing programs do not have any problems with the MPEG 2 format. In short: HDV and AVCHD camcorders are the future, they are good for users that want to record in HDTV and are willing to pay more for a better picture quality. HDV camcorder only use DV tapes, while AVCHD models are compatible with hard drives, DVD recorders or flash cards. No matter if you have HDV or AVCHD - a HD camcorder only makes sense if you can watch it on a HD screen, that means that you will have to get even more HD equipment.