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The International CES Show 08.
CES SHOW 08 - This the BIG ONE! The world's largest trade show, the CES (Consumer Electrical Show) comes to Las Vegas. Let's hope no one loses their shirt! Which is more than can be said for the expectations of visitors going to the other big trade show in town just down the road: the annual Adult Entertainment Expo!!! ;-) All the major digital camcorder manufacturers will be there (At the CES show 08 that is, not the adult entertainment expo!) and they always use the CES to showcase their new products and models for the year and 2008 has been no exception. The CES has debuted many innovative products including the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) in 1970 and the Blu-Ray DVD in 2003 to name but a few. This year, size does seem to matter! All the big four camcorder manufacturers have made their new models even more compact to please the point and shoot brigade, but I'm amazed that that still haven't really realized how big online video is and made it idiot proof to connect the camcorder to your computer, edit and upload to YouTube. 
Panasonic released the standard definition SDR-S7 and high definition Panasonic HDR-SD9 camcorder (see right) at the CES show 08, which both have removable SD/SDHC memory cards and goes some way to making it easier to share videos online, but really doesn't go far enough. Sony and Casio already have easy YouTube uploading software with their digital cameras, so why is everyone dragging their feet with the camcorders? I think they're all too wrapped up with high definition and Pro camcorders to be honest and we'll all have to wait while they get their priorities sorted out. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T2 digital camera actually uses embedded software built into the body for direct upload to video sites like YouTube and photo sites like Photobucket and Flickr. The new Panasonic SDR-S7 camcorder does have some features that make life a little easier, but Panasonic don't advertise them, which makes you wonder if they're even aware they've done it. By dividing equally, it means the resulting YouTube video will be smoother. It doesn't help you shoot a good video in the first place mind, so a terrible video will still remain a terrible video ;-) Camcorders that use solid state or flash memory cards for video storage are popular this year at CES and the trend will only increase over the next twelve months as flash memory gets bigger and cheaper. Face recognition is another new feature borrowed from digital cameras that is at last being made available to all us poor camcorder users. About time too! Here's a list of all the new digital camcorders announced at CES 2008 for release this year. For more details on spec and initial impressions, simply click on any of the new camcorder models you are interested in. CES Show 08
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Canon also released their Vixia HF100 (see left), Vixia HF10 and Vixia HV30 camcorders at the CES show 08 with 30P (progressive) shooting mode. This basically means it shoots at 30 frames per second (unlike standard video at 60), which allows for a cleaner conversion to the likes of YouTube, which has a 15fps rate. 
