The videocamera improvements in 2006 are designed to shake up this lethargic business which has dropped off in consumer spending since the iPod. Here are "Camcorder's" pick of new or desired features:
1) Wider LCD screens to 3.5 in. diagonal for older eyes and touch controls... plus 16x9 ratio on SD cameras.
2) enhanced sound with Dolby 5.1 for home surround systems.
3) better DVD camcorders (all Sony) ... hope for 3 chip cameras to improve this segment, widescreen and price.
4) More MPEG-4 storage flash cards with high qualit images, better lenses.
5) better combo cams with still photos up to 4 MP and maybe higher. Capture stills simultaneously with video.
6) better HDV cameras up to 3 chips, lower pricing.
7) improved disk drive cams, record many hours on MPEG-2 format ... no tape, improved ergonomics.
8) more featurs ... from larger screens and touch screens to manual audio controls, ie the Canon GL2
9) Integrate MPEG-4 or WMV video capture into portable media players ... already lots of storage at 20Mb ... up to 50 hours of video, or 200,000 1mp photos, or 10,000 mp3 songs. See Gemini 402 by Archos.
10) phase out of analog ...VHS and Hi-8
