My definition is this

The other day I visited our local, friendly 'recycling centre' (AKA 'the dump') to drop off some 'materials for recycling' (AKA 'rubbish') only to notice the giant crates of broken CRT TVs sitting there like the sun bleached ivory of a technological graveyard. With a slight twinge of sadness, I wondered (had they not been quite damaged by the October climate in Scotland) if any were perfectly good TVs before they made that last, lonely trip to the telly knackers yard. Requiring only a Playstation 1 or just a set top aerial for company, I suspect many had years of quality viewing left in them. Perhaps, I thought, they had company on that last trip in the shape of a broken Flymo and that Strimmer that never fed it's twine properly. Ever.

It's now quite hard to buy a CRT, standard definition TV here in the UK unless you go to a supermarket and even there they are flogging cheap HD-ready, digital TV capable screens of decent size and questionable quality. I, for one, welcome our new digital TV overlords having 'bought into' the idea last year with the purchase of a modest 26" model from Philips, and only then just managed to clamber halfway from the primordial sludge that is Standard Definition TV.

So earlier this year, in order to lie basking on the sun-cracked mud of HD and with not a little trepidation, I purchased a Sony HDR-HC5 high definition camcorder to replace my broken Canon. Call it futureproofing if you like, but I was determined not to go back to fuzzy old DV, even if I can't fully utilise the HV footage, for reasons I shall explain soon.

Next up will be a mini review of the HDR-HC5 and my thoughts on that choice 6 months on from buying it.

Hey, it's summer! Someone tell God!

It's been a lousy summer so far here in Blighty. Even in Scotland, a country not known for it's balmy evenings, it's mostly been cold, dull and grey. My weather widget seldom brings cheer. Not much by way of opportunity to whip out my new camcorder. Oh yes.

The old one, a Canon of a scant 4 years of age, has a broken imaging sensor - a fault recognised by Canon and fixed free of charge if I can get my lazy arse around to packing it up and shipping the thing off for repair.

So anyway, rather than do that I went, in true gadgeteer style, and got meself a high def unit from Sony. Rather than go nuts and get a hard drive or DVD or even solid state model, this one records onto tape. A wee bit retro, don'tcha think? But for good reason, dear reader. Tape, simply because iMovie HD won't talk anything else. And it's a good archive medium. Although with iLife 08 waiting in the wings at Apple HQ, I wouldn't be surprised if the latest version supported AVHCD, the new-fangled format supported by most non-tape camcorders.

And with HD video chewing through 1 gig of drive space per minute of footage, I can't afford to have anything significant hanging around on the iMac. Once edited down, that holiday footage can be punted back onto tape for archiving and later embarrassment of my daughter when she's 18 (currently 10 months).

I'll post a review of the fancy-schmancy 'corder soon. It's a HDR-HC5 btw, you Sony model number spotting freaks.