Which type of camcorder to keep in pocket?

[ArthurDaley]

I am getting a bit tired of my heavy digital 8 Sony camcorder weight (I travel).

I want something that fits in the pocket. If I look at the Sony site they only have one mini DV camcorder so I assume recording to mini DV is out.

So that leaves a choice of High Def or HDD based SD camcorder.

But I am led to believe that the former is ahead of it's time without the necessary software/players at mass level, plus they are very expensive.

But the latter, the HDD based SD camcorders (say the Sony SR-90) people claim the MPEG2 files (is it actually MPEG4 recording or not?) are not that high quality. Furthermore they do not seem to come with a DV (i.link) port now and only USB 2.0 which people claim is not as high quality anymore.

Is it the case that the market is confused right now and I should wait a year or so?

[edDV]

I am getting a bit tired of my heavy digital 8 Sony camcorder weight (I travel).

I want something that fits in the pocket. If I look at the Sony site they only have one mini DV camcorder so I assume recording to mini DV is out.

So that leaves a choice of High Def or HDD based SD camcorder.

But I am led to believe that the former is ahead of it's time without the necessary software/players at mass level, plus they are very expensive.

But the latter, the HDD based SD camcorders (say the Sony SR-90) people claim the MPEG2 files (is it actually MPEG4 recording or not?) are not that high quality. Furthermore they do not seem to come with a DV (i.link) port now and only USB 2.0 which people claim is not as high quality anymore.

Is it the case that the market is confused right now and I should wait a year or so?

The hard disk camcorders are MPeg2 and aren't any smaller. Next generation will be MPeg4 recording to flash media. Those will be very small. See this video
https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=311063

[ArthurDaley]

Guess I will hang off yet again since there is little clarity in the market on what route to take and all currently seem to have flaws. I will wait and see if MPEG4 to flash becomes reality as that seems a good route to take.