When I first heard about the GO-HD camera I was very excited. Imagine! A true HD 1280x720 progressive video camera that can record to standard SD memory cards, will fit in the palm of your hand, and costs less than $300. That is one-third the price of a 16GB P2 memory card.
The idea inspired dreams of Guerilla filmmaking. I could take this palm-sized camera places I would never take a full-sized HD camera. Maybe I would buy two or three of them.
However, when I started to experiment with the GO-HD I suddenly discovered that HD resolution and solid-state memory is not everything. In fact, I soon came to understand why the GO-HD camera is $300 and not $3000.
Features
This camera is small. Really SMALL. I have compared the camera to a watch and a cell phone to give you a sense of its size. You need to remember that this records video in HD, to really get the sense of the engineering accomplishment. The video camera embedded in the cell phone, next to the GO-HD only records in 320x240, compared to GO-HD’s 1280x720 resolution.
The GO-HD comes with two batteries, a remote control, various wires and connectors, and a CD that contains HDDV drivers. Unfortunately, the drivers just enable the MOV files to be played back in Microsoft Media Player. I was hoping for drivers that would plug-in to Premiere or Vegas or Final Cut for editing. However, no such luck.
