Believe it or not, it wasn't all 3D and tablets at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While it was admittedly difficult to compete for news amid the sea of 3D and tablet product announcements, a few unique products did manage to stand out. One such case was Sony's innovative new Handycam models featuring an integrated LED projector on the front side of the flip-out LCD.
The top-of-the-line camcorder to feature this unique projector/LCD is Sony's HDR-PJ50V, which features a 220GB internal hard drive to store recorded content. The more affordable HDR-PJ30V and HDR-PJ10 forego the hard disk and instead use 32GB and 16GB of flash memory, respectively.
As for the projector, it's a compact LED-based implant capable of throwing a 60-inch diagonal image when projected from a distance of 18 feet. With the ability to project on light-colored walls, ceilings, or any flat surface for that matter, it greatly simplifies the process of sharing recorded content with friends and family. And since projected video is primarily useless without an accompanying soundtrack, Sony has wisely integrated a pair of stereo playback speakers on the screen side of the flip-out LCD.
Each of these new HD Handycam models will feature full HD recording at 1920×1080 and Sony's back-illuminated "Exmor R" CMOS sensor for excellent low light performance. The top shelf HDR-PL50V also features 7-megapixel still image capture and a built-in GPS receiver w/ NAVTEQ® maps allowing users to geo-tags recorded content. Sony's "Event Browse" feature gives you automatic grouping of videos by event and the "Highlight Playback & Share" feature can then be used to generate highlight reels for friends and family.
The HDR-PJ50V will be available in April for about $1000, while the HDR-PJ30V and HDR-PJ10 will be available in March for about $950 and $700, respectively.
Where to Buy:
