It’s not often you sit down in front of a TV to watch a home video and find it’s better quality than you can expect from your regular broadcasts. However, with this amazing High Definition (HD) camera from Sanyo, that’s exactly what you get.

When Sanyo introduced the HD1 Xacti at this year’s International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in January, they had everyone’s attention. Even from the people looking at remote-controlled refrigerators. The tiny Sanyo garnered much attention for good reason: who wouldn’t want a pocket-sized gadget capable of recording progressive HD video onto a memory card, and for under a grand? Sanyo set the bar high. The HD1 Xacti isn’t without some faults, but it certainly stands out as a good all-around performer.

Sanyo’s Xacti HD1A is an interesting device. For a start, it’s the smallest High Definition camcorder on the market, and one of the cheapest. It also has respectable still photograph abilities, beyond what we would usually expect from a camcorder. Which begs the question, is it a video camera with an above average still image function or a digital camera with an above average video function?

The Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1 seems to fulfill the fantasies of many a tech-head: high definition (HD) video at an affordable price. And it does meet the technical requirements of HD, recording at 1280×720 at 30 frames per second (fps), also known as 720p. However, the camcorder does not deliver anything near the quality most people would expect from an HD camcorder.

The Sanyo VPC-HD1 is very expensive, and has lower photographic quality than a dedicated 5-megapixel still camera, however it is a unique product that offers features that can’t be found elsewhere. Build quality, handling and performance are good, and it is the closest thing yet to a successful hybrid still/video camera.