Hideous kinky: Canon MVX850i

Whoa, check out the pixels on the MVX850i's CCD. There are 800k of the little suckers jittering about, turning the light and colour of our world into a magnetic signal on DV tape in 16:9 mode. The camcorder comes with a FireWire port which gives you total control over how you edit your footage. It's not great-looking, but its feature set is sex on a tripod.

We've had a lot of DVD camcorders come through the Crave portcullis recently, and it still amazes us how much better the seemingly old-school DV tape is than new DVD recorders. Even the lowly models generate an extremely attractive image quality. DV tape camcorders still give better colour, contrast and resolution than the more flashy DVD models. The convenience of footage that's burnt straight to disc is alluring, but for resolution junkies there's still no real alternative to digital tape.

The built-in LCD on the MV850i is big and bright. It's also incredibly hardy. There's little chance that this LCD will get snapped off as you're filiming your ride through a triple corkscrew at Alton Towers. Expect a full review soon. - CS

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