Okay, so it’s not in the big league of HD camcorders up there with the likes of Panasonic, Canon or Sony, but this interesting little pocket camera not only offers 720/30p HD video but has two SDHC card slots and costs just over a hundred quid. With that in mind it might just be considered ideal for YouTube.

Genius G-Shot HD550T 720/30p HD video camera

Genius G-Shot HD550T 720/30p HD video camera

The tiny new Genius G-Shot HD550T 5.0 megapixel HD video camera records video at a 720/30p resolution (1280×720 at 30 frames per second) and takes 5.0 megapixel photos thanks to what the company describes as a high-resolution CMOS sensor.

It sports a 3” LTPS touch-screen display which provides easy access to the camera’s menu system and touch Auto Exposure function; this then allows exposure to be set by touching the appropriate area of the screen for activation.

The screen swivels to enable recording of the user – which Genius suggests is perfect for waxing lyrical on video sharing sites such as YouTube or Vimeo. 720p is the default option for HD video once uploaded to these portals, so it’s in the right format to begin with.

Dual SDHC memory card slots

The G-Shot HD550T features dual SD slots, each supporting SDHC cards with up to 32GB capacity. This provides a total of 64GB of space to store many hours of video on what is the standard memory card format. The G-Shot HD550T’s HDMI port enables playback of movie clips on any mainstream HDTV display when using an HDMI connecting cable (not supplied with the camera).

Genius G-Shot HD550T 720/30p HD video camera

From behind: Genius G-Shot HD550T 720/30p HD video camera

Supplied with the camcorder is a Lithium-Ion battery, although unusually it can also take 4 x AA batteries as well, which is very handy indeed.

Key features

The G-Shot HD550′s main features are as follows:

  • 5MP digital video camera, record and output to HDTV.
  • 3X digital zoom
  • 3” LTPS Touch display
  • Backlight compensation
  • Motion Detection for simple security detection.
  • Li-ion battery included.

Technical specifications

Although not referred to in the specification table here, the camera also sports a modest 3x optical zoom lens, which – although not a match for the more expensive camcorders’ 10x, 12x or even 20x optical zooms, is more than adequate for a camera at this price point and therefore a common feature. Note also that the HD550T records its video as MJPEG / H.264, which is one of the preferred formats for uploading to YouTube, Vimeo and others.

Genius G-Shot HD550T specifications table

Genius G-Shot HD550T specifications

UK Availability

The G-Shot HD550T is available from the 18th January 2010 for £109.99. For more info see http://www.geniusnet.co.uk

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