You never know when you’ll be a front and center witness to what could be the next viral YouTube video. And for these occasions, wouldn’t it be great to present the world with something a little better than a grainy cell phone video or low resolution camera flick? Yes…sometimes you just need to shoot high definition 1080p video on the spur of the moment. And since most of us can’t fit a full size camcorder in our back pocket, JVC has released its PICSIO GC-FM1 series of high definition pocket camcorders.
The PICSIO line, while not the first pocket camcorders, will face heavy competition from the popular devices offered by market incumbent Flip Video products. With a 2″ LCD display and simple user interface, the JVC PICSIO GC-FM1 boasts 1080p video recording at 30fps and can capture 8MP stills. For the times when you’re nervously capturing spy video, the digital image stabilization can mitigate shaky hands. The videos are recorded via the h.264 compression standard onto SD/SDHC memory cards, making it easy to swap a full card with an empty one. In addition to computer playback once the files have been offloaded via the USB port (which also charges the device), the device has HDMI and AV video ports for TV viewing.
While this and other pocket video recorders have some impressive specs tightly packaged into a device no bigger than a small cell phone, it’s hard to imagine their long-term viability as functionality continues to converge into devices that do everything. Expect cell phones to do everything this does in the near future.
Posted in 
Tags: 
[...] for a pocket video recorder but don’t want to spend $200 for a high end, high definition JVC PICSIO? Vivitar, looking to expand into this growth market, is now marketing its DVR 150 pocket [...]
[...] this is probably the case, but rather at any given moment by the thousands of security, traffic, digital and cell phone cameras we unknowingly encounter each day. Unfortunately, we don’t have much [...]
[...] on top of what is a well spec’d HD camcorder. While it may not have the portability of JVC’s PICSIO GC-FM1 series, the GZ-HM550 has all the features (and a few extra) that any budding filmmaker would [...]
[...] there is another 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera. It seems HTC not only wants to compete with pocket HD cameras, but also wants to allow videoconferencing using the EVO 4G. The phone even has a HDMI out, [...]
[...] on a delicate high definition digital video camera considering the availability of this device and others like it. The PlaySport is small, lightweight, and rugged, yet provides most of the quality of more [...]