DanLin.net

According to TechOn out of Japan, the main difference between the HDC-SD1 versus the HDC-SD3 specifically is the H.264 codec LSI (large scale integration) chip. Prior to the SD3, a powerful enough LSI chip was not available to encode the images in full 1920×1080i in H.264 compression so the image was scaled down to 1440×1080 prior to scaling back up after the compression. The “Full HD” description in the SD3 is describing the inclusion of a newer LSI chip that allows the camera to fully take advantage of the optics without degrading the image quality first. Sounds like to me it is a worth while improvement. I still have not seem any comparisons of actual footage but if you can wait to buy your camcorder, it will probably be worth it.