Gift Ideas for Christmas V

Digital Camcorders Canon Vixia HF11, $1,200 Canon's Vixia HF11 records directly to 32 gigabytes of internal flash memory, and sports an SD slot for external memory. The camcorder has a 12x optical zoom and a component output jack for direct HD viewing from the unit. Pros: The Vixia HF11 has a great feel. It's small enough to maneuver comfortably in one hand but has just enough heft (and image stabilization technology) to reduce shaky footage. The color and clarity of the footage sizzles in high-def playback and the audio is crisp. Cons: The Achilles heel of HD video continues to be software support. The format that delivers topflight quality is supported by only a handful of editing applications. Even Canon's software that came with unit crashed on us more than once.