MY TENNIS coach, Saat, threw me a poser recently: Is there a videocamera that records for more than five hours - continuously?

I hemmed and hawed. At the back of my mind, I was thinking: 'But no one really needs to record for such a long stretch.'

Now, Saat is an old-school photographer - the sort who decides what speed and aperture he wants for a shot, never letting the camera do the thinking for him. But he also totes around a PDA phone with a Bluetooth earpiece.

I did not quite give the man an answer. But in retrospect, the answer would have been 'yes'; you can record for longer than 10 hours at one go, and in full high- definition, too.

The trick is in the storage. Tapes and DVDs are out, but a hard disk drive (HDD) videocam will do the required.

Take the HG10, Canon's new HD camcorder which hides a 40GB hard disk inside. On this high-definition HDD videocam, you can store from 51/2 hours to more than 13 hours of full HD video.

The videocam's proportions and colours make it seem portly, but in effect, it is small. Controls are split between the body and the LCD panel. Canon has included a novel spinning control dial on the LCD for fine controls like focusing.

Consumer videocam designers seem to compete on how small they can make the zoom control. This is bad news unless you have the hand musculature of a dentist able to do precision work. But Canon puts a large see-saw-type lever in the HG10 for exquisite zoom control.

Videos are recorded in the Advanced Video Codec High-Definition format. Part of the Blu-Ray clan, it compresses footage better than the older MPEG-2 codec used for DVDs.

Many criticisms were flung at the format, when it was launched last year. Canon sagely was not first at the gate and waited for the dust to settle for a more mature codec. Colours and resolution were excellent, even under crummy fluorescent lights.

During my son's year-end concert, all the lights were dimmed as the children waved lightsticks on stage. The videocam's focus remained steady and there were no light trails. The large 1/2.7-in CMOS sensor helps, but there are definite limits to lowlight shooting.

A single HDMI or High-Definition Multimedia Interface cable for speedy can hook the HG10 up to your big screen to play HD video in its full glory. Not only has it been omitted, Canon mysteriously used a mini-HDMI port, which is even harder to find than a normal HDMI cable.

FINAL SAY

The HG10 offers excellent image quality and performance in a convenient format with enough tricks to please everyone from the snapshot shooter to the purposeful videographer.

Canon HG10
» $2,599
» Get it from authorised dealers