its a HD camera... so yes... Also I'll address the mic subject after talking about the image... still some things that are not clear....
High Def image is 1920X1080 pixels... compaired to regular Digital Video which is 720X480 Pixels. Whats great about this is that you are getting 3X the quality you would be with a regular camcorder. Also this camera offers a different chip which records your image. Instead of a regular CCD (Charge Couple Device) *fancy name for light sensitive chip which turns your image into digital info. lol This camera features a CMOS, which is Way better, supposedly, then a CCD.
The key difference between CCD's and CMOS's are that the CMOS chip works better with light. It creates less noise in black or virtualy none... So your blacks are BLACK, and your colors are nice and SMOOOOOTH. Not like a regular DV camera... with a CCD... you'd have like a greeny purple black... not cool.
SO YES, BIG PICTURE, but watch out. Even if you've got Firewire on your PC to transfer your video to edit... you might have to upgrade, since HD IS A BIG MOFO.
I was talking about HD with a collegue and he told me that regular firewire might not cut it to streem a HD image to the PC without loosing frames.... BUT appearently there's 2 versions of Firewire out there... go figure.
ALRIGHT NOW TO THE SOUND... again.......
The mic that they offer as an accessory is one that sits ontop of the camera... its clips on a special accessories shoe on the camera. BASICALY it looks like one of those things you attatch a flash too, on a photo camera... same thing... except this one is special... it does more! lol
so... the shotgun mic does not detatch from the camera... or else what you need is a REAL shotgun mic, which has an XLR jack.... thats one of those 3 prong plugs for pro mics... to a mini-jack.... thats the kind of plug that you would have on your earphones for your CD player.....
BUT I have to warn you.... Shotgun mics only pick up ONE channel of sound... that means... you're getting MONO sound... not stereo...
Anyway, keep posting if you got questions..
I know I type alot.. there's lots to say about it lol