I heard panasonic is bringing out their 2005 models sometimes later that uses 3 chips, and their least expensive 3 chip CCDs cost $600, with 420,000 pixels but about 250,000 pixels are effective while the rest is image stabilization. Their $700 model have about 780,000 pixels and of course uses all the resolution of 720 x 480 which is (345,600 pixels effective). The $1,000 model uses 780,000 pixels per CCD too, but one of the biggest differences is the optical image stabilization, meaning no need of using CCD area for image stabilization. That way, all 780,000 are active and effective, but of course it will limits to the resolution of 720 x 480 (345,600), but since it uses all the CCD area for video, it will have better low light, and color too than one that uses half of the CCD area for "image stabilization."
