Selecting your First Video Camcorder

Most newer digital still cameras are now capable of taking and storing short video clips. Depending on the capacity of your storage device, these can be up to several minutes long, and on many cameras you can record sound too. For many individuals and families, that ability to capture a few short moving pictures among the stills is enough.

On the other side of the coin, most video camcorders are now capable of capturing and storing still pictures. They won't have as many megapixels as the pictures you take with your still camera, but for many folks, the quality is fine.

As technology marches on, the line between consumer still cameras and video camcorders may blur until it disappears completely, and there will be one small device you can carry that does an equally good job capturing both stills and movies. Many companies are racing toward that goal, but we're not quite there yet. For now, if you want the very best quality still pictures, you need a camera that specializes in stills, and if you want the very best quality movies, you need a camcorder.

First: How do you intend to use your new camcorder?

(We have adjusted some of the price ranges to reflect recent rapid changes in the market and expanded options for buyers):

- Home and Vacation Movie-maker    - Budget Buyer - Trendsetter - Independent Filmmaker - Business Videographer

($300 - $1,500) ($250 - $600) ($800 - $3,500) ($1,500 - $6,000) ($1,000 - $3,000)

What kind of buyer are you? It is important to make the right decision to select the product that best suits your current and future needs. All technology products change and evolve so rapidly today that anything you buy is going to be technically "obsolete" within a few months. Nevertheless, we tend to keep and use expensive products we buy for several years. You should not expect to be able to recover anything on the used market from any technology product you buy today, so do your homework and choose wisely.

Features

Form and Orientation: The first video camcorders, introduced in the early 1980's, were large and sat on the operator's shoulder.

One hand would typically slip through a strap to aim the lens and operate the controls, and that upper arm could be braced against the operator's body. This provided a stable platform and miniumized unwanted movements. As camcorders have become smaller, typically now held in the palm of one hand, it has become harder to keep them still.

A variety of mechanical and electronic image stabilization techniques have been developed to try to address this problem, but as always, the ultimate answer to taking steady movies is to use a tripod. Tripods can be a pain to carry around, however, so most folks learn to deal with some unsteadiness in their home movies. Camcorders come in both vertical or horizontal orientation. Which you choose is a matter of your own preference, because the picture quality will be the same. If you select a model that records on tape or DVD media, keep in mind where the loading door is located; on the side or top is generally convenient, but some load on the bottom, making it necessary to remove the camcorder from the tripod (if you use one) to change the media.

Viewfinder and LCD Screen: Typical camcorders have a traditional camera viewfinder that you put up to your eye. Most also have a small flip-out video screen. You should be aware that the flip-out screen, while convenient, is generally not usable when you are in bright sunlight. Therefore, be wary of any ultra-compact that does not have a viewfinder, unless you know you will always be using it indoors.

Lens Type: Pictures are made out of light. The lens gathers and focuses all of the light, so it is the most important single component of any camera. Consumer and low-end professional video camcorders almost always have a fixed (non-interchangeable) lens, so you are stuck with the one that comes with it.

Consumer video camcorder lenses are almost always auto-focus. Some support manual focus as well. The lens will have the ability to zoom in and out to wider or narrower angles, which appears to bring distant objects closer. Zoom comes in two types: Optical and Digital. Be aware that Optical zoom is the only real type you should consider. Digital zoom is a kind of trick that appears to bring things closer, but at the expense of the clarity and detail of your picture.

Image Stabilization (either mechanical or electronic) is considered to be a function of the lens.

Low light capability is partly in the lens and partly a matter of electronic signal boosting inside the camera. Just be aware that no camera can take pictures without light (ultra-violet cameras are another animal entirely) and that the more light you have available, the better and clearer your pictures will be.

Image Sensor: The image sensor is the electronic version of photographic film. The lens focuses the light on the image sensor, which converts the light into digital signals that can be stored on the media. Most home video camcorders have a single CCD or CMOS sensor device that processes all color picture information as a single "composite" signal. More expensive semi-professional and pro camcorders use a 3-chip system. An optical prism is used to divide the light into three different color components, each aimed at a different sensor device. Processing the different colors separately allows for higher resolution and better detail. Recently single chip sensors have been developed that are capable of separating out the color components, bringing into question the superiority of the 3-chip systems in the future. For the moment, 3-chip is better.

Recording Media: In the 1980's your camcorder used tape cartridges. You either used analog Beta or analog VHS. There were no other choices. As we progressed into the 1990's VHS conquered Beta in the market, and Beta disappeared. The problem with VHS has always been that it is low resolution and suffered severely from generational loss when copied. Several alternate formats became available including Super-VHS (S-VHS), Compact VHS (VHS-c), 8mm, and high-band 8mm (Hi-8). Some of those formats (especially S-VHS and Hi-8) were significantly better and even good enough to be used in commercial television news gathering.

Today, all of the analog tape formats have all but disappeared, replaced by newer digital formats (first introduced in 1994) which may incorporate advanced compression techniques. For several years, many have predicted the end of magnetic tape, and we appear to be on the very verge of that, but at the time of this writing the majority of new consumer camcorders being sold still use mini-DV tape cartridges to store the movies in "DV" format. The new HDV format (see SD or HD, below) uses mini-DV tapes to store compressed high definition video images. There are also other competing formats that can be stored on mini-DV tapes, including Sony's DVCAM. Panasonic's DVCPRO format uses its own special tape cartridge type, a little larger than a mini-DV cartridge.

One digital format used older style 8mm tapes: Digital8. The quality of Digital8 is theoretically equivalent to mini-DV but no new Digital8 camcorders have been sold for several years.

Some newer camcorders record video direct to minature DVD disks. These can be played back immediately on the majority of newer set-top DVD players, making them attractive to casual users who do not want to do any editing.

Direct to Hard Drive: With the development of hard disk drives that are smaller, higher capacity, and more shock resistant, camcorders have emerged that incorporate internal hard drive storage. These are especially well suited to users who wish to download their videos to computer for editing and/or burning onto DVD media.

Direct to Memory Card: The future of digital video recording may well be in fast, high capacity, solid-state memory storage, but for the moment it is by far the most expensive method, generally prohibitive on the consumer and even the low-end professional level. Panasonic's P2 memory is an excellent example, but each 8 gigabyte card continues to cost well over $1,000.

SD or HD (Standard Definition or High Definition): Standard Density NTSC television is a very old standard; created years before the invention of the transistor, when digital computers were still a glimmer in the imagination of a few science fiction writers. High Definition is rapidly becoming the new standard, but at present there is still more SD in general usage. The biggest visible difference between them is the shape of the picture, with traditional SD having an aspect ratio of 4:3 and the current HD standard an aspect ratio of 16:9 (wider). Ironically, 16:9 is still not as wide as a standard Hollywood movie, so even though the new screens are wider, when you view a commercial DVD movie on an HD television you will still either have parts of the sides clipped off or see "letterbox" black strips at the top and bottom.

But the picture shape is not the most important difference between SD and HD. HD has up to twice as many horizontal scan lines and many more pixels on each line. This higher pixel density results in dramatically clearer and more "photographic" images.

The problem with HD is that it takes a lot of storage space and transmission bandwidth to handle true HD video. To answer this challenge, a variety of electronic compression techniques are being used to make HD video small enough to efficiently store and transmit. For example, the HDV format allows HD video (compressed using the MPEG-2 technique) to be stored on standard mini-DV tape cartridges. Some detail is lost in the compression and decompression, but overall the effect is considered quite satisfactory.

While HDV has broad industry support, it is not the only game in town for HD compression. Panasonic and Sony are actively pursuing an alternate method called AVCHD which uses the more efficient MPEG-4 (H.264) compression technique. AVCHD is not stored on tapes, but has been implemented for mini-DVDs, hard drives, and memory cards. Many consider AVCHD to be superior to HDV and predict it may supercede HDV in the market.

Other Features: Firewire (also called IEEE 1394, or Sony iLink) is a special wired connection between two devices (generally your camcorder and your computer) that allows high speed data transfer. Firewire does not support enough bandwidth to rapidly transfer uncompressed HD video, but Firewire can transfer SD or HDV video and sound in real-time. Portable hard drive storage devices are available that allow direct-to-disk recording from your camcorder via Firewire.

Additional features of camcorders include bundled video/picture editing software; bluetooth networking support; webcam ability; switchable SD/DV, 16:9/4:3 functions; touchscreen LCD; built-in camera light; external microphone inputs; laser-assisted auto-focus; storing still pictures to a separate memory card; simultaneous video and still image capturing; and analog to digital conversion (for hooking up and recording TV or analog video sources as digital video).

Question 1: To Edit, or not to Edit?

On the other hand, if your imagination is captured by the idea of computer video editing; perhaps publishing your movies on a website or sending compressed clips to friends and family via email; or even dabbling in Indie filmmaking; your decision may be a bit more involved. What kind of storage media is used by your camcorder may be secondary to the quality of the pictures and the efficiency of the compression technique used.

Question 2: High Def or Standard Def?

On the other hand, many of us are sitting on the cusp of the HD revolution and the only logical choice for our next camcorder purchase is one with HD capability.

Question 3: How important to you is having a good lens?

In general, look for the best quality optical glass lens system you can afford. When looking at the zoom ratio, remember to consider the "optical zoom" only. Digital zoom is an electronic trick that is done by cropping the picture down and enlarging whatever is left. This always causes a loss of detail and an increase in square blocky "pixelation".

Question 4: How important to you is good quality sound?

There is no substitute for a good quality built-in microphone that will pick up conversations, filter out pops and wind, and separate sounds from background noises. If you have that, you tend to take it for granted. There is no way to get back sound detail that was never captured because you had a cheap microphone.

All camcorders have audio ALC (Automatic Level Control). The better ones have the ability to switch off the ALC and control the recording volume manually when necessary.

The Sanyo VPC-HD2 Xacti digital media camera with 10x optical zoom is a high-definition compact digital media device that combines both the functionality of a digital camera and a digital camcorder. Different than a standard digital camera that shoots short video clips, the VPC-HD2 offers advanced, next-generation video performance and high-quality stills in one small, lightweight camera. This powerful little device is designed to record both 720-pixel high-definition video and 7-megapixel digital still images, all of which are handily stored to a convenient SD or SDHC memory card.