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What to look for in a digital camcorder
There are many factors that come into play when looking at buying a digital camcorder. Do i want a high definition camcorder, or can i settle for a standard definition one? What kind of memory should it have? Is a mini DV disc better than a DVD? Well here at HDTV.biz we are here to help you in choosing your new digital camcorder.
First thing is first is to find out how much you are willing to spend. This can give you a ballpark range of what features you can get on a camcorder. When you only have 300 dollars to spend, chances are that you won't be getting a full 1080p HD camcorder. Also it helps if you check out our site for different special deals that we find for you.
high definition or standard definition?
Do I really need a1080p camcorder? Or can i settle with a 720p? Some people may think that everything should be 1080p and anything less is crap. There is a disadvantage to really high resolution camcorders. Space can be pretty tough if you are recording your Disney vacation on a 1080p camcorder. You'd better be carrying enough media for it, because you will be using a lot of it. A 720p camera can hold about 1 hour of video on a 2gb card, meaning 4 hours on an 8gb card... 1080p is double of that and SD 480p is a half or a third of the 720p recording. If you are going on vacation and you don't feel like buying all the memory cards that Best buy has in stock, then a camcorder that records in 720p gives you a good balance between quality and quantity. Again. Resolution depends on what kind of TV you have, what kinds of recordings you will do with your digital camcorder, and how big the media you are recording on is.
Memory card, hard drive, DVD, Minidv?
There are quite a few different ways that camcorders store the data. DVD recording puts your movies onto a DVD that can be played in any DVD player. The downside to DVD recording is that once a DVD session is closed, you can not add more to the disc. Another type of removable storage is Minidv, which works like DVD but is much smaller for a more compact player. Flash media like SD cards, compact flash, or memory sticks are great for copying videos to a computer for editing and even recording to HD DVD or Blu Ray discs. A non removable version of this would be a hard drive camcorder, which uses a fixed drive inside the unit to hold the media. The advantage of this is a lot of space, but the downside is that you can't really have a separate card for different segments. For instance if you are going to Florida and want to record your trip. With removable media you could have a Universal Studios disc, an MGM disc, and a magic kingdom disc. With a hard drive storage unit, you can't have separate discs for each different place you went to.
Optical zoom, digital zoom?
Zooming is an important part of being your own home movie maker. There are two main types of zooming. Optical zoom and digital zoom. Optical zoom uses lenses to focus in on an object and makes for no loss of picture quality. Digital zoom uses the electronics to move in on a certain area. When it does, there is a drop in quality because it does not use lenses to focus more information into a smaller area. Digital zoom is less expensive and takes less room than a digital zoom.
Still shot resolution?
If you want to make the most of your camcorder. Most camcorders these days can double as a digital camera. Taking still shots can be a good feature on a camcorder. The resolution of still shots is another thing to look at. If you really want to take spectacular pictures. The more mega pixels, the better. If it is not a feature you look at in a camcorder, then you can ignore that and focus in on the video resolution.
Also See: All High Definition Television Articles
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