TestFreaks Guide to Camcorders - HD / DV
As always, your first thought should not be what camcorder, but how – and to what – you going to ...
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As always, your first thought should not be what camcorder, but how – and to what – you going to use your new camera for. Today a camcorder is small, light and with excellent sound and picture quality, unlike the first ones which were big, not easy to use and with a result that would awake some laughter now. So the choice today is much more about what features I need and what I gong to make videos of. There is one matter though that still does require some attention. A camcorder consist of two units: a camera part and a storage part. Regarding the camera part you should think as if you were going to buy an ordinary digital camera, and regarding the storage part today you can choose between a variety of different media, each with its pros and cons.
There still exist cameras that uses tapes. Todays’ standards are Mini-DVs, that deliver a really good picture quality but take time to be copied to a DVD or hard disc. If you buy a DVD recording camcorder that won’t be a problem – but then you might hit a problem that the DVD recorder share with the camcorders that uses flash memory or memory cards – some editing software doesn’t work well with them, then you first have to download the video to your computer and then edit it. The good part of that is that you’ll also have created a backup copy.
If your TV set is HD ready or even Full-HD ready be sure that your camcorder is so too. Most camcorders today are HD ready but not all. Then there is the matter of whether you should go for a camera with Dolby surround sound or not. For the ordinary vacation “director” or if you just want nice videos of the kids growing up you should go for a small and light, easy to use camera that doesn’t need any manual settings – it should just be with you at all time, ready to shoot the scene in front of you without any fuzz. For “the movie producer to be” a camera with Dolby surround sound and wide screen capability is the given choice. For the rest of us there is all of the rest to choose between.
Decide what camcorders to choose between and then read tests of those models. You should also consider what accessories you will need. A tri pod is neat if you shoot long scenes or if you need long exposures, an editing software is almost certainly a good investment – there are very few of us who manage to shoot the perfect video at the first attempt. So don’t blow all your money out on a sophisticated camcorder that you can’t use to its full potential because you lack the appropriate accessories.
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Remember also that it is important to make backups of you videos. Use backup software and copy to either a CD/DVD or hard disc or even to an external hard disc, to be sure that you have saved your videos, in case anything goes wrong with your camcorder or storage media.