Digital Camcorders

A digital video camera (DVC) is really two devices in one, a digital video camera and a VCR/DVD recorder. The first camcorder was made by Sony in 1983 using analog Beta technology. Since then, digital camcorders have taken over a large part of the market. The advantage of digital technology is that it remains in digital form (0’s and 1’s) once stored and can be transferred to other digital devices retaining this digital format. On the other hand, analog data must be interpreted and translated by the receiving device. This process causes a loss in data which leads to a loss in video and audio quality.

There are two storage types of DVC’s on the market. Tape-based DVC’s use a widely available miniDV cassette which can allow for up to 90 minutes of recording. They are a proven format and allow for easy downloading to a PC for editing. Disc-based digital video cameras can store data on a variety of media including mini DVD discs, removable storage and hard drives. DVD discs can allow for up to 1 hour of MPEG-2 recording. DVD-RAM and DVD-RW are also available on some models. The DVD discs can be played on some home DVD players if compatible or write-once discs can be played on most home DVD players once finalized.