Which Camcorder To Buy

I live in Thailand and my mother lives in the UK. Once a month I burn a DVD with video clips of the children, my wife, the house, the dog and the beach. My mother at her age can pop a DVD into the player but not cope with watching the videos online.

Making videos now is so much easier than it was fifteen or twenty years ago when I had an analogue camcorder. Producing video from my camcorder used to mean using a VCR or a second camera to copy the best scenes to another tape, then to yet another tape to get the clips into the right sequence.Not only was it hard work, but every copy of a copy degraded the video resolution and quality. This is now a thing of the past with todays technology. I can now transfer my video to the PC without losing a pixel of resolution.

I can cut and paste my video clips as easily as editing a word document by using [tag-tec]video editing software[/tag-tec] such as Ulead Video Studio or Sony Vegas.

I can then add titles and transitions with the click of a mouse. When I’m done I can send the finished product out to CD, DVD, as to my mother, or to my internet websites as search engine tasty [tag-ice]video content[/tag-ice]. But to make all that work I need a digital video camcorder.

Like my old VHS camcorder, digital camcorders use a light-sensitive chip called a CCD to measure the light in a scene. But instead of recording analog information as changes in voltage, digital camcorders store the data digitally, similar to how computers write files on a disk. Digital camcorders are so affordable now and one suitable for making videos for my website can be had for under $500.

Normally, the more pixels on the CCD, the better the final video will be. Most camcorders feature CCDs with about 680,000 pixels or more. Consumer camcorders tend to rely on a single CCD, with color filters that sample the scene three times: once each for the red, green, and blue components of the video. Better video cameras make no such compromise. High end camcorders use three independent CCDs for the best possible image quality.

To transfer the data to a PC, digital video cameras rely on an IEEE 1394 cable (commonly called FireWire). It’s the standard way to move video data to your computer. Some PCs and many Macs come with FireWire ports. If your system doesn’t, you can get an expansion card for under $20. For more on transferring video to your PC read here.

Although there are different video format camcorders available, I recommend that you go with miniDV camcorder. For more on this read this article for more insight into camcorder formats. I personally use a Canon MVX350i camcorder which has all the features mentioned in the next paragraph.

Optics is not necessarily king as far as we are concerned with a consumer quality camcorder that is suitable for making videos for your website. As stated in this article, I consider a camcorder being Firewire compatible, having an external microphone jack and a remote control more important for our work. At this standard of camcorder lenses are all pretty much the same standard and will not affect the end product so much.

So get started now with a suitable camcorder as outlined above and start shooting video to send to your distant relatives on a DVD or display on your own website for the whole world to see.