Choosing a digital camcorder

Compact, lightweight, HD, multifunction digital camcorders has revolutionized the era of VHS. Hard to make a choice among all brands all models! Sizes and different recording formats, you can find necessarily suited to your needs. Do not panic, it helps you choose.

For what purposes?

Unless you want a professional model (the camcorder shoulder, high quality but expensive and cumbersome), the digital camcorder "home" tends to miniaturize increasingly, as tends to prove the TG3 Sony. If the size of the camcorder does not interfere with your choice of features, its recording format and its many features are determined by what you want to make movies.

• To make home movies of good quality, direct you to a rather high-end model with tri CCD sensor, a high number of pixels and large sensor. Add to that a image stabilizer, a good optical zoom and a 16 / 9, you can compete with Hollywood studios!
• To make short films made of moments on the spot without taking the lead, know that the Mini DV camcorder is still the most popular and more accessible to ordinary people. You can watch movies with ease, without editing or adjustment. If you intend to draw your camcorder as Lucky Luke, an optical stabilizer seems essential to avoid taking blurry.
• If you want all in one and you also use your camcorder to take pictures, go to a format more space and a good resolution of the sensor: 5 mega pixels or higher!
• Want to share these moments on the net, with the greatest number? Rather you interested in the connections and the recording format. Camcorder to a memory card (or flash memory) seems entirely appropriate to your needs.

Focus on the features of the camcorder

The format for storage or registration

There are 2 types of processes of registration: the DV tape (cassettes) and support (DVD, hard drive, memory cards ...). The image quality may vary from one medium to another.

Tip: it is generally easier to carry out the assembly of his films from the options for a camcorder to support (MPEG-2). It is more difficult to mount sequences from the computer, unlike the DVD format.

• The tape recording mini DV allows longer ranges than other recording formats (up to 90 minutes of recording non-stop) but it is a more fragile. To view movies on your PC, you must also burn them onto a DVD and have a player.
• Works with tapes, the format of HDV camcorders is in high definition. If the quality of films is excellent, but they require a powerful computer to process.
• Digital8 format is exclusive to Sony about to be dethroned by the other recording media. However, the oldest of storage formats. He can play the tape in analog camcorders (8mm and Hi8 useful if you had a donc) and even register on top.
• The films on DVD camcorders and DVD-CAM (smaller DVD) are easy to use and are recorded on DVD rewritable (DVD-RW) or not (DVD-R). They have a DVD player to view them. The price of a mini DVD is higher than mini DV tape for recording time is shorter (30 minutes).
• The AVCHD format is a DVD (8 cm) high-definition makes it possible to make films not as good as HDV (cassette), but better than the current DVD formats.
• Registration camcorders Flash works with a memory card. Its storage capacity has been significantly increased in recent years, although they still remain limited. It supports one of the least vulnerable because it is less risk of mechanical failures.
• The micro hard drive provides an excellent storage capacity (40 GB, or hours of recording). Practical and economical, it avoids the purchase of materials such records tapes or DVDs.

The image quality

• The zoom allows for close-ups of your subject with more or less loss of quality depending on the model. An optical zoom lens works with a larger and allows much better quality than digital zoom (which magnifies the pixels in the image).
• Essential for the cameras in hand, the stabilizer helps prevent blurred generated by earthquakes . As for the zoom, the optical stabilizer provides a better record than the digital stabilizer. Beware of ads attractive "up to X400, the result is often disappointing.
• The resolution is expressed in pixels. The higher, the better the image quality. In contrast to the video, it is the "effective number of pixels that counts and not the total number of pixels. 800 000 pixels can be more than sufficient for a good video rendering.
• The sensor is another critical indicator of image quality. More sensor is large (in inches), the better the resolution. The best of these technologies associated with the sensors is the tri-CCD that uses a sensor for each primary color. More significantly, it offers better performance in low light a single CCD sensor.

Connectics

The FireWire interface (IEE1394 or i-link for Sony) is the type most common connection to connect your mini DV camcorder to your computer (Mac or PC) via a DV. Digital camcorders HDD connect to a USB 2.0 port. To connect your camcorder to your TV, the most popular are the video outputs A / V and S-Video.

Autonomy

The average duration of autonomy of a standard camcorder as an hour, it is best to always have two on you. The higher the value given in milliamp, the higher self is great. The lithium ion battery (Li-Ion) is poised to dethrone the NiCad and NiMH, heavier.

If you have specific needs, tie-neck with other features of the camcorder recording night, the exposure mode (which sets the parameters for you to use facility), the manual adjustment options to add your own effects, function digital camera ...