The old days of the big and bulky analog video cameras that were heavy and large have been erased by todays digital technology. Todays digital camcorders are small, compact and very user-friendly and enable anyone and everyone to easily shoot and edit movies.

These days most everyone has a camcorder for recording life’s moments, natural disasters, police chases and everyting elese they desire. The key to choosing the right type of camcorder is finding a happy medium between usability and price. Digital camcorders can be pricey and finding discounts online for video cameras, as well as cheap digital cameras is a great way to get more features for a much lower price than retail.

The types of digital camcorders mainly centers on the media they utilize for recording capability and the storage device where the video is written to. There are several types of digital camcorders that are popular today, each with specific media formats, benefits and price ranges.

7 Types of Digital Camcorders

1. MiniDV Camcorder
The MiniDV digital camcorders record to a mini cassette that is then transferred to a computer via fire-wire port, downloaded and edited with the use of video editing software. The advanced compression technology allows for very small recording cassettes making this camcorder very small and compact. One of the original types that remains popular today with a good picture quality and a low price.

2. MicroMV Camcorder
The MicroMV type of camcorder uses tapes that are even smaller that the MiniDV cassettes with increased compression technology. This one records high quality video and is enabled for digital editing capability. Of all the camcorder types, this one is probably the msot lightweight and compact.

3. DVD Type of Camcorder
The DVD type of camcorder is probably the most popular model today. This type of camcorder records video directly to a DVD disk, including DVD-R and DVD-RW.

DVD-R is a recordable DVD format with a write-once only capability and DVD-RW is a recordable DVD but it allows rewrites and provides unlimited recording to same disk.

Two of the best features of this model is the in-camera editing capability and the disk will not degrade after repeated playbacks. Sony makes several great DVD models at affordable prices.

4. HDV
The most expensive of all camcorders that provide superb high definition video recording. They allow for high definition video recording in a full 1920×1080 resolution. They come in the MiniDV and Hard Disk Drive storage types and provide the highest quality and clarity for the best video picture quality that looks fantastic on a high definition television. The high-def model requires a good computer with a high end processor and lots of memory, at least 512MB RAM, and at least 5GB free hard disk space to meet requirements of video editing software.

5. HDD Digital Camcorders
HDD stands for Hard Disk Drive and these types of camcorders record in the compact MPEG-2 video that is saved to an internal hard disk drive within the camcorder.

The biggest benefit of this type of camcorder is the ability to store huge amounts of video data via the use of compression technology. The vide is saved to an interanl disk with the camocrder itself and then dowloaded to a computer for editing and burning and viewing.,. This type is also long lasting as there are no moving parts and less chance of mechanical breaks.

6. Flash Media
This type records and stores via an internal flash drive and flash memory cards. Flash cards include, Compact Flash, Memory Stick, SD and Memory Stick Duo.

7. Digital 8
This format records digital video to Hi-8 videotapes. Introduced in 1999 by Sony, Digital 8 is a consumer digital videotape format. While Digital 8 camcorders use the same cassettes as Hi8 equipment the audio/video signal is encoded digitally. The video picture quality is good and it allows for playback on analog videotapes.

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