Digital video camcorders offer quality that's better than anything you can record with an old analog camcorder. Even better, digital video (DV) makes it easy to transfer videos to a computer and edit them.
Who doesn't feel that they have the creativity and vision to direct their own movies? Well, a new generation of digital video camcorders, as well as more powerful PCs and Macs with fast processors, spacious hard drives, and the latest video-editing software can allow everyone-tech-savvy kids, digitally-connected grandparents, and Spielberg wanna-bes - to easily record, edit, and distribute videos.
While DV camcorders could easily top $5000 (and higher) a few years back, the prices have come down significantly. As with all things high-tech, there's never been a better time to buy into digital video (DV), as the technology and cameras will undoubtedly keep improving, and continue to come down in price. Many DV camcorders are about the size of 8mm camcorders from some years back. And some are palm-size units that can fit in jacket pockets. While DV video cameras are sophisticated, high-tech cameras, they're as easy to use as the older analog camcorders.
DV offers twice the resolution of analog formats such as VHS and 8mm, and 25 percent more resolution than that offered by Hi-8. DV also offers higher signal-to-noise ratios, and stronger color reproduction. The most popular DV format for consumer and low-end professional cameras is MiniDV. Although the mini-cameras and tapes cost less than those of the other DV formats, the image quality is the same.
Unlike the VHS, S-VHS, and Hi-8 formats that store video in an analog format, DV cameras store video as a computer file on a tape cassette. Because the video already exists as a file, it's easy to transfer it from the camera to your PC via an IEEE-1394 interface (also known as "FireWire" and "I.Link"). This interface is standard on the latest Macintoshes, and you can purchase FireWire interface cards for PCs. In addition to supporting FireWire, DV camcorders also come with conventional audio and video jacks that can support older video equipment, including VCRs and televisions.
When you transfer DV from a camcorder to a computer, there's no loss in quality. By contrast, capturing analog video with an old camcorder, and then transferring it to a PC by way of a capture board for editing was an arcane process. Every time you converted the video, the quality deteriorated. DV is like a digital image or music file-you can copy it hundreds of time, and each copy will be top quality. Also, DV tapes don't degrade with each playback the way analog tapes do.
All DV camcorders come with LCD panels that you can use as viewfinders, or to watch your video play back. All offer convenient zooms. However, there's a clear difference between optical and digital zooms. An optical zoom is created by the optics or lenses in a camera, while a digital zoom is created by simply enlarging an image. The problem with a digital zoom is that it magnifies imperfections, and can ultimately display a picture's underlying pixels. It's much like viewing a picture in a newspaper through a powerful magnifying glass.
DV camcorders can also record still digital pictures, so a DV camcorder can serve as both a video and a digital camera. However, most of the sub-mega-pixel images recorded by DV camcorders are inferior to those captured by decent mega-pixel digital cameras. Unless you're planning to use the low-resolution digital images on Web pages, still pictures from a DV camcorder will have limited use.
DV camcorders come with initially impressive digital effects that you may apply to convert videos into black-and-white segments, add film-style transitions such as wipes, and apply sepia tones to give a video an old-time look. However, in practice, you're better off applying such filters while you're editing the video on a computer. The camcorder manufacturers may tout these features on consumer cameras, but I give them little importance.
For a host of reasons, DV camcorders are the way to work. The image quality is better than that from analog camcorders, and it's easier to get video from a DV camcorder onto a PC without any loss in quality. And once you get digital video into your computer, it's a simple matter to edit-it, apply special effects and transitions, incorporate it into PowerPoint presentations, burn it onto CD-ROM, or record it to video tape. If you're itching to shoot and edit that music video, or tell your story in a movie, the technology to do it can be right in the palm of your hand and sitting on your computer desk.
Digital Camcorders: The Clear Choice
