Camcorders: 10 things you might not know

In the past camcorders all used analog videotape

In the 90’s recording onto digital tape became the norm. Currently tape as storage media is being gradually replaced with tape-free solutions like optical disks, hard disk drives and solid-state memory which are also called tapeless camcorders. 

A camcorder is built on three major parts

The lens, imager and recorder. The lens makes sure there is light on the imager, which is currently most of the time a chip (CCD or CMOS) that converts the light to an electrical signal. The recorder stores the signal. 

If you can, go for camcorders with three chips

A camcorder with one senses all the colors on one chip. This makes the image a bit fuzzy, but it’s small, light, cheap, and very sensitive in dim light. Better are three-chip camera’s. The light splits into three primary colors and one chip is totally dedicated to each color. Here, the colors stay sharp and pure; luminance resolution is excellent. They are more expensive however. 

Some camcorders can see tru clothing

Camcorders that are able to make use of infrared light can see tru some clothing. Best known for this are Sony camcorders that make use of the Nightshot technology.

Camcorders are not about Megapixels

Digital photo camera’s are. For video a Megapixel means nothing, if you are looking for the best quality for your camcorder then look for the size of the chip inside the camcorder (the CCD).

Megapixels do help when you want to use your camcorder to make also still pictures

This is like a digital photo camera, the higher the Megapixel rate, the better still pictures. 

If you get yourself a HD camcorder, then be sure it has HDMI

This way you can connect it trough HDMI on your HDTV which is the most convenient way to connect your HD camcorder to your HDTV. In fact the edit software of most HD camcorders is still so hard to use, that you rather want to playback content directly from the camcorder to the TV.

About 10 minutes of HD video quality takes up about 1 GB of storage.

Be sure to buy flash cards with enough capacity if you use that format for recording your favorite footage.

If you combine your camcorder with your Instant Messaging Software, you have a video phone, a webcam, or video conversation tool.

What ever you name it, you can use your expensive camcorder as the best webcam ever!

Most people with a camcorder are not using it anyway

If you are up for some investigating and spending then be sure to first think what you would like to do with your camcorder as most camcorders are currently gathering dust on a closet shelf. Also think who you are going to bore with all your videos, or are you going to follow a course and learn how to shoot the next Titanic?