Planning to buy a mini DVD camcorder? You are not alone, is a rapidly growing sector of the camcorder market, with Hitachi, Sony and Panasonic all making more than a mini DVD camcorder.
These mini DVD cameras differ from regular digital video camcorders in one important way – that record video to mini DVD discs, rather than DV tape. This has a number of advantages. DVD discs are more robust than tape, and not get chewed by your camcorder. Although this is thankfully a rare occurrence, it scares me every time I hear a strange noise coming from my camcorder.
The next advantage is that DVD discs are random access, compared with the tape on which everything is recorded sequentially. This means that there is no need to rewind and fast forward to find the clip you’re after, you can just select from the menu. Some cameras also allow you to perform basic editing functions of the camera. On one side-benefit is that a mini DVD camcorder has no tape heads to get worn or dirty, as in the conventional mini-DVD cameras.
Moreover, you can easily watch your movies by just removing the DVD from the camera and play on virtually any DVD player.
However, there are few negative factors. The most significant is that the video is encoded in MPEG-2 on a mini DVD camcorder, compared to the DV format. That means that the needs of specialized software for editing – you can not use video editing regularly (unless it specifically supports MPEG-2). And if a Mac user you’re out of luck, since there is MPEG-2 editing applications for the Mac
Addition, mini DVD camcorders tend to cost more than similarly specified mini DV cameras. And the media is also quite more expensive. However, if you won’t your movies and do not mind the extra cost, a Mini DVD camcorder can offer an exceptional comfort.
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