Several types of digital video cameras are available for budding filmmakers.
While professional studio cameras can cost more than $100,000, there are many digital video cameras--including some with professional features such as interchangeable lenses--available for the mass market. Digital video produces sharper images than the analog cameras of the past. Digital video cameras record onto a variety of media, including DVD discs, solid-state memory sticks (or flash cards) and Digital Video (DV) tapes. Cameras recording directly to memory sticks allow for the fastest and simplest transfer of video footage to a computer for editing.
DVD Video Cameras
Digital video cameras that record directly to DVD are a convenient option for users who want to create images for personal use. The typical user is someone who uses the camcorder to record family events. You can record directly to a DVD in the camera and can even use the camera as a DVD playback machine by connecting it to your television to view your images. The biggest drawback of using a DVD video camera is that editing your footage is difficult. Your footage needs to be extracted from the DVD using software that you may have to source for yourself, so that you can edit it using computer-based editing programs.
DV Tape Cameras
Cameras recording to mini DV tapes can be found at the low consumer end of the market and also at the professional level. Cameras such as Canon's XL2 are still used by news-gathering cameramen, even though they don't record images in high definition. DV tape is a popular medium for video camera recording, as the tapes are small, inexpensive and can hold 60 minutes of recorded material at standard recording speed. In "long play" mode, they can hold twice that amount of recorded material, although image quality is not as high as it is in "standard mode" recordings. Most editing software will capture video footage directly from the mini DV tape. You can edit the footage easily and don't need to convert it into a different format, as is the case with DVD-based video cameras.
HDV Cameras
High-definition digital video (HDV) ensures sharper images than standard digital video recordings. Some HDV cameras, such as the Sony HDR FX1E, record HDV images to standard Mini DV tapes, which are readily available and inexpensive. HDV cameras record sharper images because they use more pixels to create the video images that they process. A camera recording standard-definition video images creates the images in a frame of 720 horizontal pixels by 480 vertical pixels. The same video image recorded on an HDV camera would create the images in frames of 1440 horizontal pixels by 1080 vertical pixels. More pixels mean that more information is recorded, giving a sharper image. The disadvantages of HDV cameras are the fact that they cost more to buy than standard DV cameras, and you need a more powerful computer to edit HDV footage because it contains so much more data per frame.
Solid-State Cameras
Many cameras record to solid-state media, such as flash cards and memory sticks. A major advantage of using solid-state media is that you can transfer data directly to your computer by utilizing a card reader. This is much quicker than capturing video from tape, which can only be done in real time, meaning one hour of data on a tape takes one hour to capture to your computer. Your computer may also take extra time rendering video images and conforming audio to the standard of the editing software you are using for capture. Some solid-state cameras record video footage in a proprietary standard, which needs to be converted to a more common standard, such as MPEG-2, for viewing and editing. For example, Canon cameras save their video files with a .mod extension, which need to be converted for editing and viewing.
Tags: cameras record, digital video, memory sticks, sharper images, video footage, video images
