Everyone wants to be in the movies. With the present crop of digital video camcorders anyone could be a Hollywood director without a big budget. Video quality from top-end digital camcorders is so good it is considered near-broadcast quality. With the compact size of many of these new devices and enhanced still photography features, you no longer need to carry two cameras on your holidays.
One of the fastest-changing areas in digital video is storage. Although most of the camcorders reviewed here use the widely available MiniDV tapes, three use other storage types.
The Sony DCR-DVD201 records to an 8cm DVD disc that can be played in most computer DVD drives and DVD players which support the DVD+RW format, while the diminutive JVC Everio records to hard disk.
Everio probably represents the future of camcorders. Hard disk storage will change the shape of camcorders, just as it revolutionised portable devices such as digital audio and video players and mobile phones.
Sony DCR-DVD201 camcorders that record to DVD discs, such as the Sony DCR-DVD201, are not popular in Hong Kong because they are bulky compared with mini-DV cameras. However, the devices are popular with some users who are not familiar with PCs and video-editing software.
Sony has two DVD camcorders: the DVD201 and the DVD101.
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