Digital Camcorders

Camcorders and DVD: all it's cracked up to be?

It was a simple dream: the ability to record video to a disc, slide it in your DVD player to share, slip it in your PC to edit, and throw it in the mail to friends and relatives. But after several generations of camcorders--and disappointments--we're finally a bit closer to attaining it.

By Denny Atkin and Lori Grunin (June 23, 2004; updated May 19, 2006)

If there's a Holy Grail of technology, it has to be transparency: the seamless, idiotproof ability to do everything you want with the hardware at hand, without having to think about how--it just happens. For camcorders, transparency translates into recordings that you can play, edit, and share without needing to worry about media types, file formats, compression algorithms, hardware compatibility, and other geek esoterica. DVD disc technology initially lured us with its promise of delivering transparent joy. If current products are any indication, some bright spots have appeared in an otherwise disappointing market.

The boulevard of broken dreams
To be fair, some of our gripes with these products stem only partly from suboptimal execution by the manufacturers. For instance, the MPEG-2 compression used by these models seems to need the extra pixels provided by higher-resolution sensors. As a result, the cheap models deliver pretty poor video. All the models have faster bootup time, but you still have to finalize discs to play them in a deck. Finally, optical recording media has one critical flaw in a camcorder: if any data becomes damaged, the entire disc becomes unreadable. Little Johnny's soccer triumph is gone for good.

So for this generation of camcorders, our verdict on DVD changes only a bit: we're past the quality hurdles, but many issues still remain. Those issues will soon include yet another new encoding format backed by Panasonic and Sony, AVCHD, designed to fit HD video onto one of these discs, which will compress the video even more than the current devices.

	Mini DVD-RAM	Mini DVD-R	Mini DVD-RW	Mini DVD+RW	MiniDV tape
		Sony DVD Handycam line
	Hitachi camcorders
	Panasonic VDR series
Approximate operating cost	19 to 28 cents per minute	2 to 4 cents per minute	5 to 17 cents per minute	3 to 8 cents per minute	11 to 26 cents per minute
Performance	Fair to good Moderately fast bootup; fast search for specific segments.				Fair Fast bootup; slow search for specific locations.
Media/hardware compatibility	Poor Fewer stand-alone players and PCs as time goes on	Good Most stand-alone DVD players and PCs	Fair Newer stand-alone players and PCs	Fair Newer stand-alone players and PCs	Poor Neither players nor PCs (only MiniDV decks)
Video quality	Poor to good Generally use proprietary MPEG-2 algorithms, which compress between and within frames. High-end models in the line generally have good quality, but the cheaper models don't.				Fair to good Uses standard DV format, which compresses only within frames
Software compatibility	Fair The compressed video doesn't survive the editing process very well.				Good Format universally supported by video-editing software
Summary
Main advantages	Random video access and editing; higher capacity	Cheapest; most compatible media	Good value and efficient use of space	Random video access and editing; good value and efficient use of space	Highest quality; broadest software support
Main disadvantages	Most expensive; least flexible	Waste lots of media space, which inflates operating cost	Requires temporary finalizing to play in some devices	Hard to find the media; requires temporary finalizing to play in some devices	Transfer to PC takes a long time

Read the CNET editor's take

Sony DCR-DVD505

Panasonic VDR-D300

Sony Handycam DCR-DVD405

Hitachi DZGX20A

Hitachi DZMV780A

Sony Handycam DCR-DVD203

Sony Handycam DCR-DVD403

	Sony DCR-DVD505 Full-featured but somewhat bulky, the Sony Handycam DCR-DVD505 DVD camcorder matches its MiniDV competitors in most areas, while offering the convenience of direct-to-disc recording. 7.5 out of 10 CNET editor's take Check prices
	Panasonic VDR-D300 Rivaling its MiniDV competitors in a variety of shooting conditions, the Panasonic VDR-D300 doesn't force you to compromise video quality for the convenience of shooting directly on DVD. 7.3 out of 10 CNET editor's take Check prices
	Sony Handycam DCR-DVD405 The Sony Handycam DCR-DVD405 is a solid DVD camcorder, as long as you don't mind fiddling with a touch-screen interface on a too-small display. 7.1 out of 10 CNET editor's take Check prices
	Hitachi DZGX20A The Hitachi DZGX20A is a reasonable contender for your first DVD camcorder. 6.9 out of 10 CNET editor's take Check prices
	Hitachi DZMV780A The Hitachi DZMV780A is a budget DVD camcorder that visibly compromises on video quality. 5.8 out of 10 CNET editor's take Check prices
	Sony Handycam DCR-DVD203 The Sony Handycam DCR-DVD203 is a solid performer with many of the features that impressed us in the more expensive DCR-DVD403. 7.3 out of 10 CNET editor's take Check prices
	Sony Handycam DCR-DVD403 The Sony Handycam DCR-DVD403 is the first DVD camcorder we've seen that doesn't force you to compromise on features or quality--much. 7.5 out of 10 CNET editor's take Check prices