DVD


DVD camcorder with 3 inch recordable DVD mounted on internal drive
 

Most people just love the DVD. You can buy movies on DVD for under $10 and DVD players are in most households. The DVD players are everywhere, even portable so you can take them on the go. So why not a DVD camcorder?

Hitachi introduced the first DVD camcorder in 2001 but since you want a camcorder to be lightweight and fit in the palm of your hand, the DVDs these camcorders use are smaller than the regular DVD. DVD camcorders use an 8cm (3 inch) recordable DVD. Standard DVD video discs are the larger 12cm (5 inch) size. Hitachi, Sony, Canon and Panasonic all make more than one model of Mini-DVD camcorder.

Most newer DVD players can play both mini DVD-R and mini DVD-RW discs. That means you can finalize a disc, pop it out of your camcorder and into your DVD player, and start watching it. You can also use the camcorder's A/V outputs to connect to your TV, VCR, or A/V receiver, and let the camcorder do the playback.

DVD camcorders are generally small and portable, and tend to share the same features and optics as most mid-priced Mini DV and Digital8 camcorders. DVD media doesn't degrade with repeated playback the way tapes do, and DVD-RW discs can be re-recorded 1,000 times.

DVD camcorders use USB 2.0 to send video to a PC. Since video files are large, you'll want to make sure you have enough space to store these files. Every five minutes of footage will use approximately one gigabyte of space. Once you've transferred video to your PC, you can edit it with compatible digital video editing software sometimes included with the camcorder. For easier titling and re-ordering of segments, try recording in DVD-VR mode (this mode requires use of a DVD-RW disc). It's worth noting, however, that frame-by-frame editing is difficult to achieve with a DVD camcorder as opposed to MiniDV because of the way the files are compressed.

DVD camcorders offer two advantages over DV tape models. First, you can access any scene on the disc almost instantaneously, rather than having to rewind or fast forward as you would with DV tape. In addition, you can easily finalize the disc and play it on most DVD players, making the camcorder-to-DVD player transition faster than with DV cameras.

On the downside, DVD camcorders use MPEG-2 compression to capture video footage—the same kind of compression used on Hollywood DVDs. Unlike Hollywood cameras however, DVD camcorders are limited to real-time, constant bit-rate encoding, commonly at 1 MB per second, as opposed to 3.6 MB per second for DV camcorders. The resulting quality is less than what you're used to on Hollywood DVDs and usually falls behind DV camcorders. This is most notable on higher-motion footage which is inherently harder to compress.

In addition, while you can import DV into virtually all video editors, the MPEG files produced by DVD camcorders are often incompatible with many consumer editors. Even compatible editors will likely perform more slowly when editing MPEG-2 than when editing DV, simply because MPEG-2 is more compressed and harder to decompress.

DVD camcorders differ from DV cameras in one important way - they record video onto mini DVD discs, rather than DV tape. DVD discs won't get tangled up in the camera transport. DVD discs are random access, compared to tape on which everything is recorded sequentially. This means there's no need to rewind and fast forward to find the scene you want, just select it from the menu. Some cameras even allow you to perform basic editing functions in-camera.

  Compare 8cm DVD with MiniDV tape format

	DV	DVD
Recorded format	Digital	Digital
Media	6.35mm metal-oxide tape	8cm optical disc
Recording capacity1	60 min (SP) 90 min (LP) 80 min (SP) 120 min (LP)	30 min (SP) / 1.4GB 60 min (LP) / 1.4GB
Resolution NTSC/PAL	720x480 720x576	720x480 720x576
Video compression method	DV	MPEG-2
Compression2	intra-frame DCT	inter-frame
Audio compression method	DV	MPEG-2 AC-3
DVD Player compatibility	Copy required	Excellent
How CPU intensive	High	Very High
Quality	Excellent	Excellent
Scene access	Sequential	Direct

1 - Dual layer 8cm discs give almost double the standard recording time but your DVD camcorder must be dual layer capable.

2 - MPEG2 compression discards video information that's repeated between successive video frames while DV operates on each individual frame.

Advantages of DVD camcorders

• DVD-Rs can be played in home DVD players.
• Easy searching and random access to video segments.
• Convenient and stable format for archiving.
• Selectable image-quality levels, including high-quality variable-bit-rate recording.
• Both video and still images are recorded on disc 
 (instead of on a cassette and a memory card)

Disadvantages of DVD camcorders

• Relatively short recording times at highest-quality modes and unpredictable recording times with variable bit rate.
• Less support by advanced video-editing and effects software than for DV format.

Sony DCR-DVD7
The design of the Sony DCR-DVD7 camcorder offers a brand new shooting style for camcorders. All the convenience of DVD recording has been combined with modern styling in the futuristic Sony Handycam, supporting DVD-R/-RW/+RW compatible formats for shooting and playing back.

The Sony DCR-DVD7 camcorder launched in May 2005. In a departure from normal styling, the Sony camcorder features a 2.5-inch Hybrid LCD monitor on the back face of its round body. This serves as the primary monitoring, framing and playback display for the camcorder. The camcorder is capable of recording directly to DVD discs. Formats supported by the Handycam are DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW for direct recording and DVD-RW and DVD+RW for rewriting. The 8cm DVD Discs used by the Handycam range can be played back on most consumer DVD players. To view images recorded on DVD+RW on DVD players, without proceeding with the finalization session, images need to be recorded for more than 8 minutes with SP recording mode. 

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• Which Camcorder Should I Buy?

• Digital Camcorders - Digital8

• Digital Camcorders - MiniDV

• MicroMV, solid state memory cards

• Digital Camcorders - DVD

• High-Definition Camcorders

• Digital Camcorders - Hard Disk Drive (HDD)