Consumer Reports Camcorders

granular pipe, jumpy home movies of yesteryear are long gone - replaced by home movies shot on digital or analog camcorders. You can edit and enhance images with music using your computer and play them on your VCR, you can even send it by e-mail.

Digital camcorders, now the dominant type, generally offer very good image quality excellent, with very good sound capability, compactness and ease of handling. Make copies of a digital recording will not result in loss of picture quality or sound. You can even take pictures with rudimentary digital camcorders.

analog camcorders, now a small market, generally good picture and sound quality and are cheaper. Some analog units are about the most compact and easy to handle as digital models, while others are a bit bigger and bulkier.

What is available

Sony dominates the camcorder market, with several models in a number of formats. Other leading brands are Canon, JVC, Panasonic and Samsung.

Most models are digital MiniDV format. Formats such as disk-based DVD-RAM and DVD-R have also emerged. Some digital models weigh as little as a pound.

MiniDV. Do not let its small size fool you. Although some models can be slipped into a large pocket, MiniDV camcorders can record images of very high quality. They use a single cassette, and the typical recording time is 60 minutes to play standard (SP) speed. Expect to pay $ 6.50 for a cassette of 60 minutes. You will need to use the camcorder for playback - it converts its recording to an analog signal, so it can be read directly on a TV or VCR. If the TV or VCR has an input jack S-video, use it to obtain high image quality.

Price: $ 350 to over $ 2,000.

Digital 8. Also known as D8, this format offers a high quality digital Hi8 or 8mm tapes, which cost $ 6.50 and $ 3.50, respectively. Records Digital 8 format, with a faster band, so a "120 minutes" tape lasts only 60 minutes to SP. Most models can also play your old analog Hi8 or 8mm tapes.

Price: $ 350 to $ 800.

Disc-based. Capitalizing on the explosive growth and the capacity of DVD discs, formats offer advantages tape can not provide: the long-term, a compact support, and random access to scenes as a DVD. The 3 1/4-inch discs record standard MPEG-2, the same format used in commercial DVD videos. The amount of recording time varies depending on the quality level you choose: 20 minutes on each side to create the highest quality for DVD-RAM about 60 minutes on each side at the lowest level. DVD-RAM is not compatible with most DVD players, discs, but can be reused. DVD-R is intended to be compatible with most DVD players and computer DVD players, but the disks are write once. We paid about $ 25 at a local retailer for DVD-RW disc.

Price: $ 700 to $ 1,000.

Most analog camcorders now use the Hi8 format, VHS-C and Super VHS-C disappear from the market. blank tapes range in price from $ 3.50 to $ 6.50. Analog camcorders usually weigh around 2 pounds. The picture quality is generally good, but a notch below that of digital.

Price: $ 225 to $ 500.

IMPORTANT DETAILS

A flip-out liquid crystal display (LCD) viewer is becoming common on all camcorders, but the lowest price. You'll find it useful to review the images that you've done and easy to use than the viewfinder eyepiece to the shooting of certain poses. Some LCD viewers are hard to use in bright sunlight, a drawback of models that have only a spectator and not the eye.

Screens vary from 2 1 / 2 to 4 inches diagonally, with a larger screen a step-up feature on higher-priced models. Since a.