Digital camcorders are now a mature market, with around half of today's models filming in high definition, recording onto hardware that comes straight from the world of computers, like memory cards or hard drives.  Users have benefited from both better quality and wider compatibility.

Now that digital cameras and mobile phones also shoot video (sometimes in excellent quality), it's reasonable to hesitate before buying a camera that will 'only' shoot video.  Up against the competition, though, camcorders have still got some serious strengths.  They can produce better quality HD video by recording in file formats that use less compression (MPEG-2), extra settings, a powerful optical zoom, and, in many cases, a hard drive that can capture several hours of video.  Prices range from £250 for a simple camcorder that only shoots in standard definition (576 lines) to well over £1000 for one that can produce Full HD video (1080 pixels).

Choosing a format

That doesn't make choosing the right camcorder simple, though.  There are a multitude of different file formats and ways of recording video that affect any product's multimedia potential.  If you go for the Sanyo Xacti HD2000, for instance, you'll get 1080p video on a memory card.  That's perfect for playing back your content on a Full HD TV, but much less suitable for film-making, as the MPEG-4 stream is much more difficult to handle using editing software.

On the other hand, the Canon HV20 records its video in HDV, a format that's perfect for editing, but records on mini DV tapes, something of an endangered species.  Before you make your purchase, then, the question you should be asking is: what do I want to do with the video I record?

That leaves the question of how easy it is to use a camcorder.  Do you want to hold it horizontally or vertically?  Most horizontal models have a rotating LCD screen, but viewfinders are increasingly rare.  Vertical models, although currently in the minority, are developing fast.  They're very small and are held either like a mobile phone (Creative Vado HD) or a pistol (Sanyo Xacti) … and slide very easily into your pocket.