A camcorder ( video cam era re corder ) is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage. Marketing materials may present a video recording device as a camcorder , but the delivery package would identify content as video camera recorder .
In order to differentiate a camcorder from other devices that are capable of recording video, like cell phones and compact digital cameras, a camcorder is generally identified as a portable device having video capture and recording as its primary function.
The earliest camcorders employed analog recording onto videotape. Since the 1990s digital recording has become the norm, but tape remained the primary recording media. Starting from early 2000s tape as storage media is being gradually replaced with tapeless solutions like optical disks, hard disk drives and flash memory.
All tape-based camcorders use removable media in form of video cassettes. Camcorders that do not use magnetic tape are often called tapeless camcorders and may use optical discs (removable), solid-state flash memory (removable or built-in) or a hard disk drive (removable or built-in).
Camcorders that permit using more than one type of media, like built-in hard disk drive and memory card, are often called hybrid camcorders .
History
Video cameras originally designed for television broadcast were large and heavy, mounted on special pedestals, and wired to remote recorders located in separate rooms.
As technology advanced, out-of-studio video recording was made possible by means of compact video cameras and portable video recorders. The recording unit could be detached from the camera and carried to a shooting location. While the camera itself could be quite compact, the fact that a separate recorder had to be carried along made on-location shooting a two-man job. Specialized video cassette recorders were introduced by both JVC (VHS) and Sony (Umatic & Betamax) to be used for mobile work. The advent of the portable recorders helped to eliminate the phrase "film at eleven" — rather than wait for the lengthy process of film developing, recorded video could be shown during the 6 o'clock news.
In 1982 Sony released the Betacam system. A part of this system was a single camera-recorder unit, which eliminated the cable between camera and recorder and dramatically improved the freedom of a cameraman. Betacam quickly became the standard for both news-gathering and in-studio video editing.
In 1983 Sony released the first consumer camcorder - the Betamovie BMC-100P. It used a Betamax cassette and could not be held with one hand, so it was typically resting on a shoulder. In the same year JVC released the first camcorder based on VHS-C format. In 1985 Sony came up with its own compact video cassette format — Video8. Both formats had their benefits and drawbacks, and neither won the format war.
In 1985, Panasonic, RCA, and Hitachi began producing camcorders that recorded to full-sized VHS cassette and offered up to 3 hours of record time. These shoulder mount camcorders found a niche with videophiles, industrial videographers, and college TV studios. Super VHS full-sized camcorders were released in 1987 which exceeded broadcast quality and provided an inexpensive way to collect news segments or videographies.
In 1986 Sony introduced the first digital video format, D1. Video was recorded in uncompressed form and required enormous bandwidth for its time. In 1992 Ampex used D1 form-factor to create DCT, the first digital video format that utilized data compression. The compression utilized discrete cosine transform algorithm, which is used in most modern commercial digital video formats.
In 1995 Sony, JVC, Panasonic and other video camera manufacturers launched DV. Its variant using a smaller MiniDV cassette quickly became a de-facto standard for home and semi-professional video production, for independent filmmaking and for citizen journalism.
In 2000 Panasonic launched DVCPRO HD, expanding DV codec to support high definition. The format was intended for use in professional camcorders and used full-size DVCPRO cassettes. In 2003 Sony, JVC, Canon and Sharp introduced HDV, the first truly affordable high definition video format, which used inexpensive MiniDV cassettes.
In 2003 Sony pioneered XDCAM, the first tapeless video format, which uses Professional Disc as recording media. Panasonic followed next year, offering P2 solid state memory cards as recording medium for DVCPRO HD video.
In 2006 Panasonic and Sony introduced AVCHD as an inexpensive consumer-grade tapeless high definition video format. Presently AVCHD camcorders are manufactured by Sony, Panasonic, Canon, JVC and Hitachi.
In 2007 Sony introduced XDCAM EX, which offers similar recording modes to XDCAM HD, but records on SxS memory cards.
With proliferation of file-based digital formats the relationship between recording media and recording format became weaker than ever: the same video can be recorded onto different media. With tapeless formats, recording media has become a storage device for digital files, signifying convergence of video and computer industries.
Overview
Camcorders contain 3 major components: lens , imager , and recorder . The lens gathers and focuses light on the imager. The imager (usually a CCD or CMOS sensor on modern camcorders; earlier examples often used vidicon tubes) converts incident light into an electrical signal. Finally, the recorder converts the electric signal into digital video and encodes it into a storable form. More commonly, the optics and imager are referred to as the camera section.
Lens
The lens is the first component in the light path. The camcorder's optics generally have one or more of the following adjustments:
- aperture or iris to regulate the exposure and to control depth of field;
- zoom to control the focal length and angle of view;
- shutter speed to regulate the exposure and to maintain desired motion portrayal;
- gain to amplify signal strength in low-light conditions;
- neutral density filter to regulate the exposure.
In consumer units, the above adjustments are often automatically controlled by the camcorder's electronics, but can be adjusted manually if desired. Professional units offer direct user control of all major optical functions.
Imager
The imager converts light into electric signal. The camera lens projects an image onto the imager surface, exposing the photosensitive array to light. The light exposure is converted into electrical charge. At the end of the timed exposure, the imager converts the accumulated charge into a continuous analog voltage at the imager's output terminals. After scan-out is complete, the photosites are reset to start the exposure-process for the next video frame.
CCD chips will generally see better in low light conditions because of the CCD's nature of capturing more light in the infrared range, but will severely lack in the human visibility spectrum, thus sacrificing color, on the other hand CMOS imagers do not have great low light capability but will capture the visible spectrum better and thus displaying color properly.Recorder
The third section, the recorder , is responsible for writing the video-signal onto a recording medium (such as magnetic videotape.) The record function involves many signal-processing steps, and historically, the recording-process introduced some distortion and noise into the stored video, such that playback of the stored-signal may not retain the same characteristics/detail as the live video feed.
All but the most primitive camcorders imaginable also need to have a recorder-controlling section which allows the user to control the camcorder, switch the recorder into playback mode for reviewing the recorded footage and an image control section which controls exposure, focus and white-balance.
The image recorded need not be limited to what appeared in the viewfinder. For documentation of events, such as used by police, the field of view overlays such things as the time and date of the recording along the top and bottom of the image. Such things as the police car or constable to which the recorder has been allotted may also appear; also the speed of the car at the time of recording. Compass direction at time of recording and geographical coordinates may also be possible. These are not kept to world-standard fields; "month/day/year" may be seen, as well as "day/month/year", besides the ISO standard "year-month-day". And the Danish police have the speed of the police car in the units "km/t" sic ( time being Danish for "hour").
Consumer camcorders
Analog vs. digital
Camcorders are often classified by their storage device: VHS, VHS-C, Betamax, Video8 are examples of older, videotape-based camcorders which record video in analog form. Newer camcorders include Digital8, MiniDV, DVD, Hard Disk and solid-state (flash) semicon
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