While shopping for a camcorder you may come across the issue of choosing a format. Among the most popular formats you will find hard drive, Mini DV, flash memory, SD cards, DVD and Mini-DVD. Mini-DVD camcorders are popular because of their size, features and benefits, but the Mini-DVD camcorder also has a few disadvantages as well.
Features
A Mini-DVD camcorder is a video recording device that utilizes mini-DVD discs in order to capture the video. Users can either use a standard DVD-R disc that can be recorded once, or a DVD-RW disc that can be reused multiple times. Recording is always in sequential order, so you cannot record different sections to different parts of the Mini-DVD.
Size
The Mini-DVD is also known as an 8-cm DVD. This is a little more than half the size of a standard DVD that measures 12 cm. Mini-DVD discs play in most DVD players and computers except for players that feed the disc in instead of being placed on a loading tray.
Considerations
A standard Mini-DVD disc can only hold around 30 minutes of recording footage. This means you need to carry a lot of blank DVDs in order to record more footage, while a standard camcorder tape could hold triple the amount of footage. With the development of Blu-Ray DVD discs, Mini-DVD camcorders could quickly become replaced with a high-definition Blu-Ray model that can hold more video footage.
Export
Mini-DVD camcorders make watching the footage simple. Once you have recorded all of the material you want, you just need to finalize the disc in order to make it playable in a DVD player. Most Mini-DVD camcorders do not come with computer connections, but the disc can be placed in a computer drive in order to retrieve editable material.
Types
Sony is one of the leading manufactures of Mini-DVD camcorders. The Sony DCR-DVD810 allows users to record on DVD as well as on an internal hard drive. The DCR-DVD650 is the next model down and does not feature a hard drive, but it can record media on a Memory Stick as well as a DVD disc. Other popular Mini-DVD camcorder companies are Samsung, Panasonic and Canon.
Tags: Mini-DVD camcorders, hard drive, Mini-DVD camcorder, disc that
