Guide to Photography

A DVD camcorder is a video camera that records video directly to a form of recordable DVD, so that it can be immediately played back on a DVD player. Since it is DVD compliant, it is suitable as a medium for recording and as a mode for final presentation. It is very user-friendly because most anyone knows how to playback a DVD (as opposed to miniDV).

The DVD camcorder uses mini 3-inch DVD-R and RW discs to keep the design of the camcorder small. The main disadvantage of this type of camcorder is that it only allows 30 minutes of video to be recorder per disc-- for a single sided disc. This makes it more expensive, compared to using miniDV tapes, in terms of cost per minute of video footage. The second disadvantage is that it is harder to edit because it is already recorded in its final format. It can be edited (surely), but it has to be converted and transferred, taking too much time and effort. In short, the DVD camcorder is for those who want to make home videos, do not care to edit them, and would want instant playback and archive of the video.