Digital Video Cameras, the mini DVC and other DVC formats capture and write both the video and the audio in the way the computer can see the footage. It does not have to be re-encoded or re-written this enables the computer to work with the images and sounds without looseing information.
Regular Video is called analogue and is recorded on video tape in the format called NTSC. This is what every home television and vcr uses.
This way of recording video is being replaced by the various digital formats because, the video is so subject to looseing quality. The way the quality is lost is through a number of different ways.
1. Every electomagnet in your home will affect the tape when they come close to it. This does not subtract anything but rather adds interference to the tape making the picture quality a little less each time it happens.
2. The sun itself is sending us radiation of different types all of the time. That radiation will pass thru the tape and over time cause more interference to be added to your tape.
3. Heat, Dust, Humidity all are hard on video tapes and each of them will degrade your tape.
4. Finally the surface of the tape itself is a iron oxide or related magnetic coating. This coating will wear off over time and again your picture will loose quality. Pieces of the emulsion which hold the oxide to the tape will start to fall off. Humidity is one of the primary problems when tapes start to degrade in this manner.
The industry is making major changes in the recording and storage of video and audio.
CD and DVD disks are the best example of the new technology. The CD and DVD is in my opinion on of the best ways to store this infromation today. None of the problems we have with tape apply to them. They are compact and easily stored.
CD's and DVD disk can and do record exactly the same kind of information - what you can put on one you can put on the other. The difference is CD's hold a half-hour of video, and DVD disks hold two-hours of video.
This is my opinion as a professional camera man of the differences in video cameras.
You can give me the least expensive DVC camera and 80% of the time, I can produce video that is every bit as good as the most expensive professional video camera.
1. the digital format is basicly the same from camera to camera and brand to brand.
2. The difference in cameras becomes a matter of:
...a. CCD chip size - The size of the CCD is all important the bigger the chip the better the picture. You will see little difference when you look at the video - however when you print or capture a still picture the difference in picture quality is easy to see, the 1/2 is better than the 1/3
...b. Lens, The lens is all important. A glass lens, such as the CANNON XL-1 uses and the professional cameras, capture a much better picture. Remember video and all photographic mediums are recording the light, and the better the lens collects and focuses the light the better the picture
