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Buyers' Guide to Digital Camcorders

A big LCD screen and plenty of features justify a higher price, but overall size and ease of use are critical.

Richard Baguley

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Panasonic PV-DV702 MiniDV (0.68MP, 10X Optical, 700X Digital, 3.5

Sony DCR-IP5 DV Camcorder (Sony-DCRIP5)

Canon Elura 40MC

Canon Elura 40MCEver since home movie cameras were invented, people have been pointing them at one another and asking family and friends to do something amusing. And right from the start, people have been bored silly watching movies of others not doing anything amusing. Fortunately, the latest digital video camcorders and video editing software make shooting and editing a movie as simple as using a word processor, so it's easy to cut out the boring stuff and just show the priceless part where Uncle Bob trips over the cat and falls into the swimming pool. For more details on video editing apps, see our March 2002 review "Must-See DV." For our look at DVD authoring programs, see the June 2002 story "Author Author."

Digital camcorders still use videotape (most use a format called MiniDV), but some can also store video on memory cards. Camcorders that store video exclusively on memory cards are now available, as well: Panasonic recently launched the SV-AV10, which can record up to 30 minutes of video to a Secure Digital memory card. However, this camera records video at a much lower resolution than a MiniDV camcorder does and highly compresses it, so memory cards won't start supplanting videotapes as the most convenient way to record video anytime soon.

PC World Spotlight on Digital Camcorders (chart)

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