DV Stars: Hello, Hollywood!

For those who want value more than features, Sony's $450 DCR-HC20 (right) is a light, uncluttered camcorder that provides you with the basics (like a decent zoom lens and a comfortable hand grip) and is extremely easy to use. For people who want better-looking video and more control, and who don't mind paying more, Panasonic's $950 PV-DV953 (left) provides excellent video quality, long battery life, and a set of advanced features to make shooting video easier.

There's a new generation of camcorders in town. Instead of recording on videotape, these camcorders store video on SD flash memory cards. However, our experience with two of these pricey newcomers showed that the age of videotape isn't over yet.

We informally tested two camcorders that store video on SD cards: the $800 Fisher FVD-C1 Pocket CameraCorder and the $700 Panasonic SV-AV100. Both come with a 512MB SD card that can hold up to an hour of video and are smaller than any of the videotape counterparts we reviewed, measuring just over 1 inch thick, 4 inches high, and 3 inches wide, and weighing around 6 ounces.

In our trials, both the FVD-C1 and the SV-AV100 produced reasonably good video, but neither model's output was nearly as good as the video produced by even the cheapest tape camcorder. Compression artifacts produced blocky, occasionally jerky video. SD media cards aren't cheap, either. Expect to pay around $200 for an extra 512MB SD card; by comparison, a MiniDV tape that holds 90 minutes of video costs around $10. So while tapeless camcorders are certainly interesting devices, tape-based camcorders still triumph on both video quality and cost.

The world's gone mad for things that multitask--motor oils that lubricate and protect, shampoos that clean and condition, even refrigerators that let you surf the Web. Many such products are mediocre at one task or the other; for example, camcorders usually take poor still images. However, newer camcorders from Panasonic and Samsung take surprisingly good shots. Panasonic's PV-DV953 uses three CCDs to capture both video and 3-megapixel still images; Samsung's SCD5000 uses a 0.68-megapixel CCD for video and a separate 4.1-megapixel CCD for stills. Another bright spot: The PV-DV953's 10X zoom lens lets you take phenomenal close-ups. Plus, the Panasonic's 3.5-inch LCD dwarfs that of any digicam.

Overall, though, even these models don't perform as well as comparable digital still cameras. The Panasonic's shots were fairly sharp, but colors were a bit off. The Samsung's shots had better color and were sharper. But neither camcorder's images stacked up to those of the 3.2-megapixel Nikon Coolpix 3700 (a Best Buy last month).

Both of these camcorders are big and heavy, and they relegate photo functions to secondary buttons and hard-to-locate menus. To take a photo with the PV-DV953, you have to switch to camera mode and press a tiny button on the top of the body. With the SCD5000, you must rotate a portion of the camcorder's body 180 degrees to put it into still-image mode.

In a pinch, photo capabilities are nice to have in a camcorder, but it's still best to keep the pudding away from the peas--and separate your picture taking from your video recording.

Want more information about shooting digital video, editing your movies, and recording your videos onto DVD? Here are some helpful articles on PCWorld.com:

• Convert Your Videotapes to DVD
• Fast-Lane DVD Burning
• Good-Bye, VHS; Hello, DVD
• Put It On DVD