How to Buy a Digital Camcorder

High Definition or Standard Definition?

Most camcorder manufacturers now offer models that record in high definition; however, while these models capture gorgeous footage, using high-def comes with serious limitations. The camcorders themselves are significantly more expensive than standard-resolution camcorders, and not all video editing software will let you edit HD footage.

There's also the codec issue to think about: Many storage-based HD camcorders use AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) compression, which isn't compatible with all video editing programs. AVCHD requires higher-end editing suites, such as Pinnacle Studio Plus 12 or Adobe Premiere Elements 7. What's more, you'll need a more-powerful computer (ideally, a 2.66-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Core CPU at the bare minimum) to handle the editing process.

High-definition miniDV camcorders normally use the HDV format, which works with more video editing suites (including Windows Movie Maker HD and Apple iMovie). HDV also requires a powerful computer to decode files, but less so than AVCHD: A 2-GHz Intel Pentium CPU and 2GB of RAM should do the trick. Even a powerful computer, however, will take much more time--hours, not minutes--to render HDV or AVCHD files than standard-definition, DV-format files.

Also, even if your editing application does handle HD, you may not be able to output your movies to an easily viewable high-definition format--often, these editing apps let you burn only a standard-definition disc.