Introduction: Why you should know how a camcorder works

When making purchasing decisions and during the production process, even an amateur video producer can benefit from a birds-eye understanding of some basic technologies used in camcorders. You can buy a low-end digital camcorder for about $500, but it will not be adequate for achieving the type of visual quality achieved (I presume) in Steven Soderbergh’s new motion picture “Full Frontal”, which was shot with Canon XL1S miniDV camcorders ($5,000 each). In turn, the Canon XL1S would not be adequate to achieve the visual quality desired by George Lucas (picture above) for “Star Wars - Episode II”, which he shot not with film cameras but with Sony HDW-F900 digital camcorders (picture above) that cost $130,000 each. What are the technical differences between a $500 camcorder, a $5,000 camcorder, and a $130,000  camcorder? And what are the differences in the quality of the outputs? Even if you can only afford the $500 camcorder, the answers to these questions will help you choose a camcorder and produce better video.

How a Camcorder Creates a Motion Picture:
From $500 to $130,000

The video portion of a camcorder has to do three basic things. First, the optical system has to feed an image into a light-sensitive detector. Second, the detector has to feed the electrical signals it generates to a recording device. Third, the recording device has to translate the electrical signal into a permanent stored signal on a recording medium. The audio portion of a camcorder goes through similar gymnastics starting with one or more microphones. I will first discuss the video portion in some detail.

Optical System

UNDER CONSTRUCTION HERE

Detection System

UNDER CONSTRUCTION HERE