Media Summary

Choosing the right media for your needs is important. The media not only limits the camcorder's continuous recording time, it also determines its ease of use and flexibility. If you are still not sure which recording media is best for you, take a look at this table. It summarizes the key features of each media.

Recording Time

If you are looking for the longest-possible continuous recording time, then a HDD camcorder is the best solution for you. Depending on its capacity and recording bit rate, it can last for 4 to 11 hours, or even more. Its actual recording time would therefore depend on its battery life, rather than its storage capacity.

Flash- and MiniDV-based camcorders offer a reasonably good recording time of about an hour or so, even when recording high-definition videos. DVD camcorders, on the other hand, have pretty abysmal recording times although their recorded discs are instantly playable in any DVD player.

Video Quality

We will be touching on video quality in the next section, but for now, it's sufficient to know that MiniDV camcorders still offer the best possible video quality. Do note that it does not mean that the other types of camcorders produce bad video quality. It's just that their compressed video quality still cannot match that of old-fashioned MiniDV tape.

Capacity

This refers to maximum possible capacity. HDD camcorders have a large initial capacity, but their hard drives are not removable or upgradable. In constrast, the other camcorders have removable media that can be continuously swapped for virtually unlimited recording time.

Random Access

Random access also implies the ability to save and manage video clips as files. Videos stored as files are easy to manage. You can quickly move video clips in and out of the media at maximum speed. The random access ability allows you to play the video clips at any point you want, virtually instantly.

MiniDV camcorders do NOT support random access. Therefore, if you want to play a video at a certain point, you have to rewind or forward the tape. In addition, it doesn't store the video as individual files, so you have to extract it as a continuous video stream in real time. That means offloading the recorded video will take as long as the actual recording - one hour for one hour of recording.

Robustness

This attribute refers to the media itself, and not the camcorder. Of the four types of media, flash memory cards are the most rugged. The media and its recorder are both solid-state, so vibration and shock will not affect it. MiniDV tape and DVD are pretty robust too although they have mechanical recording mechanisms with moving parts.

Without a doubt, the hard drive is the least robust media of the lot. With drive heads floating over a platter spinning at extremely high speed (usually 3600 RPM), it is relatively susceptible to vibration and shock. Current generation 1.8" drives are rubber-damped and can withstand shocks of up to 1500G with some form of G shock protection, but they still cannot match the robustness of the other media.

Maintenance

MiniDV camcorders are the only ones that require some form of maintenance - cleaning of the tape head. Without regular cleaning, the tape material can muck up the head and cause recording problems. If you buy a MiniDV camcorder, be sure to clean it regularly. The other media, in contrast, do not require any form of maintenance.

Cost

MiniDV camcorders are the cheapest, and MiniDV tapes are the cheapest media you can buy. Plus, you can reuse them quite a number of times, so they offer really great value. Flash memory cards and DVDs are expensive. Flash memory cards have a higher upfront cost but they last a long time. HDD camcorders cost the most upfront, but they save you money in the long run because you do not need to spend money buying media that the other camcorders require.