When buying a camcorder, you'll need to decide on a digital video recording media format. There are three popular types of digital video recording media: Mini DV tape, DVD, and hard disk.
Each medium has it's advantages and disadvantages. It's good to understand how each digital video recording medium performs before you select which one you'll use.
Mini DVD camcorders let you record directly onto a disk that can then be popped right into your DVD player for viewing. However, there are some drawbacks to this digital video recording medium.
Cost
Mini DVDs cost less than $1 apiece. Mini DVD-RW disks can be reused over and over, but other types of mini DVDs can only be used once. Different cameras accept different types of disks.
Recording Time
The amount of video stored on each disk depends on the quality setting you use for recording. Recording the highest quality video, you'll fit less than 30 minutes of footage on each disk.
Viewing
The big advantage of mini DVD camcorders is that the disks can immediately be played on most consumer DVD players. However, not all disks are compatible with all DVD players, so be sure to check for compatibility before purchasing a mini DVD camcorder.
Editing
Mini DVD camcorders record footage in MPEG-2 format, which is not ideal for editing. In fact, many editing softwares do not support MPEG-2.
Even if you do use an editing program that supports MPEG-2, the quality of the edited video will not be as good as edited footage shot in other digital formats, like mini DV or an internal hard disk.
Archiving
Mini DVDs are compact and easy to store, making them the ideal method for archiving video footage shot on mini DVD camcorders.
