Understanding Advanced Camcorder Features

Your coffee table can look like a branch of Currys; fortuitously some brands’ remote can control a range of equiment.

Hard Disc Drive (HDD)

Although usually associated with computers, some camcorders also feature hard disc drivers(HDDs) as their method of recording video. The benefit of hard disc is a larger capacity enabling greater amounts of video and still images to be saved which can then be archived or edited ( in – camcorder sometimes ) before tranferring to a blank DVD for off cameras storage. Some camcorders offer both DVD or Blu -ray disc and HDD recording in one Unit, so you never need to use a PC or DVD recorder to Transfer material from your camcorder to a permanent home !

Fader

A feature used for professional looking transitions between filming scenes. Press the button and your image and sound fade down to a plain color and silence; press it again and both sound and image will bit by bit come back to normal.

HDTV

An acronym for High Definition Tevevision. It has up to twice the vertical and horizontal picture resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) of analogue or standard definition TV. HDTV has widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9.

HDV

A high definitiom recording format used for MiniDV (tape) camcorders.

High – speed Dubbing

A Feature that  gives you the ability to transfer subject area from HDD to DVD very fast. For example, one hour of content can be tranferred from HDD to DVD in under a minute !

Intelligent Accessory Shoe

This just means that thecamcorder and accessories can understand each other, they can also use more advanced functions, such as turning off a light or microphone when not recording

PAL

Phase Alternate Line : a commonly used colour TV system and is the standard for all TV and video equipment used in the UK. The PAL System uses 625 lines to make up a video or TV picture And Scans at 50Hz PAL video equipment is usually only cmpatible with PAL software and TV broadcast

Standard Definition

Not to be confused with secure digital (SD) memory cards is the traditional format used for analogue TV and video .It’s made up of 576 horizontal line across the screen, or 720×576 pixels.

Time Code

An automatic numbering reference system on video to help you edit sound and pictures more acurately.

USB Streaming

A method for using a camcorder as a webcam for streaming live footage over the internet. USB streaming requires suitable software and a USB streaming – enabled camcorder.