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Handycam or Camcorder

A Handycam is a portable electronic device (generally a digital camera) for recording video images and audio onto a storage device. The camcorder contains both camera and recorder in one unit, hence its portmanteau name. This compares to previous technology where they would be separate.

History

Video cameras were originally designed for broadcasting television images--see television camera. Cameras found in television broadcast centers were extremely large, mounted on special trolleys, and wired to remote recorders located in separate rooms. As technology advanced, miniaturization eventually enabled the construction of portable video-cameras and portable video-recorders.

Prior to the introduction of the camcorder, portable video-recording required two separate devices: a video-camera and a VCR. Specialized models of both the camera and VCR were used for mobile work. The portable VCR consisted of the cassette player/recorder unit, and a television tuner unit. The cassette unit could be detached and carried with the user for video recording. While the camera itself could be quite compact, the fact that a separate VCR had to be carried made on-location shooting a two-person job.

In 1983, Sony introduced the first camcorder, followed by Kodak in 1984. The first camcorders combined the video-camera with an existing full-size VHS/Betamax recorder. These camcorders were large devices that required a sturdy tripod or strong shoulders to stably support the camera's bulk. (Most camcorders were designed for right-handed operation, though a few possessed ambidextrous ergonomics.)

Within a few short years, manufacturers introduced two new tape formats tailored to the application of portable-video: the VHS-C format and the competing 8mm. VHS-C was essentially VHS with a reduced-size cassette. The VHS-C cassette held enough tape to record 30 minutes of VHS video, while a mechanical adapter enabled playback of VHS-C videocassettes in standard (full-size) VHS VCRs. VHS-C allowed manufacturers to reduce the weight and size of VHS-derived camcorders, although at the expense of recording time.

A year later Sony introduced the first HandyCam camcorder. The HandyCam could be held and operated entirely within the palm of the operator's hand, made possible by the 8mm video format. 8mm video used a tape whose width is 33% less than VHS/Betamax tape (~12.7mm), allowing even further miniaturization in the recorder's tape-transport assembly and cassette media. were even smaller than VHS-C cassettes.

8mm video represented a trade-off for the consumer. On the plus side, the 8mm camcorder generally produced higher quality recordings than a VHS/VHS-C camcorder, and the standard 8mm cassette could record up to two hours. On the down side, since the 8mm format was incompatible with VHS, 8mm recordings could not be played in VHS VCRs. In most cases, viewers would connect the camcorder to their home VCR, and copy their recordings on to a VHS tape.

The complete dominance of VHS among TV-timeshifters and rental-audiences guaranteed VHS-C an uneasy coexistence alongside 8mm. Serious amateur-videographers preferred 8mm, simply because it was better suited (than VHS/VHS-C) for the task of video production. But some casual and family users preferred VHS-C because of its shared lineage (and familiarity) with VHS. Equally important, entry-level VHS-C camcorders were priced less than 8mm units. During the 1990s, the UK market saw Video8 and Hi8 eat into VHS-C/S-VHS-C sales as manufacturers such as Sharp Corporation dropped their VHS-C models in favour of 8mm. Eventually the only major manufacturers marketing VHS-C were JVC and Panasonic, so the format fell into obsolescence.

Throughout the 1990s, camcorder sales had the unintended side-effect of hurting the still camera photography market. Among the mass consumer market, camcorders gradually replaced still cameras for vacation and travel use.

In the late 1990s, the camcorder reached the digital era with the introduction of miniDV. Its cassette media was even smaller than 8mm media, allowing another size reduction of the tape transport assembly. The digital nature of miniDV also improved audio and video quality over the best of the analog consumer camcorders (SVHS-C, Hi8.) Variations on the digital-video camcorder included the Digital8 camcorder, and the DVD camcorder.

The evolution of the camcorder has seen the growth of the camcorder market as price reductions and size reductions make the technology more accessible to a wider audience. When camcorders were first introduced, they were bulky shoulder-operated luggables that cost over USD 1,500 US dollars. As of 2006, an entry-level MiniDV camcorder fits in the palm of a person's hand, at a price under USD 300 US dollars.

Overview

Major components

Camcorders contain 3 major components: lens, imager, and recorder. The lens gathers and focuses light on the imager. The imager (usually a CCD (charge-coupled device) or CMOS sensor IC on modern camcorders; earlier examples often used vidicon tubes) converts incident light into an electrical (video) signal. Finally, the recorder encodes the video signal into a storable form. More commonly, the optics and imager are referred to as the camera section.

The optic lens is the first component in the camera-section's ";light-path."; The camcorder's optics generally have one or more of the following adjustments: aperture (to control the amount of light), zoom (to control the field-of-view), and shutter speed (to capture continuous motion.) In consumer units, these adjustments are automatically controlled by the camcorder's electronics, generally to maintain constant exposure onto the imager. Professional units offer direct user control of all major optical functions (aperture, shutter-speed, focus, etc.)

The imager section is the eye of the camcorder, housing a photosensitive device(s). The imager converts light into an electronic video-signal through an elaborate electronic process. The camera lens projects an image onto the imager surface, exposing the photosensitive array to light. The light exposure is converted into electrical charge. At the end of the timed exposure, the imager converts the accumulated charge into a continuous analog voltage at the imager's output terminals. After scan-out is complete, the photosites are reset to start the exposure-process for the next video frame. In modern (digital) camcorders, an analog-to-digital (ADC) converter digitizes the imager (analog) waveform output into a discrete digital-video signal.

The third section, the recorder, is responsible for writing the video-signal onto a recording medium (such as magnetic videotape.) The record function involves many signal-processing steps, and historically, the recording-process introduced some distortion and noise into the stored video, such that playback of the stored-signal may not retain the same characteristics/detail as the live video feed.

All but the most primitive camcorders imanginable also need to have a recorder-controlling section which allows the user to control the camcorder, switch the recorder into playback mode for reviewing the recorded footage and an image control section which controls exposure, focus and white-balance.

Consumer camcorders

Analog vs. Digital

Camcorders are often classified by their storage device: VHS, Betamax, Video8 are examples of older, videotape-based camcorders which record video in analog form. Newer camcorders include Digital8, miniDV, DVD, and solid-state (flash) semiconductor memory, which all record video in digital form. (Please see the video page for details.) The imager-chip is considered an analog component, so the digital namesake is in reference to the camcorder's processing and recording of the video. Analog tapes lose quality slowly over time, ";snow"; becomes visible, while this does not happen with digital tapes. Either a certain block of digital data on the tape is readable or not, which means all or nothing. No data from a block on the tape means a block artifact which is visible in the picture, but they can be interpolated from surrounding data like it happens in CD-Players when a read error occurs.

Modern recording media

Some recent camcorders record video on flash memory devices (in MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4), Microdrives, small hard disks or size-reduced DVD-RAM or DVD-Rs in MPEG-2 format - but due to the limited size of the recording medium, their uninterrupted recording time is limited.

All other digital consumer camcorders record in DV format on tape and transfer its content over FireWire (some also use USB 2.0) to a computer, where the huge files (1GB for 4 to 4.6 minutes in PAL/NTSC resolutions) can to be edited, converted, (and with many camcorders) also played back to tape. The transfer is done at normal speed, so the complete transfer of a 60 minute tape needs one hour to transfer and about 14GB disk space for the raw footage only - exclusive any space needed for editing. Time in post-production (editing) to select and cut the best shots for nice viewing is measured in days or weeks.

Consumer market

As the mainstream consumer market favors ease of use, portability, and price, consumer camcorder emphasize these features more than raw technical performance. For example, good low-light capabilities require large capturing chips, which affects price and size. Thus, consumer camorders are unable to shoot useful footage in dim light. Manual controls need space, either in menus or as buttons and make the use more complicated, which goes against the requirement of ease of use. Consumer units offer a plethora of I/O options (IEEE 1394/Firewire, USB 2.0, Composite and S-Video), but lack basic manual settings for video exposure. For the beginner, entry-level camcorders offer basic recording and playback capability.

For the sophisticated hobbyist (prosumer), high-end units offer improved optical and video performance through multi-CCD components and name-brand optics, manual control of camera exposure, and more, but even consumer camcorders which are sold for USD 1000 such as the Panasonic GS400 are not well-suited for recording in dim light. When dimly-lit areas are brightened in-camera or in post-production, considerable noise distracts the viewer.

Before the 21st century, consumer video editing was a difficult task requiring a minimum of two recorders. A contemporary Personal Computer of even modest power can perform digital video editing with low-cost editing software. Many consumer camcorders bundle a light version (with limited features.)

As of 2006, analog camcorders are not marketed anymore. In terms of sales, Digital8 and miniDV recorders dominate most first-world markets. Camcorders which record directly on DVD media are also on the rise.

Uses

Media

Camcorders have found use in nearly all corners of electronic media, from electronic news organizations to TV/current-affairs productions. In locations away from a distribution infrastructure, camcorders are invaluable for initial video acquisition. Subsequently, the video is transmitted electronically to a studio/production center for broadcast. Scheduled events such as official press conferences, where a video infrastructure is readily available or can be feasibly deployed in advance, are still covered by studio-type video cameras (tethered to ";production trucks.";)

Home Video

For casual use, camcorders often cover weddings, birthdays, graduation ceremonies, and many other personal events.

Home video is usually done with poor filming techniques.

Politics

Political protestors have capitalized on the value of media coverage use camcorders to film things they believe to be unjust. Animal rights protestors who break into factory farms and animal testing labs use camcorders to film the conditions the animals are living in. Anti-hunting protestors film fox hunts. Anti-globalization protestors film the police to deter police brutality. If the police do use violence there will be evidence on video. Greenpeace uses camcorders to film their activities. Activist videos often appear on Indymedia.

The police use camcorders to film riots, protests and the crowds at sporting events. The film can be used to spot and pick out troublemakers, who can then be prosecuted in court.

Entertainment and Movies

Camcorders are often used in the production of low-budget TV shows, where the production crew does not have access to more professional equipment. There are even examples of Hollywood movies shot entirely on consumer camcorder equipment (see Blair Witch Project.)

Voyeurism

Camcorders can be used for voyeurism. For the most famous example, the unbelievable incident that Japanese television performer Masashi Tashiro was caught for taking a sneak shot of a woman's skirt in a station occurred. Aftermath of this, ";I tried to make a gag called ";An octopus appears in a miniskirt"; (Mini ni Tako ga Dekiru, )"; he explained when he was asked why he had done it by media reporters.

Digital

Digital Tapeless: Low-end digital tapeless systems often use an MPEG-4 codec and flash memory; extremely high-end versions, on the other hand, store uncompressed or DV-coded data to hard disk
DV codec based:
MiniDV and several derivatives, including DVCPRO from Panasonic and DVCAM from Sony.
Digital8, that uses Hi8 tapes (Sony is the only company currently producing D8 camcorders though Hitachi used to).
MPEG-2 codec based:
MicroMV: Uses a matchbook-sized cassette. Sony is the only electronics manufacturer for this format.
DVD (with the biggest market increases): Mini DVD-R and DVD-RAM. This is a multi-manufacturer standard that uses 8 cm DVD discs for 30 minutes of video. DVD-R can be played on consumer DVD players but cannot be added to or recorded over once finalized for viewing. DVD-RAM can be added to and/or recorded over, but cannot be played on many consumer DVD players. The DVD-RW is another option allowing the user to re-record, but costs much more per disc.