Camcorder

A camcorder (video camera recorder) is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit.[1][2][3] Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage. Marketing materials may present a video recording device as acamcorder, but the delivery package would identify content as video camera recorder. In order to differentiate a camcorder from other devices that are capable of recording video, like cell phones and compact digital cameras, a camcorder is generally identified as a portable, self-contained device having video capture and recording as its primary function.[4]
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The earliest camcorders employed analog recording onto videotape. Digital recording has now become the norm, but tape remained the primary recording media, with tape only being gradually replaced with other storage media including optical disks, hard disk drives and flash memory. All tape-based camcorders use removable media in form of video cassettes. Camcorders that do not use magnetic tape are often called tapeless camcorders and may use optical discs (removable), solid-state flash memory (removable or built-in) or a hard disk drive (removable or built-in). Camcorders that permit using more than one type of media, like built-in hard disk drive and memory card, are often called hybrid camcorders.

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, kids growing up, and other personal events. The rise of the consumer camcorder in the mid to late '80s led to the creation of shows such as the long-running America's Funniest Home Videos, where people could showcase homemade video footage.

Politics
Political protestors who have capitalized on the value of media coverage use camcorders to film things they believe to be unjust. Animal rights protesters who break into factory farms and animal testing labs use camcorders to film the conditions the animals are living in. Anti-hunting protesters film fox hunts. Tax protesters provide live coverage of anti-tax demonstrations and protests. Anti-globalization protesters film the police to deter police brutality. If the police do use violence there will be evidence on video. 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 expensive equipment. There are even examples of movies shot entirely on consumer camcorder equipment (such as The Blair Witch Project and 28 Days Later). In addition, many academic filmmaking programs have switched from 16mm film to digital video, due to the vastly reduced expense and ease of editing of the digital medium as well as the increasing scarcity of film stock and equipment. Some camcorder manufacturers cater to this market, particularly Canon and Panasonic,

who both support "24p" (24 frame/s, progressive scan; same frame rate as standard cinema film) video in some of their high-end models for easy film conversion. Even high-budget cinema is done using camcorders in some cases; George Lucas used Sony CineAlta camcorders in two of his three Star Wars prequel movies. This process is referred to as digital cinematography.

COMPONENTS

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

Lens
The lens is the first component in the light path. The camcorder's optics generally have one or more of the following adjustments:

aperture or iris to regulate the exposure and to control depth of field; zoom to control the focal length and angle of view; shutter speed to regulate the exposure and to maintain desired motion portrayal; gain to amplify signal strength in low-light conditions; neutral density filter to regulate the exposure.

In consumer units, the above adjustments are often automatically controlled by the camcorder's electronics, but can be adjusted manually if desired. Professional units offer direct user control of all major optical functions.

Imager
The imager converts light into electric signal. 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.

Recorder
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 signalprocessing 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 imaginable 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. The image recorded need not be limited to what appeared in the viewfinder. For documentation of events, such as used by police, the field of view overlays such things as the time and date of the recording along the top and bottom of the image. Such things as the police car or constable to which the recorder has been allotted may also appear; also the speed of the car at the time of recording. Compass direction at time of recording and geographical coordinates may also be possible. These are not kept to world-standard fields; "month/day/year" may be seen, as well as "day/month/year", besides the ISO standard "year-month-day".

Handycam models

Handycam (Video8 (1985~)) Hi8 Handycam Digital8 Handycam DV Handycam (1995~) HDV Handycam DVD-Handycam HDD Handycam Memory Stick Handycam (using Memory Stick Pro Duo. Up to 16GB) Sony Handycam NEX-VG10