Find the Best Flash Camcorder

Modern camcorders come in a variety of formats. Some use miniDV tapes for recording/storage, others use onboard hard disk drives, and others are flash memory camcorders.

Flash camcorders have grown in popularity in recent years. These devices record to an internal flash drive and/or memory cards in most instances. One of their primary advantages is their small size. With no hard drive to house and tiny memory cards as the recording device, space is minimized. These devices, therefore are extremely portable and light weight. Some of these are ultra compact pocket camcorders which are prized for their low cost, ease of use, and super simple connection with internet sharing sites. You can learn more about pocket camcorders at this link.

Durability is another reason flash camcorders are popular. Due to their lack of moving parts, they are less likely to break or to be damaged. In fact, some of these camcorders are the most rugged out there. There are waterproof, dustproof, freeze proof camcorders for those wanting that option.

Of course a flash memory camcorder also offers quite a lot of memory. Many come with 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB of internal storage and will also accept high capacity memory cards or Memory Stick PRO Duo media for more storage allowing users to record for many hours without stopping to download. Models that use the AVCHD recording format can fit even more on the device due to the high compression. (You can learn more about AVCHD below.)

With all of these wonderful advantages however, there are still reasons why some consumers purchase other types of camcorders. The video quality with miniDV tapes tends to be superior although certainly HD camcorders have further improved video quality for the flash camcorder.

For more experienced users, miniDV is also preferrable because of the ease of editing. Flash camcorder users must choose compatible software/video editing programs to edit film on the PC and generally need to "archive" footage. It's more time intensive in general.

Beginning in 2006 AVCHD format camcorders began to emerge. AVCHD stands for "Advanced Video Coded High Definition". It's a recording format developed by Sony and Panasonic for tapeless camcorders; this would potentially include any hard disk drive, DVD, and flash memory camcorder. It compresses the video. Of course, it has some advantages and disadvantages just as any format does.

The AVCHD recording format's primary advantage is that it allows users to capture more video footage while using less storage. It can present editing problems with some software as well as some older, less powerful computers. Learn more and find out about compatible editing software in this Wikipedia article.

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