Camcorders forum: HD Pocket Camcorders

Without getting tied to any specific camera model or software, here are some tips for shooting and watching different video formats:

A camera with a zoom gives you more shooting options but a cheaper model means cheaper manufacturing, and probably a higher failure rate in the lens mechanism. On the other hand, those flat, square camcorders with fixed lenses (anything resembling a Flip) don't come with lens caps and just like the lens on your phone will get smudged and scratched.

You can put 2 hours of 1080 video onto a "regular" DVD if your compression settings are correct; a DVD is standard definition and the video will be converted to standard def during the encoding and authoring process. In general, the higher the quality and the larger the original frame size, the better the image even after conversion. Most up-to-date consumer DVD creation software will automatically scale and and compress hidef into standard def correctly for making DVDs.

By all means, if you can find a 1080p camcorder instead of 720p within your budget, buy it.

You don't need a wide angle to match the 16:9 format of your television, the 16:9 frame is a function of the pixel ratio size of the frame. HD video created with a 1920x1080 frame has a ratio of 16:9, so does the HD format of 1280x720.

If you're currently recording standard definition video with your camera, changes are it's in a ratio of 4:3. Only cameras with an "anamorphic" setting can create standard def video with a 16:9 ratio that matches your television set and will fill the frame without distortion.

If your 4:3 DVDs are looking stretched when you watch them, look for the picture size button on your TV remote to to change the way the TV shows the DVD. The zoom function may make them fill the frame but at a substantial cost to quality.

There are two "capacities" of "standard DVD".

A single layer DVD can hold up to 120 minutes of standard definition video (in VOB format). Generally, I would limit that to something more like 110 minutes so there is space available for a menu, customization, scene selection and perhaps an audio track for the menu.

Assuming your computer has a DVD burner that can deal with double layer DVDs, they can handle up to 240 minutes of standard definition video (in VOB format) - again, dropping that a little to accommodate the menu/scene selection. Obviously, this will be more than enough space to meet your 120 minute requirement.

The DVD creation software vidiotic refers to can be as rudimentary as MyDVD in the Windows environment to fairly slick iDVD (bundled) in the Macintosh environment... there are several much more robust DVD authoring tools available. We don't know what computer/operating system you are using to author and render the DVDs...

I'm a Windows guy. I have tried a couple of freewares when it comes to burning h.264 files (I got those from the net). I guess the jury is still out on which camcorder to buy.