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Originally Posted by JonBell
What about battery life?
Seems to me like it should be a key factor (Or at least, availability of very long life batteries)
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Most camcorders have removable batteries, and a lot of the manufactures only give the consumer a starter battery.
Here are a couple of key factors, in my opinion, when purchasing a camcorder is:
1. The CCD. If a camcorder has tri-CCD you will get much better color then you would with just a mono-CCD. Also look at the size of the CCD's, bigger ones can give you more resolution.
2. The Optical Zoom, the bigger the better. Digital Zoom is absolutely nothing, and if you have to magnify something beyond the optical zoom, a piece of editing software will probably give you better results.
3. Analog Video IN port, and External Mike. These might be insignificant to the casual user, but they come in very handy. If you have some old analog tapes, you can convert them using a Video IN. An external mike is also good because the onboard microphones usually pick-up the noise of the heads while they are writing to the tape. In the case of a robotics completion, it is not much of an issue, because the sound around you is much louder then the DV heads writing.
4. Like I stated above try to see if they are sensitive to one type of tape or not. I have found that some people who bought cheap camcorders only to find out that they have to buy expensive tapes to get the best quality. Also when you make your purchase, make sure that you buy a cleaner tape that the manufacture recommends.
5. Also check out what type of light requirements the camcorder needs. Some camcorders function very well in low light conditions, while others are very bad at it.
6. Just a note, If you are thinking of buying a camcorder to act like a camera, you will be seriously disappointed. Even though they are getting better, they will only be marginally better than camera phone in terms of quality