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Today, consumer-grade camcorders have been almost completely replaced by the video capabilities of smartphones, DSLRs, and action cameras. But in 2008, there were more choices than ever: analog or digital; standard or high definition; and various forms of tape, disc, hard drive, and flash memory recording. I explain all of these varieties of camcorders and provide some sample footage from them. Today there are some signs of a resurgence in popularity of camcorders due to their “retro“ aesthetic, but unfortunately the inexpensive new ones all over Amazon are gussied-up toys with very bad video and audio quality, and it may be difficult to import and edit the footage from a vintage camcorder on a modern computer. Windows Movie Maker 2012 is my beginner's recommendation because it's a simple solution that supports a very wide variety of formats, and unlike many modern video editors (including Microsoft's own replacement for it, ClipChamp), it actually knows how to properly deal with interlaced, rectangular-pixel, and/or 4:3 aspect ratio footage. One 2000s camcorder format I didn't mention was MicroMV, because it was already long gone by 2008. See Techmoan's excellent video about MicroMV: And Panasonic's brochure for their 2008 camcorders was a real tour de force of marketing, sloganeering, and logos plastered all over the place: Time flow: 0:00 Introduction 1:03 Analog Hi8/VHS-C 1:34 Digital8 2:04 MiniDV 3:15 DVD 3:58 Hard drive 4:31 Flash memory 5:05 Extra features & hybrid models 5:51 HDV 6:37 HD on DVD & Blu-ray 7:58 AVCHD 8:38 SD with HDMI output 9:09 Budget HD camcorders 10:06 Over 50 models in 2008 11:22 The camcorder market today 12:34 My recommendations 13:20 Conclusion Disclaimer: Except for the cat, none of the sample footage was recorded by me, and I don't know any of the people in it. #camcorder #RetroTech #FoundFootage
