In the past couple of years, digital video cameras have got so cheap, plentiful and easy to use, with so many different brands and features, that it's getting hard to figure out which one to buy. This handy guide will zoom in on the right camera for you. The standard for digital video is MiniDV, but you may find some Sonys that record digitally on Hi8 8-mm tape. It uses MiniDV tapes, which are nice and small. You can view and reuse the tapes with most digital camcorders.
Resolution is a way of measuring the sharpness of a digital image.
The more pixels, the clearer and crisper the picture. It transfers data very fast. Digital zoom can expand an image up to 300 times its size, but optical zoom is what makes for clear up-close shots. These compact MiniDV models have 10x optical zoom, but some bulkier Digital 8 camcorders have up to 25x. Before camcorders and computers got together, the camera itself was the primary tool for editing home videos.