Ever-changing technology means more options - and much confusion - when it comes to buying a video camcorder. Mike Butchergets a close-up of the latest formats.

Today's video camcorder market is increasingly complex. Gone are the days in the late 1980s when you could walk into a camera shop and pick up a great, hulking video camera that recorded straight to the common VHS video tape format. With this propped on your shoulder, you could shoot the wedding or family birthday and just pop the tape into almost any video recorder and watch it. Only professionals used the failed, but better-quality, Betamax tape.

Not any more. We live in a time when the formats available have mushroomed as the video world gradually switches to higher-end recording methods. Until the market decides which is best, we have about five formats to record on.

Each type of cassette or disc is made to record video using a particular standard. So MiniDV cassettes record video using the popular DV standard or high-definition video (HDV), while discs and hard-drives record in the industry standard MPEG-2 video. Each format is suited to a particular use and influences the design of the camera.

To further confuse the issue, camcorders have also morphed into stills cameras, with varying degrees of success.

MiniDV

At present, most consumer digital camcorders use MiniDV cassettes, which record DV-format video. The DV standard produces high-quality footage that is superior to video recorded by analogue camcorders, which these days are increasingly harder to buy anyway.

MiniDV can deliver more than 500 lines of horizontal resolution, depending on camcorder quality. The high-definition HDV-format video can also be shot on MiniDV cassettes meaning you will future-proof yourself when you replace your old TV with a high-definition one. MiniDV will suit anyone from the budget buyer all the way up to the independent filmmaker. One of the advantages with MinDV is that there are a broad range of cameras, lots of accessories and a varying price range to suit all tastes. All the main camcorder makers support it, including Canon, JVC, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp and Sony.

The disadvantages are that we are still talking tape, so you still need to convert to DVD for archiving, which means playing the tape all the way through while the DVD records - unlike with a hard-drive or memory card (see below) where you can just drag and drop video files.

Digital8

The Digital8 format records high-quality DV-format video on to analogue 8mm and Hi8 cassette tapes, as well as dedicated Digital8 tapes. This is an increasingly rarer format as MiniDV seems to have captured the wider market, so Digital8 camcorders tend to be discounted. Although they can often play back analogue footage from 8mm and Hi8 tapes, a major disadvantage is the larger cassette size, shorter recording times, and small selection of camcorders. It's fair to say this is a dying format.

Mini DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW and DVD-RAM

At this point the format wars get interesting. Mini-DVD camcorders record high-quality MPEG-2 footage directly to a mini DVD-R or DVD-RAM disc, again offering 500 lines of horizontal resolution. The same applies to cameras that record on to full-blown DVD. Although you probably won't find any professionals using this format, it is popular with home users and business because you can just pop the disc in the average DVD player. This makes searching and random access to video segments much easier than with tape and is a tried and trusted format for archiving. And both video and still images are recorded on disc (instead of on a cassette and a memory card). The disadvantages are that video recorded on DVD-R cannot be edited on a computer, while video on DVD-RAM discs can usually only be accessed via a DVD-RAM PC drive.

DVD also has a relatively short recording time in the high-quality mode, and discs tend to be more expensive than MiniDV tapes. Eventually we'll see camcorders record to the new HD formats HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.

Hard drives

Camcorders that use built-in hard drives or "microdrives" can usually record high-quality footage in the industry standard MPEG-2 format, delivering over 500 lines. Good for home and business use, a hard-drive camcorder tends to be compact, and makes flitting through the video and still pictures easy.

For archiving you'll need to have a PC or DVD recorder. These cameras have relatively short recording times at the highest-quality modes and, as the technology is still relatively new, many hard-drive camcorders often don't perform as well as tape in low-light conditions, something you'll need to research.

You also need to check that your software for editing is compatible with the MPEG-2 format and that your PC or Mac will actually "talk" to the camera.

However, hard drives are seen as the future for camcorders and many manufacturers are really pushing the hard-drive format, including Canon, JVC, Panasonic and Sony.

SD/MMC and Memory Stick

Flash memory camcorders usually use the industry standard MPEG-1 or MPEG-4 format to record video clips. This standard is more compressed than others, meaning that, although the picture may be worse (especially on a large TV screen and in bad light), you can fit a lot of video on to a card.

It's also easier to post this video on to the web or e-mail it, and the cameras are the smallest you'll find. Some manufacturers (like Canon and Sanyo) are bringing out flash memory camcorders that record in the 720p high-definition format, meaning you could get some decent quality video in future. Therefore it's worth watching this area as better flash memory cameras come out.

The upshot? While everyone will have a different use for their video camera, the key is to try to future-proof your purchase.

To that end it's best to stay independent of physical formats like tape or DVD, which will die eventually anyway, and concentrate on the emerging industry standards for digital video including MPEG-2 and high-definition DV.

We are already seeing hard-drive memory plummet, so a €150 400GB external hard drive should archive a lot of video until you want to move it to DVD for every-day playing. That way you can move your video around and archive it on whatever you like rather than being locked into a physical format made by one manufacturer.

RIP mini-disc and Betamax.