Are you interested in a Small Camcorder or a pocket camcorder or a plug in camcorder or a Flip video etc but not sure what it’s proper name is?
Well I will try and help in this quick article in a series with all the ins and out in layman’s terms. Flip Video is the brand leader and got this market sector going. So a bit like Hoover in the vacuum cleaner market (and now Dyson in the same market). So when people refer to Small Camcorders, Pocket Camcorder, Flip video’s etc they are referring to these small video cameras , about the size of a large phone only a little thicker. There are sometimes called pocket video cameras because they will fit in your pocket. They do not have tape (8mm cassette or DV tapes were some of the common formats) or DVD in them to record the data but the data (video) is stored on either an internal ‘hard drive’ (solid state) or a removable SD card or similar memory device.
Most of them will plug directly into the USB port on your computer and then you transfer the data to your pc or laptop for editing, uploading to youtube etc. One of the features that established the Flip as a market leader in the Small Camcorder market was it’s propriety software that made the whole process very easy plus the camera was also very easy to use. Push and shoot.
Like all new inventions and technologies the early cameras were fairly basic with, at best average video and sound quality compared to a traditional (if such a new thing can be described as that) camcorder or video camera that uses tape (8mm tapes etc) or the later ones that take the recordable DVD discs straight into the video camera.
The Small Camcorder, Flip Video, Pocket Camcorder are the way forward due to the portability and ease of use.