Hard drive and flash memory camcorders have really gained headway fast in the consumer camcorder market this year.  There is some confusion as to which way one should go when it comes to a new purchase of a high definition camcorder.

Tape based HD camcorders have been the industry standard for years now.  Specifically, the HDV codec that is supported by the great majority of manufacturers, has been the choice for most videographers.  HDV is the most supported format for editing the content on a computer.  Editing software has been designed with this format in mind for a long time.  As long as your computer has a firewire port (also known as IEEE1394, and i-link), you can usually edit all you want with an HDV camcorder.  The only real downside is that if you have an hour of video content on tape, it will take you an hour to import that content to your computer.  The reason for this is that you have to play the content back in real time.  Tapes come in 60 and 80 minute capacities.

AVCHD is quickly becoming THE format for users wanting hard drive and flash memory HD camcorders.  The advantages of AVCHD camcorders are that they are much smaller than tape based models, they have longer continuous recording times (as much as 30 hours), and they transfer through USB connections instead of firewire.  AVCHD recordings are drag and drop clips so you do not have to sit and wait on real time transfers.  It only takes a few minutes to move clips over to the computer for DVD burning or editing.

The biggest argument about these formats is editing.  Until last year, AVCHD cams were inferior in quality.  This is no longer the issue.  Compression has greatly improved so that artifact and noise have all but been eliminated in the recordings.  On a PC, transfer and editing is supported and most AVCHD cams come with editing software.  On a Mac, you will need the latest operating system, iMovie ’08, and an Intel based machine.

Cameras to look at in HDV tape based:

Canon Vixia HV30
Sony HDR-HC9

Cameras to look at in AVCHD hard drive based:

Sony HDR-SR10, HDR-SR11, HDR-SR12
Canon Vixia HG10

Cameras to look at in AVCHD flash memory based:

Canon Vixia HF10, HF100
Sony HDR-CX12