A visit to your local electronics store will be a good start towards making a final decision on which camcorder to buy. You can usually see, touch and try out all the current models and last year's models as well. New models appear at least once a year. The old models then are reduced in price. Sometimes you can save 50% off the original price of a model that is being discontinued. 

There is a wide selection from which to choose. What you will see includes models from Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Hitachi, Canon, and a few others.

Sony has a rather wide selection, crossing all formats except VHS-C, with Panasonic, JVC, and Canon following with mostly MiniDV models. Hitachi offers their MiniDVD models as they were the first to release the optical disc format models. Sony has since captured the lead in the MiniDVD format with last year's (dcr-dvd100,200,300) and this year's (dcr-dvd101,201,301) MiniDVD models.

You will find an array of different formats including the following: VHS-C, 8mm, Digital8, MiniDV and MiniDVD. Sony's MicroMV format seems to have all but disappeared in 2004. The analog 8mm camcorder from Sony and the VHS-C camcorder from Panasonic are at the bottom of the scale both in price and technology. The MiniDVD and the 3 CCD models are at the top of the consumer category technology scale currently.

The size of camcorders keeps shrinking from 8mm down to MiniDV and now miniDVD. The 8mm and VHS-C models are bulky compared to MiniDV and miniDVD. The new MiniDV and miniDVD models from Sony fit in the palm of your hand compared to the giant 8mm and VHS-C models.

The trend today in camcorders is smaller rather than larger in consumer models and digital rather than analog, so a computer can process the video, and also in media, most likely away from tape and towards optical disc. Tape can get jammed in the mechanisms and tape models have more moving parts to break. This in part because the tape transport has to load and wind the cassette tape where a disc just has to turn on the spindle and is read by a laser. Disc media also is not degraded each time you play it like a tape is, so recordings are viewed the same, time after time with disc, while tape is dragged over the read/write heads, each time losing some quality.

Future trends look like a move towards HD or High Definition video using optical disc media. HD is a whole new ballgame. Video resolution will move from 500 to 720 and 1080 quality images. This means even sharper video and possibly superior audio as well.

The comparison chart below shows your choices in 2004 for various camcorders. The ratings are: Size Factor 1=smallest,  4=largest and Overall Technology, 10=new (best) and 7=old. MiniDVD is the only disc based format. All others use tape. MiniDV is the smallest tape, (MicroMV is smaller but not considered here) then 8mm and then VHS-C is the largest (same tape width as VHS).