Technology and Innovation

Camcorder Conclusion
When deciding which HD camcorder to buy, consider whether you truly are a hobbyist or a prosumer. Many of the smaller HD camcorders are ideal for both, but prosumers may need the extra features found in the higher-end HD cams. Always keep your end needs in mind when choosing a camcorder. Happy shooting.

What do all the editing applications that support high definition video have in common? They all contain ways to capture HDV footage using an intermediate codec, changing the HDV footage to a more standard and universal high definition (HD) format, which is easier to edit with.
The reason is that HDV’s compression, which is very similar to how video is compressed for DVDs (MPEG-2 TS, or transport stream), is hard to cut natively on an edit system. This is why the manufacturers of most of the major editing software provide an intermediate codec or offer one as a plug-in. The footage encoded with the intermediate codec can be converted back to HDV upon playback to camera or VTR, though with uncompressed HD, the file sizes can easily quadruple.