Labs

Digital Camcorders

Video image quality can be subjective, but there are certain key areas that often cause problems. Under low light conditions, most camcorders have trouble discerning detail, and this can be made worse if the subject is bathed in coloured light.

So, for our first test we set up a scene containing a considerable level of detail and light it with a single tungsten spotlight. We then wrap the light in red, then green, then blue gels (plastic sheets for creating coloured lighting) to see how this affects detail resolution. The results were very revealing of how a camcorder would perform indoors, particularly when shooting poorly lit subjects or under coloured lighting such as musical performances.

Outdoor usage is just as important. We take each camcorder on a shoot in reasonably sunny conditions around the locale of Dennis Publishing, filming street scenes and our local landmark, the BT tower.

Using both manual focus and auto focus, we attempt various zooms and camera moves. These test the camcorders' electronics, contrast in bright sunlight, ability to refocus on fast moving objects, and ability to resolve detail in contrasting light environments. We pay particular attention to features consisting of parallel lines, such as grilles, as these can be difficult for digital camcorders to resolve correctly because of the compression scheme used when capturing the video to tape.

We rate each of the camcorders out of ten relative to each other for both the internal and external tests. We also test each camcorder with a standard OHCI IEEE-1394 adaptor to ensure it can be used for editing on a PC.