How we test.... DV cameras

Testing DV cameras is mainly about qualitative tests rather than benchmark scores, but we can put a figure to the battery life, which is really important, as you don’t want to run out of juice during a key moment of your holiday of a lifetime. Our battery results are graphed against an average battery life based on the DV cameras we’ve already tested.

Otherwise, we test DV cameras for image quality and ease of use. For image quality we shoot three standardised tests: a vista of London from a nearby viewpoint, a low light test in our darkened photo studio, and some handheld footage of people working in our labs. This footage is compared against an archive of footage from previous tests to determine the overall image quality as objectively as possible. We are looking for good focus, colour, image stabilization, sound and motion.

We assess how easy it is to get shooting with a new camera, as we believe that everyone should be able to use a camera. For advanced users, we also test the manual controls.

Battery life

WHAT IT DOES: We leave the camcorder on a tripod recording our labs. The LCD panel is left open. When the media (tape, memory card or DVD-R) runs out we replace it immediately and continue recording. The test result is the number of minutes of footage recorded before the battery fails.

Reference score

Battery life: 100mins