Using a digital zoom will significantly reduce the quality of your video, and we always recommend turning your digital zoom off. We also recommend that consumers just ignore the digital zoom of any camcorder, because it is largely marketing hype and not a quality feature. Manufacturers will boast outrageously large digital zooms of 500x or 800x, which might look impressive on paper. If you were to actually use these zooms, however, your video would be unwatchable.
Media: Tape, Flash, or DVD
Currently, there are three major types of camcorder media: tape, DVD, and flash. (There are both analog and digital media, but we at Camcorderinfo.com concentrate on the digital ones.) These days, most camcorders record to MiniDV digital videotape. A second digital tape format, Digital8, was invented by Sony.
It is important to note that digital stills are not recorded