All types of 2000s camcorders explained

[@goldenrod1676]

“Please don’t photographer us” 😂

[@mhmrules]

😂😂😂 That was precious!

[@samholdsworth420]

Had me laughing 😊

[@rs12official]

@@samholdsworth420Me too!!!

[@yanikkunitsin1466]

Is that what she said at 1:31? I too autoportrait myself sometimes.

[@alisharifian535]

So photographer whom then?

[@face56]

Thank you for deinterlacing the camcorder videos and uploading in a higher resolution so that they show at the proper frame rate on youtube. So many people get this wrong.

[@AhDollar]

omggggg seeing someone who even knows what that is and why it's important these days is like a breath of heaven

[@bsanchez3563]

​@@AhDollar:D hehehe that made me smile yet it is so true. Imho

[@Syn_Host]

I remember watching Marques Brownlee's camcorder episode, and I was baffled to see that production company didn't know what deinterlacing is, or didn't care to even do it.

[@tylern6420]

​@@AhDollar even legacybox doesnt do that

[@itzyoung]

Can someone please explain to a newbie what deinterlacing is? Thanks!

[@sbaker002]

My dad bought a Sony Digital-8 camcorder back in 1999, he mainly chose it so it was backwards compatible with his 8mm tapes from their 1992 Canon camcorder which had just failed. It's still going strong today. Last Christmas I bought a cheap old HP gaming laptop for £10 specifically for the fact that it had a firewire port. Using the Sony cam and firewire, I transferred all of his old videos onto the laptop with absolutely no loss in quality from the original recordings, even the oldest tapes from 1992 look good. All of the digital-8 videos even transferred with the correct date and time stamps on the files. It made a great Christmas present to give him all his old recordings on a single flash drive, and great to see my childhood again.

[@BeyondBaito]

I have to use an adapter that connects A/V and S-Video

[@Skk866sek]

so nice!

[@smittywerbenjagermanjensen9802]

I worked at Target in the electronics section around 2010-2012 and your comment on "HDD" on camcorders causing confusion unlocked a memory for me. There was a customer looking at the camcorders who said they wanted an HD camcorder and was asking about one we had that had "HDD" on the side I explained that camera isn't High Definition it just has an internal hard drive and they said but it is HD because it says "HD" on the side. I just said "okay" and let them buy it, I wonder if they ever figured out it wasn't HD and looked back at our interaction and reflected on how stupid they were. I doubt it, they probably thought I was the idiot.

[@Daktyl198]

It’s amazing how many of these actually hold up until even today. A bit of color correction and those HD videos could be shown today.

[@musiclabmn]

You literally went through my same timeline of camcorders. I still have them all, kept for prosperity.. My favorite camcorder of all time, is the Canon HV20. One of the first consumer camcorders EVER that could shoot real progressive scan, 24p video on MiniDV tape. It was amazing and the quality still holds up today. I spent an absolute ridiculous amount of money on it back in 2007.

[@spookyjames4347]

I have been a licensed private investigator since 1995. I have used the following camcorder formats: Sony 8 mm, Sony 8 Hi mm, Sony Digital 8 mm, JVC standard definition on SD card, JVC High definition on SD Card and Canon 720p on SD Card. The only camcorders that are not broken are the JVC standard definition, except for a burnout pixel and one of the several JVC High definition camcorders and my current Canon camcorder. The problem with the Sony camcorders is that they became obsolete and all of them broke. I really loved the Sony Digital 8 mm because of the various inputs and outputs. I was able to use it as a web cam with various efforts. All of the JVC camcorders (except for the standard definition) had the same problem, the pull out monitor would go black.

[@notanimposter]

HDV was awesome right up until the mid 2010s if you had a camera that actually had a full HD sensor. It’s crazy how much HD video you could fit on a tape, compared to the pittance other people were getting on their silly little memory cards. And when KZbin and Skype started to get popular, you already had the only HD webcam in town!

[@elektrokinesis4150]

I still use my HVR-Z1U

[@fungo6631]

The problem was that HDV used MPEG-2 and 26 Mbps of bitrate. Sure, a miniDV tape could hold 13 GB of data, but note that the SD card camcorders recorded in AVC/H.264 which had lower bitrate requirements. If your camcorder recorded 12 Mbps H.264 video, the quality would be the same as HDV because of the more efficient codec. And yet you could use an 8 GB SD card and have more video than on a miniDV tape.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

Yeah i sometimes connected my HV20 and even my old JVC VHS-C Camcorder to my PC and used them as Webcam and for live video capturing directly to PC :D Yeah the best thing about camcorders was you didn't have to worry about dust getting to the sensor like with DSLR cameras. I still LOVE DV tapes. Back then they really were the cheapest and most reliable storage medium for HOURS of HD video. Now SD card prices have come so low, they can actually compete with their HD Video storage capacity per Minute. But it only took another decade to come this far. :P But tapes just feel more physical and like slamming a new roll of film into your camera.

[@NALTOHQ]

@@KRAFTWERK2K6 absolutely. Nothing will be able to replicate that physical feeling. It makes me sad. Its why I want a game console like the Evercade. I want to have something physical, that I can hold in my hand, that actually MEANS something, that I can say I OWN.

[@fungo6631]

@@KRAFTWERK2K6 Flash memory has gotten cheap enough that 10 euro will get you 128 GB of it. A miniDV tape can store 13 GB.

[@airingcupboard]

Love the little social documents on those tapes snd media. Fascinating how styles and approaches have changed before home editing and social media have become the norm.

[@NJRoadfan]

I actually got made fun of by pulling out my Canon HV20 and using it in a guest cam during a live show. Jokes on them, it has a full sized HDMI port for easy connectivity and excellent video quality!

[@notninja]

saved up and got the HV30 when it came out. have a box full of hd tapes. Friends used to make fun everytime i took it out! Now we cherish those memories in HD

[@Crlarl]

I bought an HV30 for this exact reason. Bonus is that it can scan at 30p.

[@rockrecordreport7136]

@@Crlarl The HV40 has 24p - the real thing which is a dream feature for the film festival hopeful crowd and others that want to try for the film look.

[@rockrecordreport7136]

That camera (and the HV30, and HV40) is very sellable on the used market. Still has some demand even being tape based. I used a HV30 a few weeks ago as a third camera at a performance and it got what I needed. The 63 min. tape length is the only thing I had to consider.

[@nooddles12]

haters always gonna hate

[@mushroomsamba82]

VWestlife must have an incredible collection of found footage of weddings and vacations 😅

[@vwestlife]

And Christmases.

[@olik136]

they serve as a good reminder that camcorders are inherently a mistake 😂

[@thechosenone9965]

​@vwestlife did anyone from the audience recognize themselves in said footage? did they contact you?

[@haji2nd444]

I really like the way 2000s camcorder footage (especially miniDV and DVD) looks. It's hard to describe, but I guess it's the lower resolution, dimmer colors, and just so much more that just gives it a nostalgic mid to late 2000s look that is just impossible to put into words.

[@gammaboost]

60fps.

[@Tester-sh1mn]

@@gorak9000 And I've got one word for you, "Cataract".

[@dietgilroy]

@@Tester-sh1mnwhere

[@jasonsong86]

So much nostalgia in this video. I still have my Sony DV camcorder. During the 3DTV craze, Sony even made a 3D camcorder.

[@axelfiedel3793]

My parents would make home movies about me and my siblings on a Sony DVD Handycam. I still remember the videos as I turned 19 this month and wonder when can I go back to live it again.

[@allenu]

I love the old clips. I'd watch a stream of random people's old camcorder footage and I'm sure I'm not alone.

[@Ewzzy]

I loved this video. The MiniDV camera I got as a HS graduation gift was a huge part of my life. The transition to a few years later was a big part of my early pro video career. A big challenge at that point was finding a computer that could play back the exported video. We resorted to playing a 720p WMV file on an XBOX 360 over VGA to project our senior film in HD.

[@Ewzzy]

I somehow missed the word "HDV" that was what I shot my senior film on.

[@Mrshoujo]

Another banger of an upload. Furiously researched and packed full of information, detailed editing, and making me hope I can choose a good camera.

[@FoxMulder78]

And it's 13:37.

[@AmericanSoldierSioux1969]

I'm currently still using my Sony Handycam HDR-CX240 with a SanDisk Ultra 200GB microSDXC1 card bought at Walmart about 8-10 years ago, and personally I think it's STILL better definition than my iPhone 13 Pro Max Videocamera feature. Plus, Microsoft Windows 10 still has connection issues with trying to hook up an Apple product like my iPhone, and too slow to transfer in my computer. I can hook up my Sony camera to PlayMemoriesHome Windows software super easy and so much faster without issue. Overall, I'm still happy with my HandyCam, but also an old fart so I don't keep up with the times anymore like I used-to-could. Thanks for posting and sharing, you do great videos on electronics, past and present. Some of your older products I completely forgot about, great memories!

[@sctarry0456]

I can’t imagine how much work this took to edit this together and make it a nice viewing experience, well done!

[@toddcamnyc]

I had a camcorder in 2015 with 5.1 surround sound. At that time, KZbin allowed me to upload 5.1 and anyone with surround speakers could play it back. Sadly, they took this feature away and downmixed my videos to stereo.

[@gammaboost]

KZbin supports 5.1 again! Unfortunately this is only for people playing back on TV versions of youtube. Since youtube keeps the original video files for future re-encoding, it might be worth checking whether those videos are in 5.1 on a TV or console.

[@Joscraft_05]

In that year my parents used for one more time our Digital 8 camera from 2004 (SD quality) in it's 16:9 panoramic mode to record my school show lol.

[@marcusdamberger]

I remember walking into a Circuit city in 1995 and seeing a Sony display with their camcorders feeding TV's connected to each of the cams. It was the first time I saw a MiniDV video camera and I was blown away by the quality of the picture it was producing. That camera was a Sony VX1000 and the granddaddy of all subsequent DV cameras; including Sony's own industrial/professional lineup that would soon come out with the PD-150 that had XLR inputs and features for broadcasters and professionals, but in the same basic layout and body style. I later would use the PD-170 while working at a local TV station in the mid 2000s.

[@erroneousbosh]

The first "real" video work I did was on a VX1000, and we soon upgraded to a VX2000. I shot a lot on that in the early days of video on websites, about 20 years ago. Eventually I moved jobs and didn't do a lot of video, but I got back into it when our graphics guys were having a clearout and handed me a barely-used Sony PD150, which is the "pro" version of the VX2000 with proper XLR inputs. I love shooting with the PD150. I haven't done anything on it for months, but it's getting into winter so there's some lovely "magic hour" light these days.

[@Eliotime3000]

When you showed an HDV footage, my cheap LG Full HD LED TV experienced a second life that didn't expect to see.

[@RankingSpicey]

Same here! On my kinda Old Philips Full HD LED TV, 43 in size i think. Crazy good picture right There. Looked like 4K. ANOTHER crazy thing is, that really Low quality movie rips like 640x480 looks kind of Ok on this tv (When played from Apple TV with VLC).

[@MVVblog]

I bought my first FullHD 1080P camera back in 2008 to create videos for my KZbin channel, and I used it until the end of 2019. Then my channel took off, and I switched to 4K. However, I still use it for live streaming, and occasionally for shooting certain video scenes. It's a Samsung, and its quality is pretty subpar, but it records to an SD card. I'm not currently using a DSLR; I have one, but I never use it.

[@gerarddip]

The HDV footage is actually super impressive. I can’t believe magnetic tape is capable of this!

[@Warp2090]

I really like all these camcorders in some way. Good work on this video, Everything was explained very well, and this video had very good information all while being very entertaining. Good Job Vwestlife!

[@DodgerFanAD_23]

Oh man…. This takes me back to my childhood and seeing old camcorder recordings from when me and my sister were little. It’s also bittersweet seeing loved ones in certain recordings that have passed on.

[@kumarp3074]

In 2008 I had the Nokia N85 which recorded video in VGA quality at 30fps. It actually had a 5 MP rear camera and a flash. The iPhone 3G came out the same year and while it did not come with the ability to record video, it was possible to get apps that recorded video via the newly introduced Apple App Store.

[@bangskij]

loving the test footage! I remember back when I bought Sony's first HDV camcorder and back then the confusion went the other way, people saw the HD and thought it was recording on hard drive, couldn't figure out why I also used tapes :-)

[@novelezra]

That HDV looks absolutely beautiful. Dont get me wrong, I adore lo-fi recording methods because they have a very nostalgic tone that reminds me of my days watching CKY and filming my friends skateboard. But HDV has a wonderful dreamy soft quality to it thats held up so well. Gonna have to try and pick one up.

[@vwestlife]

The Canon HV20, HV30, and HV40 HDV camcorders were praised for not artificially boosting contrast and color saturation, like many other video cameras do. Maybe that's why it looks "soft" to you.

[@DrCassette]

The "softness" could also be because of HDV's 1440x1080resolution, instead of 1920x1080 FullHD...

[@AaronSmart.online]

​@@DrCassette with KZbin's low bitrate, the resolution difference is probably negligible

[@onederdude]

What about the HV10? I have that model and i love its compact size and form factor. Should i invest in one of the other models in that lineup?​@@vwestlife

[@brun20]

Sanyo had a line called Xacti. Those were a pistol like cameras who recorded H264 into an MP4 container on SD cards and some models like the HD1000 recorded full HD at 1080i.

[@Eratas1]

In 2009 I bought Sanyo Xacti VPC HD2000. It was the first consumer camera in the world capable of 1920x1080 @ 60P. And I was amazed by it.

[@Kane26510]

I stopped with camcorders at the Hi-8 format. Still have a bunch of tapes and the combo VHS/Hi-8 VCR to play them. My daughters will drag them out when they're feeling nostalgic. Great video and I like the collection of "handycams" (using a brand name as a generic label, a la Scotch Tape or Kleenex) that you have. Thanks for sharing.

[@SYM-BIONIC]

That HDV one at 6:26 literally looks like it was shot on a phone from today, that’s insane. Ppl really look camrecorders for granted. I’ve always loved the 2000s look bc it’s nostalgic toward my childhood. I just turned 18 and am abt to buy my own camcorder to document my summer, art/cosplay projects and skateboarding. I love making videos too so I’m rly excited! This video was rly helpful for narrowing down my choices. Thanks a lot! 🙌🏾

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

Great video, perfect to pick and choose what camcorder to get for the holiday season! But seriously, camcorders provide a type of video that just isn’t the same with completely digital on an iPhone or something. Don’t get me wrong, having the cameras we have now are great, but at the same time it seems like something was lost. That’s why I also enjoy using older camcorders and especially early digital cameras like Sony Mavicas! I guess you could say the same for CRT TVs and flatscreens, sure they are 4K and not as heavy, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop using my CRTs, not to mention they also look cool, classic 90s/2000s styling!

[@philosynth]

I still use my Panasonic NV-GS11 from 2004, a MiniDV camcorder with 24x optical zoom. As you suggest, I use a laptop with firewire (a HP nc6320) with Windows XP and Movie Maker for importing footage from the tape. I love the look of movies made with this camcorder.

[@GavinReeves]

Me too. I have 3 Panasonic models. The best one being the NV GS 320. My go to camera. Keeping the dream alive

[@masterargento90x]

I had many cameras throughout my life. My first camcorder was a JVC GZ-MS120 (which I gave to a relative), with a dual SD card slot. It really recorded very well, and with that I was getting started for social events (weddings, sweet 15 parties, children's birthday parties, various events, etc.). I also keep other vintage cameras, like a Sony TRV 160 (and another TRV that I sold for money reasons), a Panasonic miniDV (I also had a Canon miniDV camera). I also used to have 3 HD cameras (a Panasonic MDH2, a Sony HD1000, and a Canon Vixia HF M300), which I also sold for economic reasons and kept the Vixia, along with the other two vintage cameras.

[@majestic-skies]

Scored a Panasonic 4K Camcorder for $250 used recently. Its honestly an amazing camera which has all the usual camcorder quirks (night vision, huge zoom range, great IS, External mic options etc) But it shoots in 4K so it gives you a really sharp image but still retains that camcorder "look" which is great for shooting more nostalgic esque videos.

[@keinpodcast4053]

I still love the picture style of the old MiniDV camcorders in 4:3 format. Even today, old documentaries that were filmed with a Sony VX1000/VX2000 or a Canon XL1/XL2 are still shown on television every now and then. I like the colors of the CCD sensors and the endless depth of field. Bokeh is more for photography. But maybe it's just because I'm over 50 😂

[@pokepress]

I’m sure retailers were thrilled about having to carry so many models and types of camcorders, and explain them to customers. 😉 Personally, I went from mini DV to an HD SD Card model to a Canon 1080p camcorder I still use today. AI upscaling helps make that last one look way more expensive than it actually is.

[@MrDuncl]

The same retailers are now either out of business or selling nothing but TVs and Washing Machines.

[@bluepterosaur]

Which camera is that last one

[@timf-tinkering]

PCIe FireWire cards are still being made, and work perfectly in Windows 10 on modern hardware. Apparently some devices require "legacy" FireWire drivers to be installed, but I've never needed to do that. The drivers included with Windows 10 seem to work fine for DV.

[@erroneousbosh]

You can do it out of the box with Linux and dvgrab, and then cook it into something sensible with ffmpeg quite easily too.

[@pmc_]

And on Mac, you can use a dongle chain (Camera -> Firewire 400 -> Firewire 800 -> Thunderbolt 2 -> Thunderbolt 3 -> Mac) and it Just Works with Final Cut Pro, from what I've heard.

[@AllensTrains]

Quite an entertaining video. The advantage of an old camcorder over an iPhone is that you are not worried about anybody stealing it! Thanks for uploading.

[@DrCassette]

It's strange how nostalgic this topic already is. The consumer camcorder market is pretty much dead by now, even the higher ended models are all relatively old now, and still most models won't do any more than 4K 25p/30p, you'd think after all these years 50p/60p would be much more common... Back in 2009 I got a Panasonic SDR-S26 camcorder that recorded on SD cards. A Canon FS200 would have been a better choice, but I was fooled by the Panasonic boasting optical image stabilization, which turned out to be rather ineffective, and 70x optical zoom, which was useful only a few times, but severely reduced low light sensitivity at all times. There was a lot of confusion around these early SD card camcorders, for some reason they saved the videos with a .mod file extension, instead of .mpg, you had to rename them (or use a program that did that automatically). And most free editing software had no support for mpeg2. I had to use a video converter and convert the videos to something the Windows XP Movie Maker would support, which reduced the quality even further... It was all very interesting, but thankfully we have come a long way since then...

[@vwestlife]

Video editing software always seems to lag behind the technology used to create video. For example, iMovie didn't support MicroMV until 2008, five years after the format was discontinued!

[@DrCassette]

@@vwestlife I'm surprised they even bothered adding support for MicroMV, given that it had already been discontinued. The last time I checked iMovie did not support rendering 4K 50p/60p, I don't know if that support has since been added...

[@kenkobra]

Great Video! You should upload more footage you found on the tapes from thrift stores. Would be interesting to see. Just like the two kids in high school at the end that was from 2008.

[@vwestlife]

See my "Lost Digital8/Hi8/MiniDV/etc. Tape" series on my vwest7ife channel.

[@McFixStuff]

9:18 I had that same (similar) DXG camera when I was a freshman in high-school. I remember being dead set on capturing stuff in HD, because while my computer couldn't play it at the time, I knew it eventually would be able to. The videos still hold up today. Most my videos from my old channel from 2010 to 2013 were shot on DXG cameras.

[@cysjunk]

Please don't photographer us!

[@smashthings1]

Love all the old camcorders. I like the softness and more dull colours you get from CCD image sensors. I remember using a Hitachi DVD camcorder back in the mid-late 00's. Despite the convenience of a mini DVD disc, each time you record a clip it would have a "Disc Access" message for ages before it would let you record another clip! Not helpful when you need to get multiple takes! Meanwhile my friend at the time had a MiniDV camcorder, and recording would start immediately with no delays! I think nowadays a HDD or flash memory camcorder is the best way to capture CCD-based video that's easy to transfer and use on modern equipment. I always had poor luck with Windows 11 and capturing analogue tape footage!

[@rzeka]

Grew up in the early 2000s so this is a nostalgia overload for me : ) especially the Hi-8 tapes and the Flip Video shoutout!

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

12:34 Note to self: These are the computers, OS, and programs I should use to convert various videotapes from circa 2008.

[@Drmcclung]

Whew, the dark ages of "too many choices, none of them really right for me!" camcorders; Everything from potato camera to prosumer models. I used to get so angry at misleading/useless features from the more expensive ones, and frustrated with the build quality (yet surprising image quality) out of flippers that stopped working for no reason at all. Between 2008-2012 I had good luck with some of the mid-grade point and shoot still cameras that had video recording to SD card and that was the stop-gap solution that worked for me right up until a few years ago when phones finally got good enough to take over. SLR cameras were always a bit more quality than I needed.. once the camera body, required lenses, batteries etc totaled up. Nikon Cool Pix "Red" waterproof was one of the ones I stuck with the longest. For $99 it absolutely couldn't be beat.

[@jorgezarco9269]

The people dancing to YMCA warms the heart.

[@NALTOHQ]

This was a fun one to watch. Times were so much simpler then. Nowadays we use our cameras almost daily for really no good reason. Back then, it was just to record those special moments and memories so we can relive them. Good times

[@AlterSchwedeWieGeil]

Yeah seems much simpler. Having to choose between 55 Camcorders with almost similar names, understand how to use which type of storage and then also have to have the correct ports on your PC has to have been simpler than opening the camera app on my phone and then immediately have the footage available on my PC via Cloud

[@MrDuncl]

@@AlterSchwedeWieGeil Back in the day I spent £100s on capture cards and software trying to do editing of Hi-8 footage using my computer. Eventually I gave up on editing and just ran the camcorder into the video input of a Panasonic DVD recorder.

[@kaitlyn__L]

​@@AlterSchwedeWieGeil don't forget the ongoing cost of tapes/hard drives to keep long-term, or else resigning yourself to losing >90% of what you shot because you need to shoot something else but don't have a blank... I hated that

Tape was still the king in the late 2000s. Both miniDV and HDV. The files were much easier to edit. I still remember what a nightmare was dealing with those .mod files from HDD/SD camcorders. When it comes to HD the situation was pretty much the same. AVCHD files were hard to edit even on decent computer setup. And the quality was lower compared to HDV mostly due to low bitrate. I remember choosing my first HD camcorder around 08 or 09 and back then I was deciding between Sony HC9 and SR11. Chose the HC9 and never regretted it. It served me well for over 10 years. I switched to shooting with DSLR around 2015 but now I'm coming back to these little camcorders. Recently I got sony CX730 from around 2014 and I was honestly shocked how good the video looks. The built-in stabilisation is unbelievable. Also the bitrate is much higher compared to those early AVCHD camcorders.

[@matchc0635]

Whats funny is apparently theres a camcorder craze right now after film/CCD camera wave subsides, some even claiming early full HD1080p camcorder with solid state storage are "vintage". Dunno how did it went down to this but at this rate they gonna drool over a mid 2000s microwave soon.

[@kaitlyn__L]

There's a Technology Connections video about a microwave from the late-90s! In exactly the same vein as his Sunbeam Toaster video, ie, they don't make em like they used to

[@matchc0635]

@@kaitlyn__L Ye, just remembered about that Sharp microwave video and I had realized there are indeed people stanning microwaves, althose those were THE microwave.

[@bigdude101ohyeah]

Geez, seeing what has been done to the Minolta brand almost made me cry.

[@caseyrevoir]

The sign above the mystics at the end is perturbing. "just whip up the impossible with no guidance and then bludgeon your way into success and keep that method a secret to oppress the others".

[@ElianaDAngelo]

Shoutout to the HV20. I still have mine with the DOF adapter I made for it back in like 2010. True hood classic cam.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

I still have my Canon HV20 that i got second hand in 2009 and it was still pretty expensive. But cheaper than the HV30 and HV40 that you got in stores. Everyone was hyping these models so much but i realized the HV20 just had too many caveats, such as no 25psf / 24psf mode in normal DV mode, no real full manual video mode, the Cine Gamma mode had no shutterspeed options, the focal length was more or less always too close and had no real wide angle aaaand the camera had horrible frozen noise in lowlight settings. Still i LOVED the camera since it was my first HD video camcorder which made it feel like shooting on Super16. KZbin back then was full of videos which demonstrated Mods for the camera that involved a better focus wheel and also combinations with selfmade camera rigs and 35mm Adapters.

[@FranklyPeetoons]

In 2023, I continue to use a Panasonic HC-V520 camcorder (with its 60X optical zoom) bought in 2013. Even though many of my phones exceed its video specs, it offers many technical benefits and conveniences. There's much to be said to for "play it as it lays". If you're a maniac like me and read all the credits in documentaries, you may have noticed that the Panasonic HC-V520 camcorder is often listed as a B-roll camera used for various pickup shots for documentaries produced from 2013 to 202+. It's easy to understand why. Not great, but certainly good enough (when set to progressive 60fps).

[@OzRetrocomp]

7:10 that's probably a dead CCD sensor... some camcorders of the era were notorious for that, like JVC's 3 CCD MiniDV camcorders. I'm grateful I got a couple of years out of mine before the CCDs went, and at least it still plays MiniDVs tapes... I just don't have a use case to play MiniDV tapes at the moment. It was a great camera when it worked though.

[@himeccms893]

The aperture is stuck shut

[@Petertronic]

Loved this, it took me back to my early 20's, fun times! The awkward video clips were hilarious.

[@pabblo1]

So much nostalgia in this video. I still have a JVC Everio camcorder lying around that recorded to a HDD.

[@NuffMan_]

I used Canon FS200 like the one you showed, it has good stereo audio and optical zoom, far better than modern phones do. Mine still works but its starting to show its hours, every seam is coming apart etc.. but thats because i've used it hardmounted to extremely vibrating surfaces lol

[@lifedaiiry]

Thank you SO MUCH for making this video!!!!!!!!!!!! In the 2000's I was a young child and my family was pretty poor, so when we recorded stuff we almost immediately sold the camera after getting the footage off of it, except for one that is. So buying them now, I don't know too much about them. This was a pretty good video, it explains things simple enough for me to understand!

[@jorgem50]

I'm in the wedding video business and back when I didn't have a clue about filming and editing I bought a Panasonic gs320 3ccd camera with the hopes of one day using that camera for wedding work. Long story short I did a couple of small events with my panasonic. Fast forward to 2023 and I use panasonic s5s for my wedding business.

[@fullmetaljacket7]

10:57 I had a Panasonic GS320 back in the day. The audio on that thing was really damn good even for today standards.

[@kumarp3074]

This reminded me of the Minolta 8mm Camcorder I received as a graduation present in the early 90s. It was actually a bit smaller than the Sony Handycam. I used it to record all of our family vacations.

[@faenethlorhalien]

The 2000s were absolute hell for recording, honestly. Terrible solid state media with low quality and meagre storage, or crap tapes that would take you an eternity to transfer via firewire to your mac. I really DON'T miss the time at all.

[@Tuhueleamierda1991]

really though, I’ve had a few tape based camcorders just for the fun of them but transferring videos was sooo slow lol.

[@Bort_86]

I honestly wonder what camera you are using, because from time to time it doesn’t look much better than those old Camcorders - which adds to the charm of your videos.

[@talvisota327]

i wonder how many people are watching this video on their computer and not on their phone. i see no reason to watch videos on a tiny screen

[@vwestlife]

I don't have data for this video yet, but overall on my channel, my top source of views is from smartphones, but the largest amount of my watch time is from people using computers. So the people using smartphones watch a lot of videos, but have a short attention span, while people using computers are more likely to actually watch the entire video, or at least most of it.

[@n__neen]

always nice to see ben. perpetually on the verge on attending the bonfire, never riding a long one.

[@vwestlife]

They never actually recorded the bonfire on the tape.

[@dminalba]

I loved my Canon miniDV camera back in mid 2000s. Got and still use occasionally my Panasonic HD SD camcorder when I shoot something steady

[@segarallychampionship702]

9:47 One thing that is mentioned on the camera: it has a CMOS sensor. Even at the time it was probably cheaper to make, but for video, CMOS sensors have a pronounced rolling shutter effect, especially the cheap sensors. Which some may not notice unless they're filming moving vehicles or take a video from a moving vehicle. I'm not sure if CCDs suffer from it. I have never noticed rolling shutter effect on CCDs, even when filming trains.

[@Stjaernljus]

5:41 - KITTY!

[@mateuspinesi]

One thing I'm not nostalgic for are Sony's proprietary formats, like the memory stick.

[@marsilies]

In terms of importing the video from these old formats, I can only speak to MiniDV and HDV, but back I when I dealt with those formats, I preferred the free utility WinDV to Windows Movie Maker, because it would automatically split the video tape into separate files based on the time/date data in the feed. When I had a single AVI file that had already been imported by WMM, I would use the free utility dvdate to split it up. And finally, I preferred HDVSplit for importing HDV over WMM, as WMM imports a tape as, again, a single massive file, but also as a .dvr-ms file, which I could never figure out how to use with anything else, while HDVSplit imports each clip as its own .m2t file, which is the MPEG-2 transport stream format, that a lot more programs can deal with.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

I think I almost got that Sony DCR-HC51e back in 2009 but it was a little over my budget. LOVED that model a lot and sound wise it really had one heck of a Mic inside. I opted for the Samsung VP-D381 instead which i kinda regret. Since the camera recorded DV tapes with the same low-magnetic intensity in SP mode as it does in LP mode. Took me a few years to realize that though..... The first tape i recorded on it was not properly pre-magnetized. I had pre-recorded my other tapes 3 times before actually recording on them, to make sure the tapes magnetic properties would be more optimal for recording. And lo and behold... that actually helped. The recordings i did with the Samsung VP-D381 on these pre-magnetized tapes actually survived. The recordings on my very first tape without pre-recording/magnetiziatuon, is not playable anymore and just gives me glitches. it seems Samsung went wayyyy off the DV specs with their Mini DV camcorders. Which is why i wish i had bought a Sony model instead. I also remember the first SD card camcorders. I think they recorded MPEG2 files, before H264 really became mainstream on these. Same with these HDD camcorders. I think Canon's HDD variations of the HDV and SD card cameras, recorded MPEG2 Transportstream files. HDV was great and i always preferred Canon's HDV format over Sony's. Over here in Germany you could not really get new Digital8, Hi8 or VHS-C camcorders anymore in stores. Not even on clearance. You COULD however still get the tapes for it. Digital and Hi8 tapes were available wayy into the late 2010s over here.

[@Dmitrys_Music]

6:39 I got an HDR-UX20 about 2 months ago after I saw CRD's video about DVD camcorders. When I saw the listing on Avito, I immediately bought it. Very amazing to see such a rare 15-year old camcorder be on sale, especiialy in it's condition and tbe accessories. Sadly, the proprietary Memory Stick Duo slot forced me to buy the adapter from MS Duo to microSD, but at least the microSDs are really cheap these days. 11:39 It's too sad that Sony stopped making mid-tier CX6xx series, so I had to buy a CX620 from Avito as a good starter kit to make KZbin videos. 5:18 KZbin *DOES* officially support 5.1 Surround sound, but I'd still agree with you, since you can only really watch these in 5.1 Surround sound on TV version of KZbin app.

[@Markimark151]

I first had a Panasonic VHS C camcorder that my uncle lended to me and used for birthdays and other parties. Then in 2002, I bought a Sony miniDV camcorder for my uncle’s wedding, which became my favorite camcorder, it had better resolution, more recording time, amazing optical zoom, long battery life! And easy to connect to the computer via FireWire, and made video copies to DVDs! I wish Sony would make a newer model of their Handycam, because I’m not a fan of action cameras like GoPro since they’re too small in lens and zoom!

[@adamholmes91]

This brings me back, i brought my first camcorder around that time. So i could film some urbex before it became mainstream; sadly all of the sites around me are now housing estates. I still have the camcorder now and it still works perfect today, JVC Everio GZ-MS100RU. It is standard definition with SDHC memory, mine is a nice metalic red. It also has the silly "one touch upload to youtube" button that i never used and i don't think it even worked at the time. I can remember that i could only afford a 2gb card, at the time that would have been around £40 (I was only 17 at college with a part-time job). Something about the soft, slightly grainy quality i still love today. 4:3 is great! I think the smallest *new* SD cards you can get today is 4gb and around £1.50 haha

[@monteceitomoocher]

Still got a box full of MicroDv camcorders, a souvenir of my time as a sony camera engineer, we've come a long way in only a few years,

[@ConsumerDV]

It was not only Sony who offered AVCHD camcorders that recorded to Mini-DVD. In fact, the very first AVCHD specification allowed Mini-DVDs only! But several months later it was extended to allow other types of media like HDDs and memory cards. Mid-2000s was the time when the capacity of memory cards was increasing almost monthly, so it became clear that cards would outpace Mini-DVD very soon in capacity and affordability. I have never cared for optical media and always thought it was a stop-gap solution. I went from tapes to memory cards. As for the "HD on Mini-DVD" (not HD-DVD, this is a different beast) it was known as AVCHD Disc. You can play it in a BD player. You can also author your own from other HD footage. Officially it is limited to 18 Mbit/s. Many authoring applications can author such a disc with a DVD-like menu, and you can play it in a BD player, I have authored about a dozen of such discs using multiAVCHD.

[@jordonf9928]

I still have 2 perfectly working Sony HDV camcorders, One with a 1 inch sensor and interchangeable lenses and another smaller HDR-HC1 (I think I have that model correct - The other I dont remember) I shot a documentary on a Musician in 2012 with a rigged out Canon 7d DSLR and used the HDV camcorders as b-roll cams. After grading it was hard to tell the difference between the HDV and the DSLR except for the cinematic DOF on tighter shots with the 7D of course. Besides deinterlacing and 1080i, at 24fps (some 3/2 pulldown trickery inside the camera) the HDV even with smaller sensors had better dynamic range and more pleasing colour science than the DSLR. HDV could also record 720p 'progressive too. HDV was a marvel for its time and I was fascinated at the quality recorded to tape. Thanks for getting into HDV instead of concentrating on the SD formats and presenting them in the correct format for us to enjoy here.

[@oscarcanales3656]

When I was born my dad bought the first mini DVD Sony camcorder model available in Spain (DCR-DVD403E) and it still works almost perfectly to this day! The zoom is still amazing, and the video cuality is not bad at all.

[@Ale.K7]

It's nice to see how good the video quality of some of these is.

[@corneliupopescu400]

I remember plating in that period with a Sony mini-DVD camera and a cherry-red Canon FS200 that recorded on an SD card in standard definition. An 8 GB card was good for over 2.5 hours of footage, although the quality was mediocre, especially in low light. On the other hand, the Sony had an infrared lamp fpr filming in zero-light conditions. I filmed a lot of parties with that :D The image from the IR sensor was superimposed on the normal image, so it yielded good results in low light. Also about 2009 I bought a Nikon L120 bridge camera that was capable of filmimg in 720p, but with so-so results. The most frustrating was the choppy zoom while filming and the slow autofocus resulting in entire seconds of blurry video. The sound capture was horid as well.

[@raymondmartin6737]

I first had a full sized camera from RCA, using a Dockable VHS portable deck over the shoulder in 1983, for a while. Pretty expensive back then Then I had the Sony 8MM Video in 1986, which I took to EXPO 86 in Vancouver, BC, and people were asking me what device it was. It had a mini tape deck for playback. I later in 1987 had the bigger Sony all-in-one larger camcorder which played back the Mini 8mm in its built in deck. I also had a small Panasonic Hand Held which recorded Mp4 AVI video on SD cards. Thanks for the reviews of portable Video recorders prior to today's smart- phones. 😊

[@ShihammeDarc]

I love the look of the videos from the first 2 camcorders you showed, truly a different time.

[@BrettDarien]

I still use a Panasonic AVCHD camcorder to film most of my KZbin videos, and before that I used a JVC MiniDV camcorder. Didn't know HDV existed back then, I would of loved to try one.

[@krazownik3139]

LoL. That Kodak camera in 0:40. My parents had (and they still have it) exactly the same back in the day. I should probably get out the batteries and check if it's still working when I would have some free time. It also probably has better optics than most cameras in modern phones, because that's something you cannot reasonably miniaturize.

[@accordinglyryan]

It really sucks that smartphones killed midrange camcorders. I just don't want to use my iPhone for KZbin videos; the audio quality and of course zoom is nowhere near as good as a dedicated camera. I'm still using my Panasonic HC-V770 I bought in 2018 because there's really nothing to replace it with.

[@JarrydHall]

5:25 You mention 5.1 doesn’t work on streaming platforms, but it absolutely does. I am a professional colourist and I often have to online / master out content. I can confirm from personal experience I can bang out a 5.1 audio track L C R LFE Ls Rs and it is correctly interpreted on KZbin and Vimeo. :)

[@JarrydHall]

I should specify, I played it back using respective KZbin and Vimeo apps on an LG C1 tv connected to a Marantz amp via HDMI eARC and the amp reported “Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus” and I could hear the channels responding correctly. :)

[@vwestlife]

KZbin doesn't support anything more than two audio channels. Surround sound only works if you encode it as Dolby Pro Logic and then use a Pro Logic decoder on the playback end. But if you just upload a video with discrete 5.1 channel audio, KZbin will simply ignore everything except the front left and right channels.

[@rupertthomson]

​I've seen videos via yt dlp with 6 channels of audio

[@JarrydHall]

@@vwestlife I’d be happy to work with you to help you get 5.1 working. I absolutely was getting 5.1 playback, with stereo separations in the rears, so can confirm it wasn’t a flavour of Pro Logic. Also the “stats for nerds” showed the stream was 6 audio channels playing back. I discovered this roughly 3 months ago, so perhaps it’s a fairly new thing as up until that point I too was convinced stereo was the max channel output available.

[@vwestlife]

@@JarrydHall Does this work for you? It was uploaded directly from the Sony camcorder I showed in the video with the built-in 5.1 channel microphone: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o523hWONnch3Z5o

[@philixer6769]

As a teenager, I still record family stuff and parties on a miniDV camcorder. Because these tapes will be found somewhere many years later, unlike the files on a cloud storage. My dad had an early Panasonic model, the NV-EX3, and I still used it until the video heads finally gave up, the cleaning tape didn't help. But this camera still lasted a very long time and recorded so many tapes. Even his wedding photographer and cameraman borrowed it for a while when he still had only analog equipment. Even when this camera gave up like a year ago, I didn't, and bought another one, also a Panasonic. And yeah, the footage isn't HD, but even a VHS is better than some videos on our phones, forgotten once recorded…

[@104d_3rr0r_vince]

Early 2000s had a TRV. In 2007 I saw the first OK video from a phone, it was the N95.

[@GavinReeves]

Minidv is still my go to format for days out and family events. It looks great

[@jonathanreedpike]

Well done overview. If you can find one the 2008 vintage Canon TX1 is quite a jewel-like marvel.I had one and shot thousands of pictures and video with it.I gave it away a while ago and it's still in use.

[@timacrow]

I still have a MiniDV and two Digital 8 camcorders. They make good videos and have features not found on phones (like Sony NightShot). Since I started with a Hi8 camcorder in the early 1990s, the D8 camcorders let me play back those old tapes. I also have a camcorder from 2009, the Sony PMW EX3 CineAlta HD camera, a professional model that records on SxS cards. I have a Pinnacle Studio video interface with Firewire that plugs into USB 2.0 on my old Windows 7 laptop (the Pinnacle hardware won't work with later Windows). From there, I can move the video over to my modern laptop or desktop for editing on better software.

[@CoolDudeClem]

I still use a real camcorder to film my videos. And I don't watch videos on a smartphone, that's just weird to me. I'm too set in the ways of the world before smartphones took over. I still use a computer to watch online videos on, which would have been NORMAL back in the early 21st century. I don't know why now people think everything is better on a phone.

[@RetroGamingWithEdgarRivera]

Oh my God this is going to be a nostalgia Memory to me. I remember most of my friends has a least a camcorders most were Hi8, Digital 8 and VHS-C. Eventually my father got one it was a Samsung Sc-D353 MiniDV Camcorder and I remember using a lot mostly in family holiday trips. Eventually I move on with a Panasonic HC-V180k Full Hd camcorder for short time, but man that Samsung MiniDV Camcorder was fun to use and plus it has FireWire, it made me the editing stuff much easier.

[@truecrimescotsman]

When you are having a VWestlife marathon and he drops a new video......

[@postal_the_clown]

My last dedicated camcorder was a Canon Elura miniDV in 2006. Luckily, I had transferred most of what I shot to dvd by 2013.

[@Raveheart]

Bought my last camcorder around 2012, it was a Sony HDR PV something something. It produced good 1080p 60fps video and had a nice zoom. The optical image stabilization was amazing, the lens was suspended in some kind of liquid.

[@LanceCampeau]

I bought four Canon HV20 cameras from 2008 to 2011 and still have each of them in perfect working order. Used them in the freezing cold winter, burning hot sun, rain, dust you name it... It was the best investment I ever made. The footage from these camera was the best possible quality I could afford at the time and now with modern software like Topaz AI, my entire back catalog can be upsampled to 4K with incredible results. Here is 1080i footage from 2011 in 4K kzbin.info/www/bejne/mJeXmqqHhrqmaM0