For most of your celebrations and events, you will want to take some video. Video will preserve the special event for many years to come. If you are considering a new camcorder to do this video yourself, there are several issues to consider. The consumer video market has under gone numerous changes in the last couple years.

The popularity of video has dramatically increased recently, especially since web sites like YouTube have come online. This has created more competition between the major manufactures for better and less expensive camcorders. The technology gap between the consumer video cameras and the professional video cameras has also been reduced.

The first thing to consider is what quality of video is desired. Video quality is a very complex subject when trying to understand resolution, interlaced or progressive scan, widescreen, frames per second and different formats for compression. It is safe to say not all High Definition video is the same. CamCorderInfo and Cnet Reviews provide information on camcorders and differences in technology.

For viewing, HD is always better than Standard Definition, this assumes you have a HD TV. However the file size for HD is larger so archiving can be more difficult. If you like to edit your video, the newer format (AVCHD) that supports HD require new editing software and higher performance computers. This is important to keep in mind, you may need to upgrade both your computer and editing software for HD. If you are OK with good video as opposed to great video, stay with SD and save some dollars.

The second consideration will be the media type used by the camcorder. The three most popular are tape, hard drive and flash. Tape has been around for many years, format easily supported for editing and is easy to archive your videos, just put the tape in a safe storage area for future viewing.

A more recent technology is to use a hard drive within the camcorder instead of tape. A hard drive provides fast random access to different parts of the video where tape takes time to rewind. The drawback with a hard drive is you must download the video with a cable in order to archive the video instead of just removing the tape. Another issue with a hard drive is that there are moving mechanical parts within the hard drive that can fail, just like in a laptop, if the camcorder is dropped or abused. If this happens, you will loose the video still on the camcorder and expect to pay a high price for repair.

The third and newest media is flash memory in camcorders, flash is not new but it is new in camcorders where very large files are generated. Flash is good since it is small, light weight and has no moving parts. The downside is that flash memory limits the recording time, down to a couple hours for HD, using the largest memory cards (SDHC) available. This problem can be solved by having extra cards available, although a 16GB memory can cost around $100 USD. Flash also has fast access times for random viewing.

Another consideration when capturing video for many events, is ability to video in low light. Since many celebrations are indoors where the lighting is less than ideal, look for camcorders that are better with low light or consider getting additional video lighting. Many camcorders come with a video light as part of the camera but the quality is very poor. A secondary issue is the microphone, the built-in microphone will pick up all sound, much of it noise. You may want to consider a camcorder that allows an external directional microphone to improve the sound quality.

So if you are going to need a new camcorder for the wedding, anniversary, birthday or a holiday, spend a little extra time in determining your video requirements. Are you really going to be shooting a lot of video or will this be a every-once-in-a-while thing, if so, stay away from HD. Consider the video quality you want, who will be using the camcorder (stay away from the hard drive media if used by children) and how you plan on editing or archiving the video. If you have the hard drive or flash camcorder, archiving on an external portable hard drive is a good solution.

Video your event and enjoy the time for ever.