DVD camcorder allows you to record home movies directly to DVD and play them back on your home DVD player. Nothing compares to the convenience of recording directly to the high-resolution DVD format. Instant access to any scene eliminates wasted time fast-forwarding and rewinding and the durable DVD format saves memories securely in high-resolution.

Seeing as your recording is based on DVD disc and not on tape or tape-based players, the quality of recordings is out standing. The benefit of recording with a DVD camcorder is its flexibility. You can use your camera to record at home, use it as a storage medium, or in the office connected to your PC.

Unlike videotapes, DVD's need no rewinding or fast-forwarding to search for specific scenes. The DVD camcorder's LCD displays a list of the recorded scenes for quick, easy searching. Images recorded onto DVD-RAM or DVD-R discs can also be played on a DVD recorder or DVD player, so you don't have to hook the camcorder up to a TV to watch your recordings.

Anyone who has yet to buy a digital camcorder might be thinking it's a good idea to skip the Mini DV tape format now dominating the space, and jump right to recordable-DVD camcorder. Think of it as a Polaroid camera: you shoot, finalize the disc and pop it out.

DVD camcorders come in two versions, one that uses rewritable DVD-RAM/R discs requiring a DVD player with RAM playback or a PC with a DVD-RAM drive, and the other that uses the more popular DVD-R/RW discs that work with most ordinary DVD players.