HOW DOES A CAMCORDER WORK?

By Kaley Romero

The camcorder has been a wonderful and handy device people have enjoyed using for several years. People use camcorders for recording short videos of weddings, special ceremonies, sports events, and other remarkable occasions. But the question is still out there: How exactly does a camcorder work?

The first camcorder was originally designed for the improvement of broadcasting television images. These camcorders were extremely large and were mounted onto a particular trolley for the purpose of transporting it from place to place, and were very inconvenient to use. Later, this technology was made into a smaller and more compact design for more reliable usage and was released by Sony in 1980.

The analog camcorder is made of three main segments; a camera segment, a VCR segment, and a viewfinder segment. The camera segment consists of a CCD, a lens, and motors to handle the zoom, focus, and aperture. The VCR segment contains a TV VCR.

 The CCD “sees” what it is recording through its lenses. The lenses in the CCD focus the light from a scene onto film with chemicals that have a reaction to light. That way the camera film records the event happening in front of it. The VCR segment contains a TV VCR that is shrunk down to a smaller size to fit in a very small place inside the camcorder. The Viewfinder receives the images recorded through the camera segment so you can observe the scene.

The process in which the camcorder records the scene in front of it begins with the camera segment. The lenses focus light onto the charge-coupled device (CCD). Then, the light-sensitive diodes, called photosites, convert the amount of light measured in a particular spot into an electronic signal. Then finally, the VCR receives the electronic signals, therefore providing the person recording to watch what is being recorded.

Although this handy device is wonderful to use everywhere, there are some downsides to camcorders. They cost a lot of money, including the camcorder itself and the CCD. Also, the CCD eats up a lot of power very quickly. The camcorder also has a limited recording capacity, which makes it even more expensive to own one of these devices in your home.

For many years since the camcorder was invented, people have always wondered how such a wonderful and complex device works. Since the first camcorder was released in the nineteen hundreds to the present smaller device people use nowadays, this device is wonderful for recording memories electronically. Because of this wonderful gadget, people today can keep memories preserved that are worth remembering for the future.

Resources:

History Information: http://www.homehighlight.org/entertainment-and-recreation/hobbies/the-history-of-camcorders.html

Parts Information: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/camcorder1.htm