 Hi guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel Daniel Rossell here today and going to be talking through some of the differences I see between consumer and professional grade camcorders first things first I wouldn't consider myself a Totally seasoned camcorder expert or even a video pro for that matter so take everything I'm saying from the perspective of a camcorder hobbyist rather than as a Leading authority on camcorders. I have been using camcorders shooting with them for about four years now Currently a lot of my video output is for this youtube channel, but I also do some professional video work shooting at conferences for the person to whom I'm currently employed for Communications work. So it's a mixture of the two somewhat recently I upgraded from a consumer camcorder to What's considered a professional camcorder? I'm going to hold these two guys side by side So you can see the differences in size the differences in everything. This is the canon vixia hf r 800 It was my first camcorder purchase when I decided I was interested in learning about video And this is a great little camcorder from canon, but it definitely fits within the consumer camcorder Area i'm going to talk about what exactly that means in a second now if I pick up my Canon i'm going to swap around so the canon logo and the xLR controls can be seen This is the xa 40. This is considered a compact pro camcorder, right? But if you put it next to this You can see already the difference in size is pretty pretty substantial So what exactly is the difference now? What I would say is that in my observation and I've had discussions with this About this topic with people on the videography subreddit. It's not really a scientific distinction The xa 40 for instance fits within what canon officially markets as its pro camcorder series, but you know, I can definitely imagine some really grizzled ESG news operators used to these huge shoulder rounds saying that's not a pro camcorder that thing But so it's not I don't think there's a scientific distinction between this camcorders consumer this camcorders pro Rather, it's a collection of features That you will guess or you are kind of expected to get in the world of pro camcorders that you won't typically see in consumer So this actually isn't even the very bottom of the consumer range But if you talk about audio for instance, and this is actually why I picked out the vixia over the other options This guy has a 3.5 or 1 eighth In jack and you can actually monitor on this and again, you'll find even cheaper consumer camcorders that don't have any external audio input or no ability to monitor But that's kind of where it starts and stops from an audio perspective The distinguishing feature of course of most camcorders versus cinema cameras is that a lot of camcorders Are a fixed lens. It doesn't mean that you can't add lens filters or things like telephoto or macro Filters that'll fit on top of the lens But the actual you can't interchange between the lens and the sensor now That's not all camcorders, but a lot of them and that's actually the case also with the vixia. Sorry the The the xa40 which is pretty much the basic the basis entry level of cannons 4k pro camcorder range the 50 has a 1 inch sensor and the 55 and 45 have sdi output So let me just talk about a few things when I upgraded to this guy That I wasn't able to get or use on my consumer camcorder the vixia, right? So let's start with audio. The first thing is this has firstly. It's actually a form factor, right? This is a very common form factor for professional camcorders in which you have the camcorder body You have a top handle and it's very common that you're going to have controls on the top handle So if you see here, I have a record button. I have a Zoom toggle. I have a cold shoe now the idea of camcorders versus let's say DSLR mirrorless is firstly they're Intended for video capture primarily and secondly they're kind of intended for use The main users really of camcorders these days are probably news And documentarians and news is commonly called eng electronic news gathering. So in these kind of shooting environments It's very quick. So camcorder is because they're not that small tend to put a lot of controls Physically, so if you look at this side of my camcorder, this is the XLR audio control panel These are all physical switches. So when you're shooting something in a new setting You don't want to be going through menus and scrolling and scrolling and clicking You can control pretty much everything Audio related using your fingers, right? So in terms of the audio on this guy firstly, I've got two XLR ins right And this is something again that you will see on professional camcorders And not on consumer camcorders XLR. What's the difference between? XLR as a connection and You know 8th or 6.35 quarter inch um Firstly, there's amazing videos about balanced versus unbalanced audio up here on youtube And if you're really interested feel free to check those out The the skinny of it is if you take an XLR connector I'm just going to pull out my shotgun microphone and you look at what's on the inside It's got three pins, right? So each The audio goes in returns Each pin and I'm struggling with words here a little bit is separated So within the actual XLR cabling it's it's separate if you look at for example your average Headphone, right? Even if it's TRS or T tip ring sleeve sleeve TRSS Um, all the different signals are running up the same piece of Piece of wire. So that definitely can make a difference in terms of Susceptibility to RF interference and stuff like that. So that's number one is when you're getting a camcorder You're getting pro audio through XLR and I most a lot of camcorders also support So we just undock here On the XA40 I have my 3.5. So I can make a choice. I can use a Professional audio and basically any microphone because these XLR switches here the switch Where is it? Yeah, this one here for both of my two XLR inputs you can see on the right here There's mic plus 48 volt So this camcorder is capable of putting out 48 volt power and it's capable of taking in XLR microphones So that basically means you can use to the best of my knowledge pretty much any microphone You're going to find on the market regardless of whether it needs phantom power regardless of whether it's XLR connected And that's something again in the pro audio environment the microphones tend to be XLR or a lot of them are XLR. So that's considered very useful What else will you find in a pro camcorder? So I would distinguish between consumer and pro camcorders as well There's another distinction and that's between I'd say pro camcorders and eng camcorders I'll get to that in a second The true eng camcorders the stuff you see tv guys carry around are kind of I would say almost in a class of their own They're absolute beasts But there are and this is a kind of pretty niche part of the market The canon are serving in a couple of other manufacturers this kind of form factor that it's definitely bigger than a consumer camcorder But it's it's not quite that big In terms of other factors, you're going to find in a professional camcorders or other features I should say just a couple that come to mind would be SDI out so SDI is used in professional environments So in a consumer camcorder, you'll have hdmi out for putting the You know, if you're work if you're feeding your stream into a mixer, but SDI is preferred in professional workflows I'm not exactly sure why my understanding is that you can get everything in SDI Including timecode as well as the video and speaking of timecode. That's another feature You'll see in professional camcorders in that they have timecode as well and the timecode for keeping various Devices on set in sync for working in post we're talking about audio and video That's something that would be way overkill in consumer land I'm sure if you search there's probably some sort of a work around you can get consumer camcorders to work Other things that those would be kind of the main things and kind of features I've noticed so far that the step up from consumer to pro has given me the menus are a little bit more complicated But it's nothing crazy. This guy can also do four channel audio whereas I'm limited to To capturing I think only up to two channels on the Vixia Another feature you'll see on pro camcorders coming back to the point that they like to put their controls at the hands of the user This is the zoom ring. It's actually an interchangeable zoom focus ring on the xa40 And you'll see a lot of the pro camcorders have actually three rings before the lens So you can literally again use your fingers and toggle zoom focus and iris using three different rings Um, that's pretty much what I can think about but just to add a tiny little bit of detail to this discussion I've gone on to the bnh website and just to show you guys the the separate category So if you if I click under camcorders, the way bnh do it is they don't call it pro camcorders and consumer camcorders and this is actually Uh, the way if I recall correctly from my visit there last summer The way they lay out there, uh, their showroom is like the bottom level is for a professional and then the layers above that Are for a consumer another thing you'll get with pro camcorders is sometimes can and have a pro Protection line that you're eligible for if you buy certain pro products So there it's kind of just a different market in terms of who actually buys these things Especially given that not a ton of people are buying camcorders these days anyway Um, but just to show you guys for instance under the way bnh do it They don't talk about pro camcorders. Uh, they talk about camcorders meaning pro camcorders And then they distinguish consumer camcorders. So I'm just going to look into these two Uh different product listing pages, right? So this is the so they actually do call it here professional camcorders And again, you're seeing that kind of classic form factor for a pro camcorder It's got the top handle. It's got a ton. This is the canon xf xf 605 It's got an absolute monstrous amount of hardware switches It looks a little bit like the cockpit on a bow and 747 where that you just see tons and tons of switches Um, and they all kind of look the same they again another thing you'll see here And this is something I have on my xf 40 is a shotgun mount So that's pretty standard that if you're shooting for professional video, you're going to be using an external microphone and the internal audio there is just just for scratch audio basically So they'll either come with a built-in light and a built-in microphone some pro camcorders go down this route Or they'll include a Physical mount. So that's what this guy has it's got a mount and I can just I just literally pushed in This microphone and I can change it out. So Um, it's it's more interchangeable if you have it like this that you can swap out between shotgun microphones But this is an example. This panasonic camera is uh the type that I actually was considering buying And that was where it has the fixed microphone there As far as you know that microphone is fixed that shotgun microphone is fixed and I think it's got a built-in light as well Ah one final thing I missed in my list of features. I'm going to jump back to me for a second Super useful feature is the tally light. So this is a little light that will illuminate when you're recording So if I'm shooting a video interview and I've got a guy just tell them wait for the red light to come on And then start speaking. So that's again another kind of uh feature that is uh ubiquitous in the world of broadcasting I need going through this but I think you get the idea of pro camcorders and what they tend to look like Now if you go into the consumer camcorder category Uh, you're kind of at your soccer mom as people like to call it level where it's kind of a smaller handheld device You don't have that top handle. You don't have those pro audio controls And again, they kind of all look alike as well, right? There is definitely a similarity here And this is a pretty small market as people in general are unfortunately moving away from camcorders You're seeing less Vibrancy in the camcorder market and you can see canon are actually kind of dominating I'd say canon panasonic jvc dominating over other. So this is you know, 167 bucks probably as cheap as you're going to find It's very basic. I don't think this guy even does Uh internal audio so the cheaper you get the more basic you're going to get the smaller the center that kind of thing So I think the difference is pretty clear um Just a few things that you'll get on a pro camcorder the pro audio controls sdi Sometimes another another feature is a jewel sd card so you can have a backup sd to record proxy clips onto It's just kind of another grade of features now just before I wrap this video up Let me show you guys the eng. I just typed into google images eng camcorder and I mean the difference between pro camcorders and eng camcorders again I don't think is fixed. I think it's we're talking more about terms of art here, but these are just like Beasts if you've ever picked one of these up you you can see how heavy they are the battery packs are gigantic It's just the next level again. They've got little antennas. I think hard built into this model for instance That can do wireless hdmi And it's all intended for you know for professional Video cameraman who are shooting for hours per day and they want everything possible on the camcorder body Some like this I think might have interchangeable lens. So again, that's not a that's not a fixed fixed rule So you can see there's just kind of a step up again when you go from consumer to pro camcorder And then looking into the eng market and by the way the price difference is astronomical This guy cost me about 1500 dollars. It was the cheapest 4k Capable pro camcorder I could find some of these eng camcorders go up to like 17,000 20,000 dollars, and I'm probably sure there's more expensive though. It's again It's a it's a big leap in cost So I hope this for anyone looking at whether they whether you want to go down the consumer if you're looking to stick with camcorders or start with camcorders whether you want to go look for a consumer model or a pro model I hope this is given at least just some kind of clarity about what the Differences in features and capabilities are. Thank you guys for watching more videos will be coming soon