Canon ZR500 Camcorder Review

Compression (8.0)
The compression rate for the Canon ZR500 is the standard 25 Mbps rate which occurs with all MiniDV camcorders. This compression rate is generally much more favorable to the high compression found on DVD camcorders recording video to the MPEG-2 format (with a maximum of 8.5Mbps). If image quality is important and compression is a concern, the far lower price and far better image quality of the ZR500 should appeal to the consumer rather than the DVD camcorders found at twice the price.

Media (8.0)
The Canon ZR500 records to MiniDV videocassette tape, and although one is not included with the camcorder, this format can be found at a reasonable price from a number of sources both on and off-line. By comparison, the price of DVDs for camcorders is distinctly higher, plus they offer a fraction of the recording time at a sub-par video quality. Keep in mind that DVD camcorders can only fit an average 20 minutes of their highest quality DVD footage onto blank discs (though this may change with HD and Blu-ray formats). The ZR500 does not record stills, and therefore does not have a card media slot.

Editing (8.0)
If you are interested in the cheap editing software that comes bundled with many camcorders, look elsewhere. The ZR500 does not ship with anything of the sort. There are, however, a number of simple editing software programs for purchase or download online, so we encourage you to shop around. Users should find that editing MiniDV footage is exponentially easy.