From Emily Price,
Your Guide to Camcorders.
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Many camcorders will list CCD as one of the camcorders specs. The CCD in your camera has a huge effect on the quality of the video you can record with your new camcorder. Understanding what a CCD is and how it works will help you be better prepared to purchase the best camcorder for you.

What is a CCD?

The phrase CCD stands for charge-couple-device. The CCD is essentially a chip inside your camcorder that determines the brightness of your camcorders picture and the brilliance of the colors it records.

How are CCD’s measured?

CCDs are generally talked about in terms of size. The larger the CCD your camcorder has, the better. The larger the CCD is the more light it will be able to take in, and the brighter the picture will look.

Most consumer camcorders will have a 1/6 to a 1/3-inch CCD. Professional camcorders used by news crews and the like usually have 1/2 inch CCDs.

A small difference in the size of the CCD in your camcorder can make a HUGE difference in the quality of your video, so always try to purchase a camcorder with a large CCD.

Why do some camcorders have more than one CCD?

Most professional camcorders today are made with 3 CCD’s. With a 3 CCD camcorder there is a CCD dedicated to each of the primary colors. A 3 CCD camcorder will show a noticeable increase in video quality from a one CCD camcorder.

What about pixels?

Many CCDs will also list a number of pixels for the CCD. In general, the more pixels the CCD has the better the picture quality is going to be. Most companies will list a gross and effective pixel count for the CCD. The effective pixel count is the pixel count that matters to you, the gross pixel count has to do with the number of pixels on the CCD.