Overview
Camcorders contain three major components: lens, imager, and recorder. The lens gathers and focuses light on the imager. The imager (usually a CCD or CMOS sensor on modern camcorders; earlier examples often used vidicon tubes) converts incident light into an electrical signal. Finally, the recorder converts the electric signal into video and encodes it into a storable form. More commonly, the optics and imager are referred to as the camera section.
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