Standalone Video Recorders are quickly emerging as an exciting new category of video accessory. The reason for this is obvious, there’s an artificial hole in the market. The optics, signal processors, and image sensors of consumer and industrial level camcorders have reached the “good enough” stage for professional production. So how does an electronics company maintain the value of it’s high-end broadcast cameras? Cripple the recording format to barely acceptable, and save the “good codecs” for your higher end units. Also make sure the high end codecs you do use are proprietary and incompatible with other manufacturers models.