A hand-held camera used to record moving pictures on video-tape cassettes for playing back on a television set. In a video camera the standard optical lenses focus the scene to be recorded onto an electronic camera tube, as in a television camera. The electronic data so obtained are recorded on video tape within the camcorder. At the same time, sound is picked up by a microphone attached to the camcorder, and recorded as a sound track along the edge of the video tape. The contents of the tape can usually be viewed on a miniscreen in the camcorder or played back through a television screen. Modern camcorders store their data in digital rather than analogue form—the same principle as used in digital photography. DVDs or electronic memory are used instead of tape.