Along with Digital8 with which it shares a recording standard, Mini DV (and the later High Definition version HDV) is the "Gold standard" for home recording on videotape.
Recordings are made at the same definition as the Standard Definition TV (and with HDV, the same as an HD 1080i display) that would have been used to play them back, rather than the earlier analogue formats that recorded less information and then "scaled it up" to fill the screen.
The tapes are the smallest of any format that saw widespread use, and the camcorders are therefore the most "palm-friendly". Given the quality of the recording, tape length and camcorder size, it's little wonder then that this was an incredibly popular tape format. Footage could also be captured via Firewire with no loss of quality, making editing on computer easily accessible to home users for the first time; it was only surpassed in convenience when solid-state recording became widespread.
In practice, tape based High Definition formats such as HDV weren't especially popular for home recording, although they remained popular in professional use for some time, in different variations. Solid-state recorders became available fairly soon after HDV tape camcorders dropped to an acceptable price range and physical size for the home market and the convenience factor won out.
