Is 24X zoom better than 200X on camcorders?

There are two types of zoom, optical and digital. Optical zoom is the actual capability of the lens itself. Digital zoom is what the computer in the camcorder does above and beyond the limit of the lens.

If you've ever taken a low-resolution photo and blown it up much larger than the original size, you know what happens. The pixels get bigger, and bigger, and bigger until all you see is a patchwork of squares. That's what digital zoom does, it just enlarges the image that the lens captures, so quality degrades the further you go into the optical zoom range. When you zoom in on an object and the zoom seems to hesitate, or you have to press the button again you know that you are then switching to digital zoom and have maxed out the actual capability of your optical zoom.

So, to answer your question, 200x is not always better than 24x zoom, unless of course it's all optical zoom, not digital, which is very rare unless you have a very high-dollar camcorder with inter-changeable lenses.