Camcorder-Hard drive or DVD

[bradleysnana]

I am looking at 2 sony camcorders trying to decide between the 2. I am looking at a hard drive and a dvd camcorder. I am looking for a small camcorder that will be easy to carry to Disney and to the grandkids sporting events as well as Christmas and family reunions. I need an easy way to copy the video so that I can give my daughter a copy. Anyone have suggestions between the DVD and hard drive camcorders?

 

[Charade]

While the DVD would be the easiest to use and less hassle getting the movies to play elsewhere like on a DVD player hooked to your TV or one in your PC, the Mini-DV models have the best video quality but aren't as easy to transfer to DVD. With both the HD and mini-DV models you have to transfer (or use service) them to a PC to make a DVD.

 

[Groucho]

Hard drives are very unreliable, especially laptop-size 2.5" ones, which is what I presume that HD camcorders use. So while they have unbeatable convenience, you have to assume that sooner or later, the hard drive WILL crash and you'll probably lose all the video that's on it, and will be looking at buying and installing a new drive.

As Charade said, I've also heard that the DVD and HD ones use heavy compression to fit more video on, so the image quality will not be as good as a miniDV camera.

 

[TwingleMum]

ITA with the above also the record time isn't that great. I just bought a Sony miniDV because when I researched all the different formats I went to buy mini DVDs which only record at lowest quality 30 mins and I couldn't buy them at Priceclub or BJs. But both BJs and Priceclub sold several different MiniDVs at a great price.