camcorders

[musketeer]

Hi
My camcorder went wrong today it's only 2 years old phoned up to have it repaired and was told it could cost anything up to £200, anyway i've been looking at another one and wanted to know if anyone could recommend one?
I've also been looking at a Panasonic NVGS 17b is it any good?

Thanks

Tracy

 

[Claire L]

What is your price range?

Claire

 

[musketeer]

Anything up to £500

 

[Claire L]

I love my Sony handycam and have had it for over 3 and a half years.

This is a nice looking one and a good price.

Claire

 

[Tron[ADS]]

The new Hard Disk camcorders are the way to go, and I saw a 20gig one on sale at £400 or so at Currys in the paper.

Avoid purchasing a DVD based camcorder, their advantage of being able to pop a disk into a DVD player afterwards are far outweighed by a long list of disadvantages....they are mainly designed for the target market of people who think that because its on a DVD, it "must be good".

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

Would agree with Tron[ADS] above. The quality (imo) is compromised due to the lack of space. It doesn't take a mathematician to work it out:

One hour in "pure" AVI format (tapes) is approx 13gb.

So to get it to fit on a "mini" DVD means a lot of compression.

I have also looked at the HD camcorders but at the moment I am sticking to the tapes - they're very cheap, and if you run out of space you can easily buy another.

Back to what you could buy for £500. I would say almost any of the top brand names, either HD or DV Tape, would be a good purchase. My preference would be for Sony (I've always had Sony camcorders) as they have always served me well. DD (13) uses the 11 year old Sony Hi8 and the quality is still excellent on that.

 

[snookhams]

When you have decided on one take a look at www.cameras2u.com we could not believe the prices, we just ordered panasonic nvgs37 and it was almost £100 cheaper than J lewis and Jessops

 

[musketeer]

The one that's just gone wrong is a Sony handycam and only 2 years old
Thanks for the info

 

[Claire L]

Oh not good about the Sony handycam but I am on my second Sony, the first is still useable (I think, not used it in a while) I just got a new one in 2003 as wanted it to be smaller and digital.

Claire

 

[Netty]

we have always bought sony camcorders and never had a problem! have you decided yet on what to get?

 

[wickesy]

I recently bought a JVC 30GB hard disk camcorder. That gives me 10 hours of recording time at a reasonable quality setting without having to worry about changing tapes or DVDs.

To get the footage off of the camcorder you can either connect it to a PC via USB or to a VHS/DVD recorder.

 

[Minniespal]

We've recently upgraded from a Sony handycam to this one.

 

[wayneg]

Another site to check is www.bargaincrazy.co.uk its a catalogue clearance shop. I just bought Pana nvgs37 this week £133+£3.95Del
Its like all clearance sites you have to keep checking for stock. And double check the prices with pricerunner or kelkoo and make sure its a good deal.

 

[Tron[ADS]]

I recently bought a JVC 30GB hard disk camcorder. That gives me 10 hours of recording time at a reasonable quality setting without having to worry about changing tapes or DVDs.

To get the footage off of the camcorder you can either connect it to a PC via USB or to a VHS/DVD recorder.

I might consider one of these in a few months...I took a look at the jvc website, but couldnt find any details about battery life....how have you found it, does it offer any improvement over the normal battery life of mini-dv cams ?

 

[wickesy]

I might consider one of these in a few months...I took a look at the jvc website, but couldnt find any details about battery life....how have you found it, does it offer any improvement over the normal battery life of mini-dv cams ?

That's the catch - the battery life for the provided battery (according to the manual) is only 1 hour 10 minutes. I bought an extended capacity battery which lasts 2 hours 25 minutes but that cost an extra £99.99 (and that was in the Duty Free shop at the airport) although there is also a high capacity battery available which lasts 5 hours and 50 minutes ( I shudder to think what the cost of that would be )

I've only used it for short bursts of filming and only for a couple of hours total over 10 days so I couldn't really say how the actual battery life compares with the published times.

Not much help I know, but hopefully you can take something useful from that.

If you want to take a look at the instructions you can download them from JVC here Its a 13.5 MB file though.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Would agree with Tron[ADS] above. The quality (imo) is compromised due to the lack of space. It doesn't take a mathematician to work it out:

One hour in "pure" AVI format (tapes) is approx 13gb.

So to get it to fit on a "mini" DVD means a lot of compression.

I have also looked at the HD camcorders but at the moment I am sticking to the tapes - they're very cheap, and if you run out of space you can easily buy another.

Back to what you could buy for £500. I would say almost any of the top brand names, either HD or DV Tape, would be a good purchase. My preference would be for Sony (I've always had Sony camcorders) as they have always served me well. DD (13) uses the 11 year old Sony Hi8 and the quality is still excellent on that.

Not quite true, it depends on the compression system used.
I have had for 12 months the Sony HDV HC-1 1080i Mini DV camera which can either work in SD or HD and the picture quality in HD is fantastic. All I need is for Sony to bring out Blu Ray Recorders....

I would agree Sony are without a doubt the best. I have a six year old TRV900E and its still works fantastically.

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

Not quite true, it depends on the compression system used.
I have had for 12 months the Sony HDV HC-1 1080i Mini DV camera which can either work in SD or HD and the picture quality in HD is fantastic. All I need is for Sony to bring out Blu Ray Recorders....

I would agree Sony are without a doubt the best. I have a six year old TRV900E and its still works fantastically.

I have to agree the picture quality in HD is fantastic, but is not this camcorder a mini DV camcorder and not a mini DVD - in which case I think we are agreeing.

A friend of mine has a Sony DVD camcorder (I forget which model) and we did a test of filming water with sun reflecting off it. I filmed the same with my camcorder (Sony DCR-TRV25E). We played them both back on the TV and you could see the artifacts on the miniDVD play back, where there were none on mine.

Blu Ray......pant! pant! dribble slurp! I can't wait either.

 

[musketeer]

Oh not good about the Sony handycam but I am on my second Sony, the first is still useable (I think, not used it in a while) I just got a new one in 2003 as wanted it to be smaller and digital.

Claire

the one that went wrong is the DCR TRV245E it's a Digital 8 and we got some brilliant filming from it.

 

[musketeer]

we have always bought sony camcorders and never had a problem! have you decided yet on what to get?

Still unsure as i want something on the same lines as my old one, reading some of the reviews on some of the camcorders it says that the battery only lasts for about an hour.

 

[Netty]

Good luck in what ever one you decide to get!
we bought a sony last xmas, we only mainly use a camcorder when we go to wdw.