Talk to me about Camcorders

[cdotla]

We have to buy a new camcorder.

It appears that there are 3 main types:

(1) the mini tapes
(2) the mini DVD model; and
(3) the hard drive model

Price seems to be more than double for the hard drive model.

Need some advise / info on what to buy.

TIA

 

[mickeymorse]

I am not a professional by any stretch but for our last trip to WDW in Oct. it was time for me to upgrade my camcorder. I wasn`t ready to spend the money on a hard drive model. Like I said, I`m no Pro I decided to go with the mini DVD kind. Mostly just for the extra convenience of dropping it into your DVD drive and transferring to your computer. Each disc only holds about 30 min. of recordings but Costco sells 8pks pretty cheap. I hope nobody flames me here but I ended up buying mine in the U.S. on our way to the airport for our trip and saved $100 on the sale price over here. I bought the extra battery, case and blank discs with the savings.
Just for curiositys sake, I bought the Sony 108. Its less than half the size of my old VHS-C.

 

[trivial]

I did a fair bit of research on camcorders about 6-8 months ago, and while I haven't purchased one yet, the strong impression I got is that good ol' miniDV is still the way to go.

 

[Rapidfyre]

If you are willing to go up to close to $1000 the best one out there IMO is the Canon HG10 - High Definition with built in Harddrive

 

[dennise]

Mickeymorse:

Is your warranty good in Canada? I am thinking about doing the same thing on our trip in two weeks time. I am looking for a Sony DCR HC62. It is a mini-DV and very well recommended.

 

[sean-1966]

It depends what you want to do with it. If you don't intend on editing the footage then stay away from the hard drive. Mini DV is a tried and true format. No bugs in the system. I've only seen the mini DVD format once and it was a nightmare. I wasn't impressed with it. In the professional world the cameras are going to the hard drive / card systems but nobody is sure which way to go. I can tell you as a professional Videographer with almost 20 years experience I'd go with a mini DV. I hope that helps.

 

[cdotla]

Thanks for all the comments. Really appreciate it!

I wish I wasn't buying at what seems to be a real transition period in camcorder technology. However, after researching a bit and hearing all the comments I think I am going with the miniDV. Added advantage is that it is also the cheapest Sony model.

In a couple of years once the technology is sorted out and improved for HD (and hopefully the price adjusted downwards) I will likely buy again!

 

[B&B Mom]

We have a Canon Mini Dv and really like it. It's small and does a great job. One thing we didn't realize when we bought it though was that we needed a firewire port on our computer to download the video and burn to a DVD.
So...if a Mini Dv is your choice just make sure you have the capability to transfer the video.

Good Luck.

 

[laxcdn]

I went through all that before our Disney trip and went with HDD. Nothing to change, easy to copy from the recoder to the computer, or can go direct to DVD. I can tape between 7-27 hours on mine depending on the quality. So I was able to tape the whole trip without worrying about running out of space during something cool. Going with the hdd makes them smaller too.