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

 

[nee]

I am having this problem too and have looked at the camcorder sites for weeks now.
The Canon HV20 or 30 is highly rated as it is HD and uses tape and so is not as compressed as footage written to hard drive.
Also tape is cheap and can be saved, especially while we are waiting for DVD recorders to catch up with the technology

 

[boBQuincy]

Image quality is still best on the mini-DV tape models, especially in HD. Some web sites have tested the image quality and confirmed this.
Is the image quality worth less convenience, less battery life, and less reliability is another question...

 

[Shir Kahn]

You're actually missing a couple of the options. You can also get flash camcorders, as well as Blu-Ray camcorders. Both of these are fairly expensive options however. I really like the hard drive camcorders personally. The mini-dv and the DVD camcorders seem to be heading the way of the VHS. A couple of nice choices would be the Sony SR45, which has 30gb of hard drive space, enough for 14 hours of standard quality video, or the JVC Everio 330 is another nice one. Again, 30gb of space and it's the worlds smallest hard drive camcorder. Both have quite a bit of zoom, however without a tripod, I wouldn't go past about 25x optical zoom. You'll just start having to much shake in your video. Right now, the SR45 is $499.99 USD and the JVC Everio 330 is $449.99 USD. If you're going to be taking a lot of low-light video, take the Sony.

 

[Groucho]

There was a very recent thread on this exact topic, from just a few days ago... you may want to go through the first few pages of topics and look for that one.

 

[MHolleman]

I just bought the Canon HG10 HD AVCHD 40GB HD Camcorder through Preferred photo. I LOVE it. They offer a great price. It is so lightweight and easy to use also. Even takes memory cards for 3.1 megapixel pictures. I got it over a month ago for just over 500.00 now they have it marked up to $623.00, but still a great price considering Best buy has it at $1099.99. Also be sure to check out Canon's link below for more info on this model.

Here are some links

Prefferd Photo http://www.preferredphoto.com/viewproduct.aspx?ID=3660564&l=YahooShopping

Best Buy http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...=product&tab=3&id=1186004147586#productdetail

Canon http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=15617

Any questions just feel free to ask
Melissa

 

[cryssi]

I am having this problem too and have looked at the camcorder sites for weeks now.
The Canon HV20 or 30 is highly rated as it is HD and uses tape and so is not as compressed as footage written to hard drive.
Also tape is cheap and can be saved, especially while we are waiting for DVD recorders to catch up with the technology

DH got the HV20 for christmas. We haven't really used it yet, though. He also had the HG10, but since there was no way to import and edit the HD footage (may have changed by now?) he kept the HV20...

 

[TinksDH]

DH got the HV20 for christmas. We haven't really used it yet, though. He also had the HG10, but since there was no way to import and edit the HD footage (may have changed by now?) he kept the HV20...

The AVCHD format is definitely not the most "user friendly" of the hard drive/flash drive formats. There are a couple of video editing programs that can work with this format, but it needs a LOT of computing power to convert the format to something that you can work with. That was the biggest reason for my NOT going with an HD HDD camera when I got mine 3 months ago. I knew that I didn't just want to shoot and put all that footage onto a DVD, but edit the raw footage into movies, etc. Upgrading my PC wasn't in the budget this year, so I am living with an SD HDD camera for now. I also wanted an HDD unit for convenience.

 

[cryssi]

The AVCHD format is definitely not the most "user friendly" of the hard drive/flash drive formats. There are a couple of video editing programs that can work with this format, but it needs a LOT of computing power to convert the format to something that you can work with. That was the biggest reason for my NOT going with an HD HDD camera when I got mine 3 months ago. I knew that I didn't just want to shoot and put all that footage onto a DVD, but edit the raw footage into movies, etc. Upgrading my PC wasn't in the budget this year, so I am living with an SD HDD camera for now. I also wanted an HDD unit for convenience.

Yeah, he wanted to be able to use Premiere, which didn't support AVCHD...we dabble in video editing, so without being able to do that it was pointless...plus we would need a computer upgrade...lol