Video Camera with Hard Drive

[OneMoreTry]

Please direct me to another thread if this has already been discussed recently.

I haven't had a video camera for over 5 years.

I'm thinking of getting a hard-drive video camera. Reviews of the sony criticize picture quality and inability to transfer to a computer without the docking station.

I haven't found any reviews of the JVC.

Does anyone have experience with these or other video cameras with a hard drive? Does anyone have recommendations for another (small) video camera?

 

[Groucho]

General consensus is to avoid. Hard drives are not terribly reliable, plus quality will be iffy due to heavy compression used in order to cram more video onto the drive. The same (minus reliability) goes for DVD camcorders. Good ol' tape ones seem to have the edge in quality and are pretty cheap, too.

 

[ndelaware]

Forget the HD and go with a MiniDV camcorder.

 

[OneMoreTry]

Thanks. That's what I was beginning to think. I'll save the money and get better quality.

Any recommendations for brand? I've always used Sony video cameras.

 

[RitchG]

I agree. The compromises made to compress video onto a DVD or hard drive are too great; they usually use MPEG of some type which was deisgned to be a "destination" format, in that it is really hard to edit with any quality.

Lately I've been avoiding Sony because a few friends have had problems (mostly with the drive failing)(and because I'm still ticked that their record division installed a rootkit on my computer); but the guys that use one of the "pro" Digital Beta units love 'em. I've used Canon for a while (have an Optura Xi and use an XL1 sometimes (which isn't mine, unfortunately); both MiniDV) and have liked them alot. The things to look for are similar to digital still cameras: the lens will make a huge difference, and the number of lines of resolution combined wth the size/number of sensors is also key. Another brand that I've used is JVC, but in the "pro" DV format so I'm not sure what their consumer/prosumer models are like.
HTH.
---Ritch

 

[allyn]

my first choice brand of camcorders is panasonic, followed by canon. if i was buying a camcorder today, i would think very hard about springing for a high-definition model. (actually for me that would be a no brainer).

the major downside of a mini-dv camcorder is the tedium of capturing (uploading) the video to your computer. you play the video at normal watching speed so it takes an hour to upload an hour of video. digital video is 11GB/hour so the resulting video files won't even all fit on a single dual layer dvd. all very annoying.