What kind of videocamera do you have?

[yoda313]

I have a trusty sony 8mm analog (the newer style from the 90's not the old reel to reel type )

I don't do enough filming to justify buying a dv camera. Though it would be nice to have one. So if and when my sony breaks down I'll jump into the digital world.

How about you?

[TheFamilyMan]

We're still stuck in the past with our ol' analog sony handycam 8mm, though we're tired of carrying around this football on our vacations. We'll be getting a DV model soon as I decide what's best for the money we want to spend.

[daamon]

My original one that got me hooked on this god-forsaken hobby is a single chip Sony DCR-SC100e.

My main (pride and joy) is a Canon XM2, also known as a GL2 in NTSC-land.

[compuser]

Using a Sony DCR-TRV460 Digital 8 Camcorder. Works great!

[MJA]

Optura 60

[ZAPPER]

Sony TRV 330

It slices, it dices, it...well it does all I need.

I was looking around to see if I could find another just like it for next to nothing, but I must have bought the only one ever made.

I don't guess that it was ever the top of the line, but from what little I know, it is a solid camera.

[gadgetguy]

Sony DCR-TRV230
It works but it has it's limitations. (See my contest entry, Click Here)

[dwill123]

Panasonic PV-GS400

and you'd better hurry they're going fast!

[pijetro]

Panasonic PV-GS400

Yep..Me too.

and you'd better hurry they're going fast!

Whaddya mean??

[lordsmurf]

S-VHS-C and DV

[MozartMan]

Sony Hi-Def HDR-HC1.

[srenaud]

Sony TRV-350

(And old 8mm Sharp Viewcam.)

[Dosdan]

DV. JVC GR-DV900. Watch out! The marketplace is a mess. An inferior technical format (DVDcams - both disk and HDD equipped) is in the process of taking over because it's more convenient.

Both DVcams and DVDcams use MPEG-2 video compression but DVDcams use a much higher compression rate (the same rate as on a DVD) than DVcams. Now a DVDcam has to do this in real-time and in a single pass. That means, unlike the compression used for producing a good quality DVD where highly efficient (i.e. slow) compression can be done in two or more passes (i.e. the first pass can determine where the hard & easy to encode sections are and then allocate the bitbudget in a variable-bitrate encoding scheme efficiently so that the difficult parts get a high bitrate and the easy parts get a lower bitrate), DVDcams tend to show compression faults (blocks) much more often than DVcams.

A general trend in both DVcams & DVDcams has been small CCD arrays (e.g. 1/6") because a small CCD chip means there is a much greater yield from silcon die. This means lower costs. So cams are getting cheaper but they can't overome the laws of physics and smaller CCDs have lower lighter sensitivity than larger (1/4.7", 1/4", 1/3", 1/2", "2/3") . So lowend cams have attrocious low-ligh sensitivity (OK in sunshine but bad indoors).

Also, many cams have no external mike input (I've got great results many times taking an attenuate feed of a PA or mixing desk or combining, in production, the cams internal mike soundtrack - crowd response - with a 2nd soundtrack recorded on MinDisk from the PA - clear speaches, announcements and music). Internal mike-only recording, except in basic situations, is usually inferior.

And many cams that include an external mike input have a vicious, non-defeatable AVC - automartic volume control - that destroys the dynamics of music and brings up audience/crowd noise between the items. What an irony! A potential audio dynamic range grather than 90db but a vicious AVC can squash this to 30-40 db!

I would recommend the Panasonic PV-GS400. 3 CCD=good colour fidelity.
Good low-light sensitivity. Good audio capabilies. Good manual controls.

[dipstick]

I've got the Panasonic DV-PV 953

[dwill123]

and you'd better hurry they're going fast!

Whaddya mean??

Panasonic has announced the GS500 to replace the GS400. This model is a somewhat stripped down version of the GS400 with some of the prosumer features missing. This supposedly was done to bring the cost down under $1000. In recent days the remaining GS400 in dealers’ inventories have been flying off the shelves.

[W_Eagle]

Panasonic NV-GS400 (PAL).

[leguerisseur]

I have a Sony CCD-V5000 HI-8 year: 1990

Works well!

[harley2ride]

Panasonic PV-GS70. Great camera... Not really good in low light though.