Need some insight into buying a camcorder

[MrBiggZ]

Hi!

I'm looking to spend between $300-400 for a camcorder. BUT! I haven't a clue to what I'm looking at or what I'm looking for. I don't trust the sales people at these electronic stores. But I've never gotten a bum answer from you folks here on the forums.

Basically, what can I get for the most bang for my buck? Hope you can help!!

[redwudz]

I'd start by narrowing down what you want a little. There are DV camcorders that use tape. Still some in your price range. DV is great to edit, though you need a FireWire card. And it does use about 13GB/hour of hard drive space. DV transfers in real time, so it take a while. Conversion to DVD is fairly easy.

Then there are highly compressed format cameras that record on memory cards or a few with hard drives in that price range, I think. If you need to do extensive editing, they are a lot more difficult for this than DV tapes. And the quality is arguably lower. With these devices you can use the memory card in the computer or transfer via USB fairly quickly. Conversion to DVD may be a bit more difficult.

It sounds like you want to buy locally, but I would use a site like NewEgg for basic research. You can sort by price range for a start, then different formats.

I'm not sure anyone here can tell you what you want in a camcorder, so that part is up to you.

I'll let others make specific suggestions.

[MrBiggZ]

I'm not sure anyone here can tell you what you want in a camcorder, so that part is up to you.

I'll let others make specific suggestions.

Thanks sir!

I really wanted to stay away from tape. Really would like to know the pros and cons to the DV and SD cards. I don't mind editing on the PC .. I think it's rather fun.

Looking forward to others suggestions

[filmboss80]

I have had SD cards fail within a year, while miniDV tapes have endured for several years. Recording to miniDV tape does far less compression (DV-AVI) than shooting to a recordable mini-DVD disc (MPEG-2), which makes editing a lot smoother, especially when using transitions, titles, and effects.

The single biggest risk with tape is that it will get eaten up or jammed in the camcorder. That has happened to me -- but only once in hundreds of shoots. There is no such thing as risk-free media.

[zoobie]

just about everybody here in the know recommends a refurb canon hv20 for around $400...it's a superior tape drive and you can even shoot HDV
you won't be able to beat the value

[videobread]

http://estore.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10051&s...category=12077

Refub HV20 for $400