Is Vixia HF M30 a good choice?

[twister6]

After realizing that in the last 2 years we mostly recorded video clips of our kids using digital photo camera instead of our outdated MiniDV camera (hate those tapes and constantly taking them out after recording so they wouldn't dry out), I decided to buy HD digital camcorder. Too many choices, so I narrowed it down to whatever local Best Buy caries and just got HF M30. Didn't care much about 32GB M31 for extra $100, or top of the line S20 for dual flash or 9MP sensor. Major complains I read about M30 were poor low light recording and only 3.3MP still image resolution. Since I'm not planning to take still snapshots, and only care about video I thought it would be a good choice. I also got a price match with another local store, so M30 came out to $599. Well now reading through other posts in this and other forums, I see that people talking about cheaper cameras for high def video recording, cameras that cost half or 1/3 of the price I paid for M30. Now I'm confused. Was that a good decision to buy this camera or should I go for something cheaper? I'm not planning to do any super high definition stuff, just capturing video memories of kids growing up and keeping files in manageable size to burn/store for back up on DVD-Rs.

Just curious to hear what do you guys think? Is M30 a good camera? I think it’s a good value, considering I paid 1/2 of what S20 would cost, but is this a good camera to capture standard quality (nothing fancy) videos? Should I have looked into something cheaper and if so, what are the cheaper quality alternatives? Thanks!!!

[Soopafresh]

Yeah, it's pretty good for a consumer camcorder. Records at a high bitrate. Cheaper cameras won't be as good in low light. The menus are going to take a bit of getting used to. Also you'll notice how much more important it is to keep the camcorder stable as you're recording. HD will do that to you. You'll have to figure that into the equation. Tripod, Gorillapod, Beanbag, or something similar is in your future.

The only other issue you'll encounter is slow video editing if your PC is anything less than a Duo Core Pentium. This is an important bit that a lot of people aren't alerted to when they upgrade to an HD camcorder. You can sort of get around the slowness by converting the footage to Cineform AVI using a $100 app called NeoScene.

Every camcorder has advantages and disadvantages. Canon makes good stuff, so that's a big positive.

HF M30 Footage

[fairytale00]

it is a pretty good choice.