Camcorder features and user comments?

[booboobubber]

Would it be possible to add a section on this site to list Camcorder features and user comments the same as we have for capture cards, DVD players, DVD writers etc. I've noticed noticed a lot of forum topics that are about camcorders, their features and question on how they work and perform.

[valzuniga]

I think that this is agood idea!!

[Baldrick]

Maybe...any specific features you would like? I have to manually add features so I will probably only add the most important features.

( I have no experience at all with newer camcorders...)

[booboobubber]

Important features would include :
Recording format eg SVHS, VHS-C, VHS, HI 8, DIGITAL 8, MINI DV, MICRO DV etc.

Optical Zoom: eg 10x , 20x etc

Digital zoom: eg 400x etc

Pc conection: eg firewire, usb, serial etc

Still photo function : eg on memory card, on film etc

Still photo maximum resolution.

Number of & size of CCD.

Inputs and outputs eg Analouge in/out/passthrough, DV in/out etc

Maximum battery life with LCD on.

LCD size.

I'm not an expert myself on modern camcorders as the camcorder I own is a 15 year old VHS-C panasonic. Maybe people with more up to date camcorders could better suggest features that are most important to list when rating or commenting on them.

Thanks Baldrick for showing interest.

[snowmoon]

I would probably nix the idea for several reasons

1) Camcorder info can be found on several sites.

2) The real benifit to the lists here is for information that the manufacturere does not revela or has not tested for.

3) This list would contain no information that can't be found on cnet or other shopping site.

4) Baldrick does so much for our whiney @sses already.

[EricB]

The key issue to this forum would be passthrough for conversion. All the other features tend to be reasonably easy to find, but this is something that often takes some digging to find out.

My camcorder spends 95% of its time hooked up to the computer doing passthrough conversion. A user here might be interested in an obsolete unit with a broken transport, if the price is right and they know it has passthrough.

[Tommyknocker]

EricB wrote:

The key issue to this forum would be passthrough for conversion. All the other features tend to be reasonably easy to find, but this is something that often takes some digging to find out.

In my opinion, my next camcorder would not be little more than a high priced converter. I make videos for the most part. So Booboobubber's matrix works very well for me, except for the digital zoom.

Any videographer worth his salt knows this function is so grainy it is useless unless grainy video is part of the effect you want to shoot. I hope Baldrick does decide to implement this forum, I am looking forward to it.

[booboobubber]

snowmoon, I know you can get information on camcorders from various web sites and some of them include user reveiws but what most of those reveiws lack are comments on how well the camcorder performs with capture to PC, output/input quality, analogue to digital conversion quality and performance. Another benefit I can see with user feedback on this site for camcorders is we would start to see certain camcorders stand out for reliability when used for capture and analogue passthrough capture, what software certain camcorders prefer to be captured with etc, and how using a camcorder for capturing analogue effects its lifespan.

Also it would be interesting to see user comments on the video quality when captured from MICRO DV and DVD Camcorders and some of the difficulties if any experienced when working with these camcorders and a PC.

[Baldrick]

tommyknocker: a forum? you mean a cam forum section in this forum?

[Tommyknocker]

Sorry, milord. I meant database, like the DVD players, hacks, etc. Sorry about that .