<p>I know there is a recent digital camera thread, but I’m looking for a video camera. I read a couple of on-line reviews and was quickly overwhelmed. What do I need to know and how much can I expcet to spend for a decent one?</p>
<p>Go over to C-Net. com and start reading! There are several different formats, so you’ll have to make choices there to begin with. There are cameras which record to the hard drive and also take SD cards to expand their memory and there are the lighter and less expensive ones which only take external media cards (no hard drive recording capabilities) . I assume you have ruled out the mini DV or the record-directly-to-DVD camcorders? Then, you get into HD vs. lower res. quality; the HD cameras can be quite a bit more expensive, but if you have or are going to get an HD TV, then do consider them. Make sure the get one with Stabilization control which will minimize distracting shaking which we all do and which can leave viewers with a whopping case of vertigo! I’ve had the digital mini DV and this year was given a Panasonic expandible hard drive recording camera-the little icon for the image stabilization broke in May (got it in February) and the company wants more to repair it than the darned thing cost to begin with and I can’t see that it’s not working since the videos look just fine. I recently added one of the tiny Vivitar HD camcorders with the flip screen, stuck a 4GB card into it and the kids had it up and working great while I was still trying to read the on-line manual! Kodak also has a new tiny model out that is attracting attention, but I’d wait on that one! The prices are dropping so fast that you might be able to have a couple of different types, like I do, to use in different situations- and an added bonus is that almost all of them act as digital still cameras too (my tiny Vivitar is a 10MP camera also). PM if you want to talk about experiences I’ve had with different brands, since I am now realizing how many of these things I’ve actually owned/used over the past 6 years!</p>
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<p>I *did *start reading at C-Net.com and when I started reading things like what you posted, I stopped reading. I have no idea what any of that stuff is (SD cards, external media cards, etc.) so I guess I’ll just stick with our old one until we can’t buy tapes anymore. Choosing formats makes me afraid that I’ll choose the equivalent of Beta.</p>
<p>Seems like everyone in the world has one but me…how did they figure it all out?</p>
<p>The first thing you need to know is ease of use. Are you a no frills aim and shoot person or do you need features galore.</p>
<p>Aim and shoot. No special features needed.</p>
<p>Get a camcorder with a hard drive so you don’t have to mess with memory chips which are easy to lose; the bigger the hard drive, the better (unless you are religious about uploading your videos). Look what it takes to upload the videos to your computer and process them. DD has a Sony HD camcorder with a hard drive. It came with a video editing software (a truncated version of Vegas). She mastered that program in no time, but my D is very handy with all things digital.
If simple point and shoot is what you need, skip all that HD stuff and get a SD camcorder (apparently, it is a piece of cake to upload the images from these to a computer):</p>
<p>[Standard</a> Definition Video Camcorders | Sony | Sony Style USA](<a href=“http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=3555&N=4294966230]Standard”>http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=3555&N=4294966230)</p>
<p>If you are going to shoot videos from a distance, look for the features such as optical zoom (again, the bigger the number, the better) and image stabilizer (Sony’s SteadyShot is pretty good).</p>
<p>H and I are still using the 10 year old Sony Handycam which takes miniDV tapes. We are that low tech!</p>
<p>Added: if you are truly overwhelmed by the new tech, get a camcorder from Costco and play with it for a few days. If you feel intimidated by it, they will take it back within 90 days of the purchase date.</p>
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<p>That’s exactly what we still have! (But I think if I dug around in the garage I could find the giant 1991 version also.)</p>
<p>I’ll give a different opinion than a previous poster fwiw - </p>
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<li><p>Get an HD camcorder with a reasonably large imaging chip. You’ll want the HD recordings even if you don’t currently have an HDTV because someday you will and the improved resolution is always good. Even with HD the imaging chips vary in size (i.e. number of pixels). Generally speaking larger is better (that’s ‘generally’).</p></li>
<li><p>Get a camcorder that stores the recordings on memory chips rather than tape/DVD and IMO rather than HDD (hard disk). The reason I’m saying this is because the memory chips (usually SDHC cards like in a digital camera) are solid state with no moving parts and not much to break. An HDD has moving parts and tight tolerances and doesn’t do as well when operating on a moving device like a camcorder. The SDHC cards are getting larger and cheaper and a 16G one holds a reasonable amount of storage in terms of HD quality x time. You’ll end up transferring it to your PC anyway so long term storage and hige capacity shouldn’t be an issue. There are some camcorders that have both HDD and an SD card slot but again, the HDD is the most likely thing on the camcorder to break someday.</p></li>
<li><p>My D just purchased a camcorder after me doing a bunch of research. For the features, price point, and reviews, we ended up selecting the Canon Vixia HF200 and it take fantastic quality HD video. It’s currently $550 on Amazon.</p></li>
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<p>Of course, HDDs have moving parts and therefore can break, but Sony’s HDDs have a special mechanism (tested here on our laptop that was shattered to pieces, but HDD survived just fine!!!) that protects them from shattering even if you drop your camera. The reason that I don’t like removable memory is that in our family, one lazy member would always go to Costco and buy more chips, tapes, etc. rather than transfer stuff to the computer. It gets pretty expensive! He spent more money on memory sticks than on all our cameras combined! With a HDD, when it gets full, said member has to clean it up by uploading the files to the PC. :)</p>
<p>^^ Yes, the motion sensing helps but it’s still the most likely component to break and I think it will eventually disappear from camcorders anyway as solid state memory becomes more viable due to cost/capacity.</p>
<p>The users who don’t offload the video from the media regardless of what it is won’t be very happy when it does break or get lost or stolen along with all the video they haven’t offloaded and hopefully backed up.</p>
<p>I was going to ask about this the other day but forgot. I still have the hi 8mm tape camcorder. Should a Digital8 a logical buy (so that I can convert the tape to digital)? What brand? Not that I want to hijack the thread, it is related, I hope :-)</p>
<p>Just wondering why the bias against mini DV recorders? I have a Cannon GL2 which is the lowest end professional camera and love it. I would like to upgrade to HD at some point but don’t want to give up the mini tapes. Clinging to what I know, I guess! Are there any HD cameras that use mini tapes or do they all come with a hard drive?</p>