Help me choose a camcorder

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Blueberry08

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I've had enough, I'm not posting on geeky forums any more. Several times I've tried looking for advice on which camcorder would be best for me and all that happens is the geeks start fighting over whether Canon or Panasonic or Sony or JVC is best, whether MiniDV or Hard Drive is the better option - it all turns ugly, personal threats are made, the thread is locked, and no one ever answers my question. :(

So.....can any normal (non-geek) person out there advise me?

Budget: e400 max

I'm just looking for a decent quality camcorder for home movie type stuff. Most importantly I want to be able to easily transfer everything on to my Mac and edit the video there (in iMovie or Final Cut), before sticking it on DVDs.

Has anyone bought a camcorder in Ireland or online that fits this bill?

Thanks.
 
Blueberry08 said:
I've had enough, I'm not posting on geeky forums any more. Several times I've tried looking for advice on which camcorder would be best for me and all that happens is the geeks start fighting over whether Canon or Panasonic or Sony or JVC is best, whether MiniDV or Hard Drive is the better option - it all turns ugly, personal threats are made, the thread is locked, and no one ever answers my question. :(
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A wise decision to try this forum. None of the above ever happens on AAM. Ever. ;)

It's difficult to get a realistic opinion on the best camcorder, everyone has their favourites, for whatever reason, and no one will back down. There are a couple of great magazines, published monthly with simple reviews of the latest cameras. Of course, I can't remember their names, but I've used them and seen them in many bookshops around the country, so they're easy to find. If you pick a couple from one of those magazines you could cross check them online on the excellent www.cnet.com review section - probably the best and most reliable review site for electronics.

For what it's worth I've used a few different varieties, but have found Sony to be the best on a number of levels. I prefer tape (tip, once you use a particular brand of tape stick withit as changing brands will dirty tape heads as they all use different types of lubricant). Don't buy a miniDVD cam as it's more difficult to edit and not 100% reliable.
 
Blueberry08 said:
it all turns ugly, personal threats are made, the thread is locked, and no one ever answers my question. :( So.....can any normal (non-geek) person out there advise me?
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Calling people geeks or 'not normal' might be what you're doing wrong.

Try Alliance Electric in South Great Georges Street in Dublin. They know all about that stuff and appear to be quite normal.
 
This one was voted European Family Camcorder of the Year. The price seems to be fairly good as I was looking at a similar one i.e. 30gb hard drive for €499



You could get a mini-dv camcorder much cheaper but I suppose that depends on whether you want the extra hassle of using tapes.

For the money I'd say this one is good value at €329 and you can record about 37 hours of material on it.
 
The thing about hard drives is that they wont last forever - most are manufactured to tolerate a certain number of spins or accesses. So, given that your hard drive is going to break some day, how are you backing up your camcorder stuff?

Thats the number one advantage of mini-dv - it's like having an automatic backup. The next thing to look at is image quality. At the moment, mini dv captures the most images per second - think it's 32fps, perhaps the most important factor is the quality of the lens and image sensor.

At the moment, for a given price point, mini dv is far superior to hdd. What you have to weigh up is the convenience factor - theres no doubt that the hdd interface should be easier to use. The mini dv can be fiddly e.g. if you rewind to look at what you've taped, you have to forward it to the point where you want to start taping again (although good ones will have a menu option for this, you still have to wait for it to happen)

So for the same cash, you'd get a low end hdd drive, or a good quality mid-range mini-dv - defined in terms of ccd & lens quality.
 
aldark said:
At the moment, mini dv captures the most images per second - think it's 32fps, perhaps the most important factor is the quality of the lens and image sensor.
Click to expand...
I think a hard drive camcorder will last long enough compared to the mechanism of a tape-based camcorder. But, the big advantage of min-DV is that there is no compression, whereas the hard disc cameras typically use MPEG2. That can degrade very quickly when edited or transcoded.

But for family stuff, it's hard to beat the convenience of the hard-drive cameras, especially since the footage is probably just dumped 'as-is' to a DVD.

Then to be watched for 10 minutes and never looked at again.
 
For what it is worth I had the same problem last week. Somebody has already mentioned the JVC camera and that is what I went for in the end. Hard Drive = convenience. Camera is easy to use and a lot of fun. Transferring to PC is simple. I bought it in Harvey Norman and got a pack that included a docking station and remote control for €399. I could have bought it on Pixmania for ~€320 and then added the bits and pieces but I just decided to get it on the day and not to keep looking around online and getting into the same techie detail you are hitting.

I am sure there are technically better cameras but if you want something simple, portable and good fun I stand by the JVC.
 
I also have a JVC GZ-MG130E harddisk camcorder. It's nifty, but may not be Mac friendly.
 
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