Does anyone know if this camcorder is a good one to buy?

Question

I'm looking to buy a new camcorder. My old one is large and after holding it for a while makes my arm tired. I am looking at a Sony Handycam, DCR-DVD 610, DVD 40X Zoom Digital Camcorder. WOW...that's a mouth full. Can anyone tell me if it is better to buy a camcorder that uses DVD's or tapes. After I record what I want...like my babies b-day, school plays, and soccer games I wolu like to transfer the tape to DVD if I use one with tapes for storage. Which would be best to buy??

Answer 1

A camcorder that saves the video directly onto a DVD disc is the easiest as far as having an archive of videos saved onto DVD's without having to do anything further than simply recording them; however, it is not without its own pitfalls.  The little DVD discs that these cams take are very limited on the length of video you can record to each disc (in best video quality) therefore making it necessary for you to insert another disc once the current one fills up.  Some people find this too cumbersome and/or inconvenient.  However, if you bought one that used the DV tapes you would then need to transfer the recordings from those tapes onto a DVD which would require you to have one of two things: 1.  A firewire port on your computer which would allow you to upload the video onto your computer and a DVD burner which would then allow you to burn the video to a DVD disc.   -or-  2.  A DVD recorder set top box.  These are the ones which, like VCR's, you connect to your home entertainment center and/or TV.  Some of them have a firewire port right on them; however, even if they dont you could just connect your camcorder's AV cable's (red, white, yellow) plugs into it and burn your disc on that.  There are also hard drive based camcorders now and even ones that save the video directly onto the tiny little SD cards, which are nice... such as the Everio G series. As far as the hard drive ones you would still need one of the above two things in order to transfer the video; however, with the SD based ones you could do it via a USB 2.0 connection and/or a SD memory card reader.

Answer 2

Sony makes great camcorders, but I'd highly recommend either a Sony or Canon MiniDV camcorder for highest quality--my film and video production classes this past year used Sony Handycams (some cheaper and some that are worth $3,000) and they all used MiniDV tapes.  In fact, that Canon I own myself uses MiniDV tapes as well.  It may take a bit longer to transfer MiniDV to computer, but it's worth it for better quality.  You'll also need FireWire with MiniDV camcorders.

You should check out the Canon ZR-850 MiniDV Camcorder--it's a wonderful camcorder at a wonderful price.  I believe it's only $200 at the following website:

http://www.jr.com