Good camcorders?

Question

Does anyone know of any good camcorders? I'm really into creating videos and editing them on my iMovie application on my Mac OS X. So I'm looking for one compatible with that, that also creates a good image.

Any ideas? Thanks guys!

Answer 1

check the reviews:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/ratings.php

Answer 2

Any miniDV tape based camcorder will work when you use the camcorder's DV port connected to the Mac's firewire400 port with a 6-pin to 4-pin firewire (IEEE1394a, i.Link) cable and the camcorder is in Play/Edit mode. You will "import" the video from within iMovie (or FinalCut Express or FinalCut Pro). MiniDV tape provides best available video quality because DV and HDV compress a lot less than other storage methods.

Compression = discarded data = reduced video quality.

Not a recommendation, but any hard drive or flash memory based camcorder will work when you use the camcorder's USB port connected to the Mac's USB port with a USB cable. When you connect the camcorder, the camcorder's storage will mount like any other USB connected "mass storage device". Copy the files from the camcorder to the Mac's hard drive. Depending on the format used by the camcorder, you *might* be able to use the files directly in Final Cut or you may need to convert the files into a usable format. For iMovieHD, you will need to download and instal StreamClip (free) from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/vi...

For serious video work, I suggest only miniDV tape based camcorders. If you need a hard drive, get an external from Firestore - they save in DV and HDV format - not the highly compressed stuff the consumer internal hard drive camcorders use.

Suggested units:

Canon HV20, HV30

Sony HDR-HC7, HC9

All four of these models can record in standard definition (4:3 and 16:9) and high definition. All four also have a mic-in jack. A couple have a headphone jack... and all four have full manual audio controls in addition to manual zoom, focus and exposure settings - and all settings can be auto as well.

Once you import and edit, you can use either iDVD or DVDstudio pro to create the DVD menuing and burn the video out to DVD.

The next cameras worth consideration are closer to the $3,000+ range:

Canon XHA1

Sony HDR-FX1, FX7, HVR-V1U, Z1U

Panasonic HDX200

At this point in the lifecycle of things, I don't think getting a non-high definition camera is a good idea - especially since all hidef cams can also shoot in standard def... but it depends on your budget.

If your budget is not too big, I can only suggest the Canon ZR800 and ZR900 - they have mic-in jacks (but no manual audio control).