Is there a camcorder which can record in divx/xvid format?

Question

hi guys

im a newbie when it comes to buying a camcorder.

i do have a budget and have recently looked at mini dv camcorders.

from what ive read, when you transfer the dv video clip to the pc, the file sizes are huge and u need to convert clips to save space.

now i was wondering, are there digital camcorders out there, (not cheap chinese imports) but decent makes like sony, jvc or canon, which can record movies as xvid/divx avi format or mpeg4 so the file sizes are much smaller from the start and therefore no need to convert later on?

Answer 1

There are some MPEG-4 video cameras, but I don't think any of the names you mentioned are doing them yet.  Panasonic are though, and I'd put them on a par with JVC.  Sanyo and Samsung are also doing them - not great names, but not junk either.  

But if you need to save disk space, don't get into video!  The highly compressed formats like MPEG-4 achieve their compression by very cleverly throwing away most of the data.  That's ok for a delivery format, but it can cause a lot of degradation in the picture quality if you want to do any real editing (e.g. adjusting colour balances).  Most serious amateurs and all pros work with relatively uncompressed video and only render to a highly compressed one at the very end.