Looking for HD Camcorder?

Question

Hi There,

I'm 15 years old and looking to purchase a HD Camcorder. This is something I've been wanting to do for a couple of years now, and after a bit of financial planning I'm starting to realize that it's possible. My top priority will be the ability to easily share the videos I record on sites like YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Other than that, picture quality as well as audio quality are important to me. My budget is anything under $1000 (I'm not looking for something uber professional.)

What should I be looking for?

Thanks,

-Cory

Answer 1

If you don't mind still using minidv tape, it seems like the best consumer HD cameras currently out are the Canon HV20/30 (very similar models, hv30 is just a bit newer, more expensive, and has some extra features over the hv20).

If you don't want to deal with tapes, Canon also has the hard drive (HDD) based HG10. Which is similar to the HVs but uses the AVCHD codec for video, and doesnt have quite as many bells and whistles as the HVs (but pretty close).

And finally, there are the HF10/100, very similar to the HG10 (with slightly less bells/whistles) but based on flash memory instead of a hard drive.