Need to buy a digital camcorder.. what's good under $400?

Question

Any thoughts? We have a new 4 week old baby, and I'm looking at overstock.com right now also. I would like:

- Great quality

- easy to use

- good zoom

- definitely something that is easy to transfer video to my Mac to learn how to edit and burn some DVD's

- Optional: Some appear to work as a digital camera.. but none list the megapixels like the camera ads do. Would I sacrifice good quality by using one as a camera too?

Last question... I've seen some w/ a 30 GB hard drive.. some that require an SD card (1-4 GB probably)... how many minutes does a GB of video give you?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Answer 1

Sony handy cam is exactly what you need. You can visit http://digitalcameras.fateback.com/Camco... for photos of the cam you need

Answer 2

For best available video quality and easiest connectivity with your Macintosh and iMovie and iPhoto, a MiniDV tape based camcorder will be fine. Canon ZR800; ZR950... and the rest of that family.

When you run out of tape, popo the tape out, pop in  new one and keep shooting. The miniDV (Digital Video) tape is the archive.

When you shoor with a hard drive camcorder, it does have a longer single activity storage time - but you also need to take the video off the hard drive and copy it somewhere. BEFORE you edit, you should make an archive copy somewhere. I see this as an extrastep. So... Once you copy the video off the camcorder, you delete the files form the camcorder's hard drive and work on the  files editing. Once the project is done and you expor it to whatever you export to (computer file, DVD, whatever), then you delete the files from the computer - the project was done, right? Move forward in time... If you want any of that deleted stuff back (and you fdid not make a back up), the deleted ideo is gone forever. If you had the miniDV tape, you take it off the shelf, pop it in a camera and re-import.

If you drop a hard drive camcorder, the hard drive may be OK, but the control mechanisms may be broken - which means you cannot get to the video that you have not yet transferred. If you drop a miniDV tape camcorder, the tape should be OK, but the tape transport may be broken. You can carefully remove the tape and put it in another miniDV tape camcorder.

Hard drive based camcorders generally compress a LOT. MiniDV (in DV or HDV formats) compress WAY less than any of the other storage formats - which results in superior video quality. Compressed video data = discarded information = reduced video quality.

Most consumer camcorders do have a "feature" that allows stills to be taken and stored on a memory card. Good camcorders don't generally take very good stills; just as good still cameras don't take very good video.

Answer 3

for your last question -

generally speaking one hour of mini dv will be 12 to 14 gb of hard drive space (this is about right for HDV and SD mini dv)

so (very roughly) it'll work out around 4 mins per GB.

there are some hi-spec flash based cams on the market now that record on an array of SD cards and can take 2 cards at 16 gb each giving a total of 120 minutes of full HD 1920 x 1080 res.

i concur with Nu'uanu excellent point about mini dv. don't bother with Hard drives. mini dv is sooooo much better.