Sony Handycam VS Panasonic VDR-D210 Camcorder?

Question

Which one of these would i be better off having? I am only needing it for family gatherings and to record my 2 year old, nothing business wise.

This guy w/ the sony says he's had for a year and a half and there is nothing wrong with it, he's just upgraded to a better one for business:

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/pho/627390545.html

This is from a company (i guess) and he said that there is nothing wrong with it, its like new and comes with all of its accessories:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000M4KBBC/sr=8-1/qid=1207360239/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1207360239&sr=8-1&seller=

Which is a better cam and which should I trust? Both are between $175 and $200, so it's not too bad, and I don't mind it in used condition.

Answer 1

If someone GAVE me a DVD based camcorder, I would want to know what I did to make them mad. DVD based camcorders were a good idea and a very poor implementation. The manufacturers should be ashamed for continuing to push a video product that provides such poor video.

The reason these camcorders are cheap is because the video is so bad. The discs record only 20 minutes on a single sided disc (if you go for longer record time, the video quality gets worse than bad).

PLEASE DO NOT BUY A DVD BASED VIDEO CAMERA.

MiniDV tape, hard drive... maybe even flash memory... but NOT DVD...