What is a good camcorder??

Question

I had a digital camera/camcorder. It was very tiny and cheap.. Only a hundred bucks. It sucked big time. Couldn't figure out most of it and it did not have a light on it so you could only tack pictures or video at certain times when the lighting was perfect otherwise you couldn't see anything but darkness. Anyway my question is I wanna buy another one because my son will be walking soon. Anyone know of a good one under 400$

Answer 1

You can get a good one here, just visit http://digitalcameras.fateback.com/Camco...

Answer 2

I would suggest one of the following:

Canon ZR800 or ZR950

Sony DCR-HC96

Panasonic PV-GS320

These are all MiniDV based camcorders. MiniDV records to DV format and this is the best available video quality. The other poster does not like his UX1 because it is a DVD based camcorder that uses AVCHD compression. When video is compressed, information is lost forever and results in poor quality. MiniDV tape based camcorders do not compress their video as much as other storage media.

There is a JVC hard drive that stores in DV format, but it is more money than you want to spend. Other manufacturers use an MPEG2 compressed video format - again, reduced video quality.

Your computer will need a firewire port - they are easy to install if you have an available PCI slot in your desktop computer or a PCMCIA or Express slot in your laptop.

DO NOT BUY A DVD BASED CAMCORDER  -  The provide the worst available quality of all the internal storage methods.

Answer 3

At your price point, there are a lot of good choices from good brands, so it depends on what you want to do.

As for my recommendations, I'd recommend Sony, Panasonic, or JVC.

For simplicity's sake, you may be best-served with MiniDV or DVD camcorders. One example is the Sony DCR-DVD108, which is a DVD camcorder that sells at Wal-Mart for about $350.

A bit of a rundown of stuff:

There are camcorders that record on video cassette, but I'd probably steer clear of the ones that are analogue (VHS-C, S-VHS-C, Video 8, Hi-8).

The digital video cassette formats are Digital 8 and MiniDV.  You can connect these camcorders to your computer via FireWire or USB 2.0 and stream the recording to your hard drive for editing or recording onto DVD.

There's also DVD camcorders where you record to a miniature DVD disc that is playable on many tray-loading DVD players.

You also have hard disk and flash-memory based camcorders, and you can stream your recordings to your computer.

With all of these camcorders, you can definitely hook up to your television or a VCR (though with a DVD camcorder, all you usually have to do is simply play the disc in a DVD player).

Again, at the price point, you have a lot of choices.

Answer 4

ok, i would go with panasonic, they are the best, but expensive

i own a high definition Sony HDR-UX1, and even if its the top of the top of the line, i am not happy with it. I actually use my Canon digital photo camera instead of the UX1 because its so under featured and stupid.

also, buy a internal hardrive. NOT DVDS OR CASETTES, U SAVE MONEY AND A $#IT LOAD OF TIME.

ANYWAY, I WOULD BUY A CANON FOR THAT MUCH MONEY

Answer 5

take a look at quixtar.com thats where i go for everything.... if you want to buy, i 'll give you the discount code that members get so that you can get a little discound on it  :)

Ami