What is the best HDD Camcorder to buy if I want to burn the videos to DVD's using my IMAC ?

Question

I don't have i-movies 08 and the new JVC's don't seem compatible with MAC. Sony and Canon I don't think are either.

All I want to do is take the HDD Video Camcorder out of the box, record my sons soccer games, events, ect. etc. plug the camcorder into my MAC, download the info onto my computer, pop a DVD-Disc in, record the info onto it, & send them out to family members . . . What is the best way to do this with the best camera out there, compatible with a MAC.

Answer 1

Canon HV20

Answer 2

Hard drive camcorders are fine with Apple Macintosh computers. For the most part all you need to do is download and install StreamClip - free from Apple.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/vi...

You bigger issue is that hard drive based camcorders capture and compress to an MPEG2 file. When you compress the video as the first step, expect all downstream processing to have degraded video. This is not a computer issue - this is a camera issue.

The other poster is correct - you will have better quality video with a miniDV tape based camcorder. DV (and HDV are a lot less compressed than MPEG2 or AVCHD. So - if you are starting with less compression, the video quality downstream will be a lot better.

Take the hint from the professionals - NONE of them use internal hard drive based camcorders. They ALL use miniDV tape. If they use a hard drive, it is external and it records in DV or HDV format.

All Macintoshes have a firewire 400 port (except the Air). So all you need is a 4-pin (camera DV port) to 6-pin (computer) firewire (IEEE1394a, i.Link) cable and iMovie will import the video from the miniDV tape - USB is used ONLY for transferring stills from the memory card.

Clarification item: "MAC" is a computer acronym for "Media Access Control". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Acces...

"Mac" is not an acronym - and a nickname for a family of computers and operating system made by Apple.