Which camcorder should i order?

Question

i cant choose between these:

*Canon Optura 30 MiniDV

*JVC GRD796 MiniDV

*Canon ZR830 MiniDV

*Canon HV10 3.1MP High-Definition MiniDV

*Sony DCR-HC62 1MP MiniDV

*Aiptek A-HD 720P 5MP CMOS High Definition

and if you can...tell me why?

xO

Answer 1

If this is all we have to choose from, any of the miniDV tape based camcorders.

1) MiniDV tape does not compress like the hard drive or flash memory camcorders, so video quality even up against the high def or flash memory camcorders.

2) When you fill the miniDV tape, pop it out, lock it, pop in another - not only does that tape become the archive (with a good shelf life), but you can shoot for as long as you have (cheap) extra tapes. At around $3 for an hour, they are affordable. When you fill up the hard drive or (expensive) flash memory), what do you do? When you transfer the hard drive video to your computer, you delete the camcorder video files. If you do not back up those files to an external drive or data DVD, when the project is done being edited, you will delete the video files - so... gone from the computer and gone from the camcorder... gone forever.

The Aiptek lenses are too small to provide any sort of good quality unless you are very close to your subject - and their mics are not very good.

3) I am not aware of a Canon miniDV HV10. The HG10 is hard drive based and uses AVCHD for high-def compression - You do NOT want this camcorder. If you mean the HV20 (or HV30), then I would say go this route.

* As stated earlier: MiniDV tape. DV and HDV are the least amount of compression and results in best available video quality.

* Mic-in jack - you may not want it now, but an external mic is REALLY handy. Better to have the mic in jack and not need it than need it and not have one.

* Manual audio control - I did not check the JVC, but NONE of the camcorders on your list has manual audio control except this one. This is REALLY important if you are in really loud (rock/hiphop/whatever amplified music bands) or really soft environments (you get the characteristc whooshing sound from automatic audio level circuits). It can go auto too - but the manual part is AWESOME when you need it. The closest the Sonys get is a "Normal" or "Low" mic gain switch in the menu.

* The HV20 can record in high definition and standard definition (4:3 and 16:9) in 24p... and 1080i. It the most flexible of the camcorders on the list you provided.

You will need a firewire port on your computer - USB is used for transferring stills from the memory card only - Firewire (i.Link; IEEE1394) is needed for importing video from the miniDV tape. Adding a port is easy if your computer has an available PCI slot (desktop) or PCMCIA slot (laptop). Macintosh computers have had Firewire 400 ports for many years.

Video uses a LOT of computer hard drive space - Standard definition is about 13 gig per hour and high definition is about 44 gig per hour of video imported to your computer's hard drive. An external hard drive is strongly recommended.

Answer 2

Once again, most of us urge people to buy MiniDV tape based  camcorder. Why?  Because you will want ot import the video to Personal Computer and do some Video Editing. The file saved will be avi not mpeg. Bottom line AVI easy to edit while mpeg (DVD) is hard. I would advice against buying Hard Drive based. Once camcorder is dropped or banged your camcorder is finished.

The camcorder I have is Panasonic PV-GS 320 which has 3ccd.( Excellent color). (MiniDV tape)

If I had another chance I would probably go for Sony DCR-HC96 (MiniDV tape)