Which camcorder to get?

Question

hi,

i am searching for a camcorder that i can take out to public places and bring back home great clear vidoes which then will be turned into flash files.

the image quality is very important to me. Preferably in HD quality.

I can be flexible with my Budget. Anything ranging from 0 - 1500$ should do.

Again, image quality is probably the most important factor and also it should have a Harddrive.

I think that's pretty much everything i have to mention.

Thanks!

Nick

Answer 1

MiniDV tape camcorders provide the best available quality because they store using DV or HDV format - not MPEG2 or AVCHD compression used by hard drive or flash memory gear.

In your price range, you have:

Canon HV20, HV30

Sony HDR-HC7, HC9

Consumer internal hard drive based camcorders cannot claim best available video quality - so that means you need to make a choice - Best video quality or hard drive based camcorder (with lots of compression) with reduced video quality (when compared to miniDV tape). You cannot have it both ways... unless you get an external hard drive from Firestore and connect it to your miniDV tape based camcorder and record in DV or HDV to that external drive (but that will be outside your budget).

Also, there is no camcorder that has good built-in mics. The Sony and Canon camcorders listed all have manual audio control and a 1/8" external mic-in jack... and if you get good XLR mics, you will need an XLR adapter like those from BeachTek... or you can use a field recorder like those from M-Audio, Marantz and Fostex... you may still need mics...

Answer 2

Bill is right .....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