Which is better? a camcorder that uses dvds or hard disc drive ?

Question

which kind is good for macs? im saving up to buy a camcorder or video camera. im starting to get in to film and making movies but which kind is better . i know that macs are good for editing vids better than pcs so im also saving for a mac laptop but i need some advice as to what brand and type is best for me. help?

Answer 1

The easiest cameras to connect to Apple Macintosh computers are miniDV tape based camcorders. Not only do they provide the best video quality (better than hard drive or DVD based), but ALL Macintosh computers (except the new Air) have Firewire400 ports built-in... so all you need is the firewire cable that connects the DV port on the computer to the Firewire port on the Mac... and iMovie will import the video.

DO NOT BUY A DVD BASED CAMCORDER. This is not a computer issue - but a DVD based camcorder issue. The video quality for editing is horrible.

Answer 2

If you're intent on doing a lot of editing, stick with MiniDV.  Hard drive camcorders are usable but not great and DVD camcorders are a non-starter!  

There are some very good editors that run on PCs - it doesn't have to be a Mac.  I certainly wouldn't recommend getting any sort  of laptop if its going to be used mainly for video - you need something that you can add a lot of cheap disk space to.  It's nice to have the extra processing power, too.