Camcorders?

Marianne k

What is the best brand for digital camcorders? JVC? SAMSUNG? ETC?

Answer
For years, I've done just fine by JVC, Canon, Sony, and Panasonic. I currently use a Panasonic camcorder (PV-GS65) at home, and have recommended a Panasonic professional camcorder (AG-HVX200) for a university TV organization, and we've been happy with both. Those cameras were selected for having the features we needed at the best price available. I'm not necessarily saying "go with Panasonic." There are other great brands out there, and any one of them is good if it meets your needs. It all depends on what you need to do with your camcorder.

Look at reviews and specifications. What do you want to do with your camcorder? Do you want to try editing, or do you simply want the easiest way to show video to your family? Do you plan on doing a lot of night shooting, or is spectacular performance in good light enough for you? Do you want a variety of manual control options? Where do you plan on using the camcorder? Do you plan on using an external microphone with your camcorder?

In short, find out exactly what you plan to use it for, and find out which one best meets your needs. The major brands have all been doing this for a long time, and all have a tendency to put out quality products.

looking for a camcorder for home videos

Q. I really want a camcorder to be able to take home videos of my newborn son, however we cannot afford much right now. I am more than willing to pay but I am not looking at spending more than $250....can anyone help or is anyone looking to sell one?

Answer
Yep - miniDV is the best choice, although you will need computer to convert the miniDV tape into DVD disc. (Alternatively, you can always play it from the tape directly from the camcorder onto your tv - it has video in/out)
Look on eBay, I bought 2 Canons there (ZR 700 and ZR 900 I think) and they are excellent. And good price too, especially today since those are models 2006 and 2007.

This is new one for $300 incl shipping and you will get a lot of stuff, more than just the camcorder...
http://cgi.ebay.ca/Canon-ZR900-Camcorder-Case-Tripod-2gb-Tapes-ZR-900-New_W0QQitemZ320285715888QQihZ011QQcategoryZ11724QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

have fun...

Johnny

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dvd-r or mini-dv best for home camcorder?

charles915

Answer
An excelent question. Trust me, I'll get to an answer eventually.
The camcorder market is in flux right now. New formats are popping up. Whatever you purchase today will be obsolete in 3 years or less.
All the big players are looking at solid state storage. That is, a flash memory system just like our familiar Compact Flash card or SD Memory card except with substantially more memory.
With some new molecular stacking technique, they can currently produce a 30GB Compact Flash card.
The market for that is currently for MP3 players and PDAs.
The goal is to produce a 100GB to 200GB Flash Memory at an affordable price. I figure that should take about 2 years tops.
I predict that camcorders of 2009 will be the same size as today's compact digital still cameras. They will do HDTV video, megapixel stills, MP3 audio and could possibly also be your cell phone. They will have removeable media that will plug directly into your computer's memory card reader slot. They probably will have wireless BlueTooth transmission for playback to your HDTV.
So, what should you buy today? That's easy.... Mini-DV.
Here's why....
The DVD-R format is only about 5 years old. By my calculation above, it should have an 8 year life span.
The miniature hard drive format's life is even shorter.
Mini-DV has been around for at least a dozen years, possibly longer. So, if we get a minimum of 15 years for the format, that means there is 15 years worth of accessories, tutorials, websites, user's groups, used and rental equipment and 15 years worth of price reductions and upgrades. Those are a lot of good resources that you won't get with DVD-R.
Besides, there is no HD-DVD camcorder while there are several good HDTV Mini-DV camcorders out there.

Camcorders?

Marianne k

What is the best brand for digital camcorders? JVC? SAMSUNG? ETC?

Answer
For years, I've done just fine by JVC, Canon, Sony, and Panasonic. I currently use a Panasonic camcorder (PV-GS65) at home, and have recommended a Panasonic professional camcorder (AG-HVX200) for a university TV organization, and we've been happy with both. Those cameras were selected for having the features we needed at the best price available. I'm not necessarily saying "go with Panasonic." There are other great brands out there, and any one of them is good if it meets your needs. It all depends on what you need to do with your camcorder.

Look at reviews and specifications. What do you want to do with your camcorder? Do you want to try editing, or do you simply want the easiest way to show video to your family? Do you plan on doing a lot of night shooting, or is spectacular performance in good light enough for you? Do you want a variety of manual control options? Where do you plan on using the camcorder? Do you plan on using an external microphone with your camcorder?

In short, find out exactly what you plan to use it for, and find out which one best meets your needs. The major brands have all been doing this for a long time, and all have a tendency to put out quality products.

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What do you do with your home movies?

best camcorders home use image

jjtcorsair

I'm starting to amass quite a collection of HD videos shot with my camcorder, mostly typical home movie stuff. For a while I was editing them and burning the edited videos to dvd. That takes a lot of time and I've fallen years behind. For now I just keep all the videos on my hard drive (and a back up drive). What do you do with all those gigabytes of video? Edit them, stream them from your computer? Burn them raw to disc? Thanks.

Answer
Main options:

-Hard drive, especially with redundancy. A RAID-1 setup is a good start.

-Blu-Ray archival. Get a Blu-Ray burner, which can be found around $100 now, and some discs. Personally, I like burning all my raw media to Blu-Ray disc, unchanged - camera folders intact. If you have time and space, make doubles of every one. Then, save at least one copy of your edited video in the best resolution that fits the project (for example, a standard-def DV file for videos edited from MiniDV sources...or something like Avid DNxHD or Apple ProRes or Apple Intermediate or Adobe DVCProHD or AVC-Intra for HD videos).

Another solution, one that will cost, is sending them out to be backed up to hard drive, Blu-Ray, DVD, whatever. It comes down to what your time is worth to you, and what you can afford. There's no real easy or best answer, but those are some options.

What is a good camcorder for home movies?

I'm With S

I like to make home movies, mostly horror movies, but I will make a movie out of anything really. I want something HD. What is a good camcorder for me?

Answer
I think you should go with Canon VIXIA HF S200 Flash Memory Camcorder
* Records crisp high definition video directly to two removable SD memory cards
* Genuine Canon 10x HD Video Lens
* Canon 1/2.6" 8.59-Megapixel Full HD CMOS Image Sensor
* Canon DIGIC DV III Image Processor
* Dynamic SuperRange OIS corrects a full range of motion

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