Camcorders

[Cat Doctor]

Ok, so I am looking at purchasing a new camcorder.  We will use it mostly to catch the little one's crawling, first steps etc.  I have no idea what to look for.  I know one person said I should get one with a hard drive and not a disk.  I really don't want to spend more than $400.00 - $500.00 for one.  Any sugestions?

[ECN]

sony handycams arent bad.


pros and cons of hard drive cams...

Pros: These models hold lots of video.
Cons: Editing the video is difficult; hard drives are not swappable.
Best for: Those who travel without a laptop, or who shoot a great deal of video.

more extensive:

Pros of Hard-Drive Camcorders
# Convenient playback — Playback is easy with simple searching and random access to specific video segments. Select from different video quality levels and store large amounts of video (capacity depends on the size of the hard drive).
# Good-quality video — These camcorders compress the video using MPEG-2 video compression. The video quality is affected by the amount of compression selected.
# Fast editing — Computer editing is fast and easy. The recorded files can be copied from a camcorder's hard drive onto the computer's hard drive for immediate editing within minutes.



Cons of Hard-Drive Camcorders
# Good-quality video — The image quality of hard-drive camcorders is slightly lower than Mini-DV tape format due to MPEG-2 video compression. Video quality is greatly affected by the amount of compression selected — especially if more recording capacity is desired — requiring more compression.
# Playback — Playback must be done by connecting the camcorder to a TV, unless you transfer the video to another medium like a DVD.
# Storage — As you fill up the camcorder's hard drive, you will want to copy its contents to your computer's hard drive or onto blank DVDs to make room for additional recording.

[FBWillie]

I personally have always gone with Canon for all of my video and photo needs.  I've never had a problem with them, and they're just easy to use.  They don't make you use their included bulk software to get your photo's video's off of them like some photo/video camera's.

I have a Canon ZR300 and have been pretty happy with it.  It's a Mini-DV so the quality is outstanding - but dealing with the tapes can be annoying... but It was something I was willing to sacrifice for the quality.  Video capture works great.  Battery last forever, and it allows me to shoot in scope, so that I get a great picture when viewing on a widescreen TV.   Another selling point that I thought I would enjoy is it supports shooting video on both a mini-dv tape or a memory card.  Honestly though, the quality of shooting on the memory card isn't that great, and I don't really use it that often.  It would however be nice for shooting short video's to be sent via email to someone.  It just wasn't nearly as cool as I thought it would be.  Good luck!