Camcorder question

[kajamelu4]

My daughter is going to buy a new video camera. She wants high definition with its own hard drive. She is expecting to spend around $1000. Anyone with opinions on brands or what to look for and what to look out for?

Thanks!

Karol

[MrBuzz]

Have you (or your daughter) checked out any of the new digital cameras? Most of the new still cameras shoot both stills and video. I just bought a Fuji camer that shoots not only photos but really good video with sound. And it saves it on SD memory card...something like 30min / 1GB. Easy to transfer to the PC.
And there are some models that even shoot HD video...Kodak just came out with one, model z812 I think, that does HD video.
Just a thought....depends on what kind of video you are shooting and what results you are looking for I guess.

[ssrjim]

My daughter is going to buy a new video camera. She wants high definition with its own hard drive. She is expecting to spend around $1000. Anyone with opinions on brands or what to look for and what to look out for?

Thanks!

Karol

The hot trend now is to record to SD cards:

http://tinyurl.com/2hufl4

[Micro469]

Have you (or your daughter) checked out any of the new digital cameras? Most of the new still cameras shoot both stills and video. I just bought a Fuji camer that shoots not only photos but really good video with sound. And it saves it on SD memory card...something like 30min / 1GB. Easy to transfer to the PC.
And there are some models that even shoot HD video...Kodak just came out with one, model z812 I think, that does HD video.
Just a thought....depends on what kind of video you are shooting and what results you are looking for I guess.

I have a Kodak CX7530.. and I get about 23 min on a 256 meg sd card. A one gig card would give me...?...92 min??.
I guess it depends on # frames per second/minute....

[Bobgorilla]

You might pm CD (Caseydog) as a professional, he might know, but I think he mostly deals in stills not sure about that.

[Kurt (Indiana)]

My daughter is going to buy a new video camera. She wants high definition with its own hard drive. She is expecting to spend around $1000. Anyone with opinions on brands or what to look for and what to look out for?

Thanks!

Karol

Karol, I'm a tech nut and love the modern stuff but!!! I see nothing wrong with buying "last years technology" at a much reduced price.
Last June , my oldest son was getting married and filming the festivities was my sole intent for the June event.

I was able to research and then purchase a Sony DV (tape) camcorder for about $300 or less and it did a spectacular job on the wedding video.

My point is, the most up to date stuff is premium priced but the "advanced stuff" from last year is still much better that I had before.

The video came our great and the editing and addition of music and graphics made it a piece of work to remember.

What I'm saying is; don't get all hung up on the "latest innovation" for this year, but consider the "latest innovation" from last year as an option.
The cost will be considerably less and the quality loss will be negligable.

Keep in mind that I love to spend money on "tech" stuff, but video technology is advancing so fast that last year's stuff is still darned good.

[Micro469]

My daughter is going to buy a new video camera. She wants high definition with its own hard drive. She is expecting to spend around $1000. Anyone with opinions on brands or what to look for and what to look out for?

Thanks!

Karol

Karol, I'm a tech nut and love the modern stuff but!!! I see nothing wrong with buying "last years technology" at a much reduced price.
Last June , my oldest son was getting married and filming the festivities was my sole intent for the June event.

I was able to research and then purchase a Sony DV (tape) camcorder for about $300 or less and it did a spectacular job on the wedding video.

My point is, the most up to date stuff is premium priced but the "advanced stuff" from last year is still much better that I had before.

The video came our great and the editing and addition of music and graphics made it a piece of work to remember.

What I'm saying is; don't get all hung up on the "latest innovation" for this year, but consider the "latest innovation" from last year as an option.
The cost will be considerably less and the quality loss will be negligable.

Keep in mind that I love to spend money on "tech" stuff, but video technology is advancing so fast that last year's stuff is still darned good.

EXACTLY!!!!

[Jst83]

Been looking at camcorders with there own hard drives Plan to get one in the spring. There are only 2 makers of hard drive camcorders Sony being 1 and the other escapes me. I looked at a nice one with a very high power zoom with stabilizer, records up to 7 hours only about $525, Sony with not as good a zoom but holds up to 14 hours about $100 more. I figure I'll not record more than 7 hours before I down load to the computer and put it on DVD. If I do it takes the SD card.
Just my 2 cents, the guy at Best Buy was supper to talk to

[kajamelu4]

Thanks for all the replies! That's one of the things that I love most about this group. Doesn't matter what the question is, someone around here knows the answer!

Karol

[dovaka]

i have a jvc everio g hard drive camera and i absolutely love it
it has 30gb of storage and i get about 8 hours of video at high quality settings and about 40 hours on low with a few mid grades in between
for someone that wants to shoot hd video i dont think there is a still camera out there that will do a good job of it
there all right for making little clips to watch on your computer but there no where near tv quality when you really start getting into it
to give you an example if you watch dirty jobs on the discovery channel they have some of the jvc hd units that are the same that i have
they arent the primary camera but they use them whenever they need to get into tight places or there going to wreck it so that should give you a idea of the kind of quality you get from these

[starleen2]

We have a JVC mini digital camcorder and an RCA analog camcorder and loved the heck out of them. However I replaced my old canon A60 with a newer canon A560 and the video feature is out of this world. We found that we don’t really shoot a lot of video on trips – just a few sequences here and there. However we do take a lot of pics. So it is handy to have the camera shooing video. You can get really nice quality (depends on settings) I really can’t tell the difference between the Canon and JVC video – it’s that close!. We also carry extra SD cards, so when one is full, add another and keep going. I then edit the clips together for what I want. Just a thought

[kajamelu4]

My daughter is a mass communication senior in college. (She graduates in December!!!!!! Yea!!!!!) She shoots lots of video. She is very particular about what she wants. Found one at Best Buy. I went ahead and got it for her Christmas. Fussed with them over the return policy however. They told me in the store only 14 days return policy. Main corporate customer service told me 14 days after Christmas if given as a gift. Printed it out just in case.
Went with JVC brand.

Karol

[caseydog]

You might pm CD (Caseydog) as a professional, he might know, but I think he mostly deals in stills not sure about that.

I can talk all about professional still cameras, but I don't keep up with point-and-shoot still cameras or video cameras.

I'm trying to help my mom possibly get a new video camera for my dad, so I am in the same boat. He currently has a Canon Elura DV that records to tape. It is about five years old, and it works well. What I don't know is whether there is any advantage to upgrading to a newer camera.

They have HDTVs in the house, and my mom's vision is not so good, so would it be worthwhile to move up to an HDTV camera?

CD