Want a GOOD camcorder

emweaver

for our holidays the last 2 ive owned were absolute rubbish. I want 1 with a good pic quality and decent battery life. Our last samsung only lasted for 15 mins of recording!

I dont care if its DVD or HDD. Can anyone recommend which is better between the 2 formats?

Also, can anyone recommend what to buy and / or what not to buy?

emweaver

All these view and nobody has had any experience with a camcorder? i thought every1 had 1 these days

winalot

i'd recommend any sony mini dv personally - canon's are meant to be ok too . mini dv is supposed to be better than hd or dvd supposedly -.

bella123

hi
i would recommend the Sony DCR-SR36E it was £369.99 but you can get it now for £249.99 at one of the high street electrical outlets.

emweaver

winalot wrote: »

i'd recommend any sony mini dv personally - canon's are meant to be ok too . mini dv is supposed to be better than hd or dvd supposedly -.

I know I sound thick but what is mini DV?

emweaver

ive came across these http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5632899/Trail/searchtext%3ESONY+HDD.htm

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5632909/Trail/searchtext%3ESONY+HDD.htm

luvvlyjubbly

emweaver wrote: »

I know I sound thick but what is mini DV?

The ones that record on to a little cassette. The pound shop were selling some jvc ones

Justin_Scotland

Also look at 3CCD cameras where the picture is captured on 3 seperate sensors one for each of the primary colors. These will have much better picture than something that only has a small single sensor.

As I now do lots more editing on the footage I have taken I would personally go for a HDD unit now just so its easier to transfer the data to PC and edit it. Although you then need to be quite organised at doing this so you dont fill the disk up. I use miniDV so I can just change tapes but then gives me the headache of capturing it all on to my pc.

emweaver

Justin_Scotland wrote: »

Also look at 3CCD cameras where the picture is captured on 3 seperate sensors one for each of the primary colors. These will have much better picture than something that only has a small single sensor.

As I now do lots more editing on the footage I have taken I would personally go for a HDD unit now just so its easier to transfer the data to PC and edit it. Although you then need to be quite organised at doing this so you dont fill the disk up. I use miniDV so I can just change tapes but then gives me the headache of capturing it all on to my pc.

Thanks, im not organised or techie. is it straightforward transferring hdd to a dvd? I had dvd ones before so was simple.

Altho the last 2 i had hitachi and samsung both had grainy pics esp inside in low light and when trying to record dd it went blurry everytime she moved and the batteries onlty ever lasted 15 mins max and the spare would go flat in my bag

Justin_Scotland

You would need to have a seperate dvd recorder if you want to copy straight from hdd to dvd. in effect would be the same as copying miniDV to dvd. the benefit of HDD comes in if you want to do digital editing on your pc first.

An option might be

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000ULLQDE/300001327-21/?m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

At a reasonable price and gets very good/excellent reviews. This takes SD cards which can be picked up pretty reasonably and means you have some ability to switch to a new SD card when you need more recording time.

With any camcorder always buy a seperate high capacity battery so you always have a long life battery which you use as the main battery with the original battery as a backup as needed. (hope that makes sense)

If you just want a copy of everything you recorded without doing any editing then may still be best looking at other dvd based camcorders.

emweaver

My laptop records onto dvds so thats not a problem. Can you save a copy onto the pc or just burn to dvd with the hdd ones?