Help - What Camcorder?

ajtrader100

Hi all,

Right, first of I'm a bit of a technophobe, so real basic terms are required in explanations.

I Have a camcorder at the minute but it uses DV Tapes and doesnt work well with my laptop, plus its not great quality.

I want to buy a new camcorder for Christmas, I'm missing capturing my daughter growing up on tape! It needs to be easy to use, not just to film but also transfering and creating DVD's with (editing etc). The DV tapes just crash my laptop (I have absolutely no idea why, its a very very good laptop.)

Can somebody recommend a decent one, I really really dont want to spend more than £300. Can this be done?

Also can anyone recommend the best editing software to go with it.

I would greatly appreciate your advise!

Andy

ajtrader100

Can someone please help me, I need to get one this coming week!

mrscruffy

ajtrader100 wrote: »

Hi all,
I Have a camcorder at the minute but it uses DV Tapes and doesnt work well with my laptop, plus its not great quality.

I am surprised by your comments of quality and compatibility with your laptop. DV tapes are digital and as you say your laptop is high spec it should be a matter of connecting with a firewire or USB lead. From there you could import the clips, edit, srote digitally, upload to a website or burn to DVD. If you post the make and model we might be able to help with this problem and you might be able to save yourself £300 getting your laptop sorted out.

Failing that, you've got a massive choice of camcorders under £300 at somewhere like Argos

vyseyboy

I would suggest that if your current DV camcorder doesn't work well with your laptop, no DV camcorder will work well with your laptop... generally speaking they share a common interface, firewire cable. Maybe it's just a software issue?

Of course if you want to use hard disk / memory card camcorders instead, that's up to you. I don't have any particular recommendations, sorry.

ajtrader100

To be honest the camcorder I have was given to me by the inlaws, and quite dated, quality is not excellent anyway which is one of my reasons for wanted to change. Also the battery lasts minutes, I have bought a replacement battery and this does not improve things so I think the old camera is on its last legs.

What type of software should I be using to upload the DV tapes? I tried using the USB to connect and it just freezes my laptop every time. I have some DV tapes I would like to put on DVD from my daughters first couple of years.

Moving forward if I can get a camcorder for much less than £300 it would be great to save a few quid! Ideally quite small, a good battery, ideally memory card (i think!).

Thanks in advance for all your help and recommendations

sickparrot

I used to have a JVC DV camcorder (before I dropped it and it broke). It had both USB2 and Firewire interfaces. The USB2 feed was really bad, It looked like a blocky Youtube video. The Firewire interface was perfect (I had to buy a card for my desktop but it was well worth it).

Could be just a case of getting some decent editing software. I use Serif MoviePlus which I got for £30 after discounts (ring them up and haggle), It's Firewire capture has never let me down.

I've just bought a JVC Everio 30Gb Hard Disk Camcorder for £190 from Comet. Seems OK but haven't really used it seriously yet. It doesn't have a light though so probably not the answer if you do a lot of indoor stuff.

Cheers, Ady

ajtrader100

mrscruffy wrote: »

I am surprised by your comments of quality and compatibility with your laptop. DV tapes are digital and as you say your laptop is high spec it should be a matter of connecting with a firewire or USB lead. From there you could import the clips, edit, srote digitally, upload to a website or burn to DVD. If you post the make and model we might be able to help with this problem and you might be able to save yourself £300 getting your laptop sorted out.

Failing that, you've got a massive choice of camcorders under £300 at somewhere like Argos

Mr Scruffy, sory for the delayed response - I packed the camera away and couldnt find it!

Now I have it, its a Samsung Mini DV VP-D73.

If you could recommend some software and what cables I need I would be really grateful!!

ajtrader100

http://www.ciao.co.uk/Samsung_VP_D73__5600978

This is the little beauty!