Which type of Camcorder

wadewade

I'm looking for a camcorder in the £225 to £300 price range.

I'm seeing some with SD cards and others with Hard Disks. Is one type better than the other - assuming other parts of the spec are similar?

Seem to be quite a few makes and models to choose from in this price range, has any one come out particularly well in tests (for family use - new grandchild, etc).

wadewade

I see Currys are advertising a JVC today with a 60gb HD for £270. Is this likely to be any good?

suman_das

Please look around the avforums.com website( forums>camcorders), you may even ask them if you have a specific query. A lot depends on your budget and requirement, but generally DVD-camcorders are best avoided. Mini-DV ones are going out of fashion, but they give you the best value-for-money, good image quality. Canon, Panasonic and Sony are the most recommended ones. SD cards are a lot cheaper if if you buy online and the SD-camcorders are smaller and easy to use, though tends to suffer from poor image in low light indoor conditions. Sony uses their own Memory-stick which are much more expensive than SD cards.

donnajunkie

personally i dont have experience of sd camcorders but i wouldnt go for one because video footage is going to take up alot more room on the sd card than what songs or photos usually do. so i cant imagine being able to get much onto one sd card and they are more expensive than tapes or discs. if i was buying one now i would go for one with a hd. what you record can then always be copied onto disc, tape or computer.

kevsan

stick with a mini-dv-based camcorder... do not get one that has a hard drive or that writes to dvds... both of those are a hassle if you want to do anything with them besides play them on the camera.

tape-based camcorders have the best compression, best archival storage, and are the easiest to use.

I think that anything with a spinning disc (HDD and DVD) has too much chance for error and failure, and on this basis i see miniDV sticking around longer then HDD and DVD, because solid state is going to replace any form of spinning disc.