Digital Camcorders? Photoguy & anyone else who knows this stuff

Fiancee and I are looking at Digital Camcorders. I think we want one with a good optical zoom, fairly compact, and doubles as a Digital Camera. I dont know much else about them.

I want to be able to take short movie shots & stills from our honeymoon trip and burn them on CDs. Especially would like the CDs to be playable on my DVD player (which supposedly plays VCDs, but not quicktime).

Looking for brands & model suggestions somewhere in the mid-range/best bang for the buck.

Also, what features are essential?

Thanks.

 

Plan on making some Tommy and Pamela honeymoon videos?



the best ones I've seen are the JVC's. Small, lightweight, compact and has all the features you need. the price tag is around 1000 bucks though

 

Here's a couple of threads to check

http://www.thisboardrocks.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14238&highlight=camcorder

http://www.thisboardrocks.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3071&highlight=camcorder


IMO, get a Sony mini DV. Don't worry about zoom levels, just a good optical zoom power, optical being the keyword. Memory stick, webcam features, mini screen on the side, pretty much standard. Don't spend too much. You'll never use all those extra features.

 

We bought one when Filip was born and we got teh Canon ZR 70. We are pretty happy with it, but one of our major reasons for going with it was that it took the same battery and power cord as our canon digital camera - which cuts down on the clutter and travel size. Most of them within a price range are going to be similar, but the BIGGEST thing that I looked for was the microphone in the front of teh camera nad not on top. If the mic is on top the sounds quality is not as good and you capture many more comments from the filmer.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm going to wait a few months for pricing on DVD camcorders like these two to come down out of the stratosphere:

Samsung SCD5000

Hitachi DZMV380A

Ive already seen the Hitachi selling on auction sites for $750. That's $300 less than list.

 

I got a Sony---and you can run the digital 8 into your PC and make movies you can burn to CD. Or you can run any PC clips or movies into your Digital 8 and watch them on TV via the camera. In order to get a good still pic off my cam I have to advance the frames on the PC till its clear or film in "flash" mode or just snap a pic in still mode. I don't have a memory stick or anything. I just hook my cam up to a 1394 firewire and use Ulead Video Producer to capture.
I convert the Digital 8 to AVI and then edit and send back to cam or make a CD of it. You also can run old VHS through it and clean it up.

 

I have a Hi-8/Digital 8. It's one of the first Digital 8's.

It's cool, and it also double as a webcam through Yahoo IM

That rocks!

I can play recorded footage of my kid so Grandma can see her, and that saves me from making them into QuickTime movies.

 

Sorry, I totally missed this thread. I don't know a whole lot about digital video. Just still digital photography. I can tell you anything you want to know about megapixels, resolution, jpegs, tiffs, nefs, photoshop, etc... but video is a whole other world that I just don't spend much time in.

Putt seems to be the experienced pro here when it comes to digital video.

 

I can recommend any Panasonic miniDV. Also Canon and Sony make really good cameras. If you go for Sony look to the TRV series. The keys to look for is the number and size of the CCD. My camera is broadcast quality with 3 CCD's at 1/4 inch apiece. For home videos you won't need that resolution. 1 CCD at 1/6 inch should do perfectly for your purposes. Also check for pixel count obviously the higher the better. A note on the digital still cams on most consumer/prosumer camera is that they are not as good as normal digital cameras. Options that come in handy are Zoom Mic capabilities also MPEG 4 capture is available for some and is great for web broadcast. As far as putting it on CD that is all with a firewire (ieee 1394) and edit software. Any cam with an IEEE 1394 out can do that so long as you have a card in your comp that is compatible.

 

I'm having second thoughts about jumping on the DVD train. Too expensive.

TimTam, Putt, etc., what do you think about this one:

Panasonic PVDV52

Is that a good price?