mma

Hi everyone! We like to take along a camcorder when we travel but I would like to surprise hubby with a new one for Christmas. Right now we have a VHS-C Panasonic. We would like a more compact one. We have a digital camera for photos. We don't do anything fancy - just watch the video through our TV. So. . . any recommendations from owners for one that is easy to use and compact. I'm thinking mini DVD but I am getting more and more technology challenged as the years pass. Willing to spend 500 or so. Any suggestions? I hope you don't mind my asking on this forum but I figured a lot of you would use one. Thanks for any help!

Fodorite018

I am sure there are other people who can give more help, but we recently bought the JVC Everio. No discs or tapes...it is a harddrive. I think it has something like 10 hours of film time on it. Then you just hook it up to the computer and burn a dvd of whatever you filmed. We bought it for the kids sporting events and it has been great.

mma

thanks for the response mms. With all that is out there, I'd rather hear personal experiences than some sales pitch.

Fodorite018

One reason we decided on this was that the mini dvd's don't hold much time. We film our kids games, and if we did the mini dvd kind, then we would have to stop and swap out the dvd's. This way there is no interruption. It is pretty small, so a huge difference from our old one, lol! It also takes still photo's.

Suzie

I don't understand the last post.

The lastest technology suggest you should be getting a digital video camera. Most cell phones can make digital video recordings as can most digital cameras. Maybe the videos are short but it's enough to get a school fight recorded and shown on You Tube!

You can get them pretty tiny now. Do you specifically want to have physical tapes or discs?

Gretchen

I think the person is saying they didn't want DVDs--it's a hard drive.
Now I'm confused.

rkkwan

Each format has its own advantage and disadvantage. Depends on what one's need.

MiniDV cameras use the tape. About $3 for up to 90 minutes each. The video is not compressed and quality very high. But you have to deal with the tape.

Mini DVD holds up to 60 minutes, and cost under $1. Advantage is that you can pop the disc right in most DVD player, so no need to transfer. But the video is compressed and you can't use most advanced video-editing programs on your computer to do further editing, adding titles, etc.

The newest type is the hard-drive cameras like the JVC that mms recommends. There's no tape or disc to deal with. While a 30GB version can hold up to 37 hours of video, quality highly depends on the compression rate. If you need to tape more than 10 hours of high-quality video, then you'll run out of room. Say on a long overseas trip.

mma

Thank you all for your responses. rkkwan - thank you for explaining the differences. Now my question(sorry if it is stupid) - how do you view the hard drive video if you want to show it on your tv rather than on a computer screen - a special cable like we use for our digital camera? And how do you store the video? See - I am techie challenged!! I really appreciate your help.

philsbert1

You can run RCA and/or S-video cables directly from (most) camcorders to the audio/video connections on your TV, so they don't "have" to be viewed on computer (though that is another option). My suggestion...go to one of the local audio/video places (we have Circuit City/Best Buy around here) and do some hands-on viewing of a camcorder. A lot more depends on how it feels in your hand/size/ease of using the controls than what medium (8mm, mini-DV, mini-DVD, hard drive, etc.) you use. The "newest" (not necessarily best) camcorders store the video on hard drive and then you download to a DVD for storage. I find that most videos need to be edited somewhat, so to me it matters little what media is used originally....it will all end up on a DVD. At present the best bang-for-your-buck is still mini-DVDs. They take the best picture for the price.

philsbert1

Correction to my last posting: The best bang-for-your-buck is mini-DVs...NOT mini-DVDs.