What camcorder?

DoubleT

DoubleT

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Ok guys im in the market for a camcorder,

i already have a miniDV panasonic but the motor noise has become really bad over the years ( i havent even used it that much)

with the addition of our son i would like to upgrade my camcorder for one thats hard drive based,

Ive been looking today at

this panasonic

and this sony

but i cant find any reviews,

does any one have experiance of these cameras or any other HDD cameras, whats the quality like? ease of use and putting them onto dvd via a PC etc.

any other sugestions of what would suit me better would be good too

Budget upto £300 and usage is just for the standard family memories and stuff

thanks
 
I can't help you with your decision but I normally go to this website for my camcorder information....

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/

The snag is that it is a US site and equivalent models often have a different designation in different parts of the world. If you can figure out whether there are alternative model numbers you may be in luck with a review, or stumble across something better.
 
If you are used to Mini DV and happy with the quality I think you would be a little disapointed with the PQ of the SD entry level HD camcorders that you have listed , dont get me wrong they will give a reasonable picture but not quite as good as Mini DV , unless you go up spec for a larger CCD model.
Most latest HD models are minus a viewfinder which to me is a minus point , on build quality I have preffered Sony models to other makes.
I have a Sony SR90E and connected via "S" lead to standalone DVD recorder gives excellent results , its an older high end Sony model that ticked all the boxes for me .
Of course upping the spec to Hi Def HD models will improve PQ .

HTH

Julian
 
5D mk2 :lol:
 
I would echo rusty's comment that the picture quality wont be what you get from MiniDV, in fact I am yet to see anything produce better results than MiniDV (in the consumer market). If you are sure you want to go down that route then again I would agree with rusty that Sony always seem to be ahead of the others in terms of quality and build. My little camcorder is a pretty old Sony TRV25E MiniDV camera and it is well used but have never had a single problem with it, still looks brand new too :thumbs:

Must say that I haven't had any first hand experience of using hard drive camcorders myself (not that I can remember) so can't comment on the quality first hand, but I have seen footage from some. Also I have heard from many people who have used them that the quality just isn't there. Also some people have download and playback problems, due to codecs etc.
 
Thanks for the replys so far guys,

do you think i would be better upping my budget a tad and going for something like this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0013XWY52/300001253-21/?m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

but then i need to get a memory card for it,

i already have 2 x 2gb SD cards for my D80,

how mnay minutes in top quality will i get per GB?

my TV isnt a 1080p so it isnt really nesesary that i go full quality its a 42" panasonic 1024x768 HD ready
 
I was using my friend's Canon HG10 when I went on a EuroTrip this summer. Having a MiniDV camcorder myself, I found the convenience of a Hard Disk unbeatable. Fast access to whatever clip you shot, lots of space, no need to carry extra tapes with you or looking for shops to buy more. I've read reviews about issues about the sound quality of this particular model but for my every-day needs I found it more than adequate and I was actually amazed by the quality when viewed on an HD TV.

The only drawback is that, as with digital cameras compared with film, we ended up with 9hours of footage and no time to process them in an 1.5 hour video as we planned. And you do need a lot of proccessing power to proccess 40GB of video with Premiere Pro
 
The Panasonic you flag up seems good value for the money , the only thing I would ask you to consider is how you are going to watch the footage ? ie direct from camcorder/copy to computer and produce high def discs etc ?
Have you anything that will replay High def footage captured to SD card ?
Just needs thinking about.
I had a Sony High Def HD model early this year and purchased a Sony Standalone dvd recorder that produced high def dvd"s that replayed in Sony Bluray player .
Not 100% sure what you would need to do with the Panasonic files .

Last xmas I was given a Canon HG10 to test and it produced excellent High Def files but its Composite picture was poor in relation to a SD camera.
 
rusty said:
The Panasonic you flag up seems good value for the money , the only thing I would ask you to consider is how you are going to watch the footage ? ie direct from camcorder/copy to computer and produce high def discs etc ?
Have you anything that will replay High def footage captured to SD card ?
Just needs thinking about.
I had a Sony High Def HD model early this year and purchased a Sony Standalone dvd recorder that produced high def dvd"s that replayed in Sony Bluray player .
Not 100% sure what you would need to do with the Panasonic files .

Last xmas I was given a Canon HG10 to test and it produced excellent High Def files but its Composite picture was poor in relation to a SD camera.
Click to expand...

i would like to edit the videos on the pc then put onto DVD which is limiting with only a 4.7 gb capacity, which leaves me with another problem!

i have a pentium d
3.4 ghz processor and 1gb of ram, which i should think would need upgrading too to process HD video, a 32gb sd card wont hold too much video either will it?

maybe i should look into fixing my motor noise problem or make do with a lower res camcorder,

i found this toshiba with a resolution of 1280x720p and an 80gb hdd but all the rest of the spec isnt too clever

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/473308/TOSHIBA-GSC-K80HE/tab/specification
 
My laptop is only fairly basic spec and struggled processing and playing AVCHD files , thats why I went the copying direct to dvd route ( sony ).
I would have thought that the 32GB SDHC card holds several hrs ?
 
My father has a Pana SD** series HiDef camcorder (using a number of 4Gb SDHC cards). He uses Ulead VideoStudio 11plus for edit and rather nifty titling, soundtracks, fades etc. His PC is not high spec, but not a problem as VS creates proxy files to work on in the edit, then using that as a script it then masters the actual edit on the HD files at the end (very clever). He also has a Pana blu-ray player that can read the AVCHD files straight from the SD cards when plugged directly into the player or the TV for that matter. The end results are just stunning on an HD ready tv. Also being an SD card based camcorder there are no moving parts (other than the optics themselves)
So, the Pana SD9 gets my vote :thumbs:
 
rusty said:
I had a Sony High Def HD model early this year and purchased a Sony Standalone dvd recorder that produced high def dvd"s that replayed in Sony Bluray player .
Click to expand...

Rusty,

What's the Sony dvd recorder you have and where did you get it from? I recently got a Sony HDR-SR12 and it mentions it somewhere in the manual but I can't find anything neither in any web shop nor on the Sony site.
 
MisterE said:
Rusty,

What's the Sony dvd recorder you have and where did you get it from? I recently got a Sony HDR-SR12 and it mentions it somewhere in the manual but I can't find anything neither in any web shop nor on the Sony site.
Click to expand...

Got mine from here http://www.purelygadgets.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=9024&wysiwyg=10

They produce high def dvd files , I only got mine to play in a Sony S300 Bluray player , wont work im Samsung/etc.
The recorder will play sd disks but not the Hdef it produces , plenty of imputs on it as well.
 
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