Complete Novice needs advice on Camcorder

[mrsargos]

I am a youth worker and need to record activites that we carry out / interviews with the young people and adults, and will need to edit the results into a viewable format.

I am an absolute complete novice, although very computer literate, and use digital cameras all the time

We can spend up to about £500-850 - can anyone offer advice?

[senu]

I guess the short list would depend on whether you want to create DVDs or just watch them off the computer
Whether you are willing to go the miniDV tape route
or wish for
Tapeless recording
However with that budget you can have virtually any of the current consumer models
You will probably find that the tape based Hi definition models (HDV) will give you the most value for money in that they are quite good Standard definition models too even if Hi def is currently of little interest to you
The software support for editing and turning them too DVD are available here and now and PC requirments are fairly modest by today's standards
miniDV tapes are reasonable cheap and readily available too
In addition to the camcorder.. You will need a tripod, microphone ( try and get a model that has microphone input as not all do)
PC with firewire input and editing software and DVD writer
If your PC is fairly modern it would probably do with a largish HDD as Video gobbles up space
If you went for a Standard definition HDD model , a USB would be just fine

[mrsargos]

Thanks- I think the young people will want to 'make' dvd's ,rather than just watch playback.
At work I have a new laptop , but not sure if it has a dvd rewriter, so will have to check this out, Thanks for the advice