Canon? Sony? Not more that £400.

[dockerslund]

Ideally, I don't want to spend more than £400 on my first MiniDV camcorder.
As I'm a complete newbie to this, I've been doing some surfing on the net.

I quite fancy:
Canon DM-MV600I
Because It's got the DV-in.
It's cheaper than other camcorders with DV-in.
But I've read elsewhere on this messageboard, that it sucks, when recording in low light conditions.

I really fancy:
Sony DCR-TRV33
...but it's too expensive.

What if I bought the Sony DCR-TRV14? It's not even £400...and it's a Sony. It looks very nice, and I've read elsewhere here, that it's very good in low light conditions.
I know that it hasn't got DV-in, but I can buy some stuff to resolve that problem for £40, right?

I understand that I should stay far away from Samsung.

[TommyVecetti]

>>>>But I've read elsewhere on this messageboard, that it sucks, when recording in low light conditions.<<<<

All mid market camcorders are bad in low light conditions, even sony models. It's inherant to the format of video. Some will be better than others, but they all suffer from noise in low light to a degree.

I probably would get the Sony DCR-TRV14 . You can buy a DV-in enabler for about £40. Although i think it lacks anamorphic shooting, which is only important if you want to shoot in proper widescreen. I rarely do myself, even though my cam has the function. I prefer sony mid market models over canon, mainly for shallow 'looks' reasons, but my sony pc101e does have very excellent image quality for a single chip model, compared to the single chip Panasonic I owned before that.

My humble view is that the sony will have better picture quality over the canon model.

[dockerslund]

Thanks Tommy.
Now all I have to do is to wait until the 15th of September (pay day)...and then the camcorder will be mine. MIIIINE!!!

[dockerslund]

I just read this somewhere:

"The big difference between FireWire and USB is speed. FireWire operates at up to 400 megabits per second, or about 50 megabytes per second, whereas the current version of USB transfers at a slow 12 Mbps, or 1.5 MBps.
USB is fast enough for a mouse, keyboard or printer and adequate for digital cameras and scanners, but it's far too slow for transferring data between a PC and a digital camcorder."

So does that mean that USB is useless, and I actually need a camcorder with firewire?

[Eee-Tee]

All DV camcorders comes with a firewire/IEEE1394 conection, as its the only way to transfer footage from cam to PC. What you'll need is a conection on ya PC to connect the cable with- this depends- if your PCs new, it should have a c ard installed (i've got a f/w plug on my graghics card) or you can by a firewire card for about a tenner- it just slots in a spare PCI slot.

Another choice is to buy S/W- some come packed with the card and firewire cable- check out the different ones that are available

[dockerslund]

Ok, thanks!
I quite like the Sony DCR-TRV19.
Is it a lot better than the Sony DCR-TRV14.
And one final question: What does Composite in and Composite out mean?

[dockerslund]

Basically, I want to be able to transfer the video onto my PC, then edit it, and send it back to tape in a good quality.
Will I be able to do that with the Sony DCR-TRV19 ?
I don't need a memory stick, neither progressive photos.
This is my first camcorder, and I don't want to spend too much, but I don't want to buy the very cheapest camcorder either.
Is the DCR-TRV19 the one for me?

[JayX]

Originally posted by TommyVecetti
Although i think it lacks anamorphic shooting, which is only important if you want to shoot in proper widescreen.

16x9 modes on consumer camcorders are about as useful as the 500x zoom stamped on the side. in other words, don't use it.

if you have a proper 16x9 lens, then go ahead, but otherwise you're gonna have a degraded image. sucks i know, as 4:3 is a bit ugly, but hey you can always letterbox it.

[MarkE19]

Originally posted by dockerslund
And one final question: What does Composite in and Composite out mean?

Composite in/out is the analogue video connection. You would use composite-out to play your video on the camcorder to be viewed on a TV or copy to a VCR. Composite in would be used to get footage from a VCR or old analogue camcorder onto DV tape to transfer to a PC with no analogue capture.

The TRV19 has DV-out/in so you will be able to send your footage to the PC via firewire, edit and then copy back onto DV. you can then make copies from the camcorder onto a VCR or stanalone DVD recorder etc.
Transfering footage to and from the PC in DV format will result in very little or even no loss of quality.

Mark.

[dockerslund]

Ok, thanks mate!