Camcorder advice - Have no idea where to start!

[vegauk]

Am about to be a father for the first time in september and so am looking at getting a camcorder.

I have no idea where to start with deciding which one to buy so i was wondering if anyone can give me some tips on things to look out for and considerations i should be thinking about?

Budget is around £300 i reckon but i dont want anything professional. As long as it shoots nice home movies that will do me.

Dont have an HD tv yet but will soon i guess.

All advice, tips and ridicule for still being CRT greatly appreciated!

[deefadog]

Hi Vega, and congratulations! Best time of your life!!!!

Ok, from my experience (and i am no expert).

My second child is imminent also , which is why i have upgraded from my JVC MiniDV Camcorder to a Panasonic HDC-SD1. I got this second hand on these forums and quality is outstanding, so if you are going to get an HD LCD TV, then a HD camcorder is the way to go to show off the best quality your TV can produce.

I went for the panasonic as it records straight to SD cards, so no hard drive to go wrong or tapes to mess about with. Also the cards are dirt cheap.

If you want to edit you clips then you will need a powerfull pc/mac. As the HD footage takes a bit of muscle to handle! - There may be other HD cams out there that are easier to edit, but i'll leave other replies for that

Good luck!

[vegauk]

ahh so go with flash rather than internal. First decision made then

[deefadog]

Are you Mac or PC based?

Actually I just installed Roxio Toast 10, and i can simply drag a video file (.mts) off the Camcorder/memory card into the toast application hit create DVD, pic a menu and boom, a full DVD With menus created in a flash

[vegauk]

PC and an avid gamer so pc is pretty meaty. Will just want to playback vids rather than make DVD's anyway tbh

[deefadog]

Should be fine then, there are a few free .mts players for the PC Oxygen is one i think.

But Panasonic is just my experience, other brands maybe easier than that! - But i'd recommend the Panasonic to anyone!

Good luck