[disastermaster]

I was searching for a new camcorder on the net and noticed that there was a considerable difference in prices if you imported from the USA. A few questions sprung to mind......

1 does anyone know how the import duty structure works ie. does each model have a set amount of duty?

2 apart from the power supply issues are there any other differences with the camcorders?

3 Are all cams switchable between pal and ntsc?

4 will I be able to use the analogue in or will this be set up to ntsc?

Cheers Disastermaster

[John F]

you will have to pay vat 17.5% & import duty 5%.
nope
not very many
it will be ntsc.
the price difference after you have paid the duty etc is very small & not worth it in the long run, if you have problems you will have to send it back the US for service etc.

[MarkE19]

I've got to agree with John F. IMO you will save very little, if any money by the time you have paid P&P, VAT & import duty.

To add to the 5% import duty figure, if the cam has DV-in enabled (and possibly AV as well) then the import duty is calculated on the cam as being a VCR. This means the duty is higher (but I'm not sure by how much) and therefore the savings even less.
AFAIK most cam power supplies will work on any voltage and therefore all you should need to do is change the plug to fit a UK power socket.
I'm not sure of any cams that can be switched between PAL & NTSC so don't bank on this being an option. You will not be able to copy from the cam to a standard UK VCR. Even if the VCR can play NTSC it wil not record NTSC. You could make DVD's etc, but these will still be in NTSC unless you convert the files which will result in some loss of quality.
As already stated the analogue inputs on a USA cam will be NTSC only and therefore if feeding them with a PAL signal you will at best get a B&W picture. At worst it just wont work at all.

Mark.

just to pick up on a couple of points Mark made,

Although it is true that all camcorders sold in Europe will work on any voltage between 110 and 240 I don't think the same is true of camcorders sold in America. The Americans are very parochial and much of their electrical equipment works on 110 volts only - so check that point before you buy or else you'll have the extra expense of a transformer.

I don't know of any video cameras which are switchable between PAL and NTSC - their either one or the other.

[disastermaster]

thanks guys, It looks like I'm going to buy a uk model!!

But what about anything from europe? There shouldnt be any duty to be paid,should there?
does anyone know of any good european sites?

Thanks

You could try this one :-

http://www.pixmania.com/dev/gui_web/home/index.php

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