Hello board - newbie here, and it's all very impressive thus far!

I've been playing around with video editing for a year or so now, and am getting hooked.

However, I have one MAJOR frustration! I'm currently using a MiniDV camcorder (Sharp) which I'm reasonably happy with. The problem is that I live in the tropics and have, on too many occassions, lost tapes due to the heat and humidity. It's now common for them not to play in the camcorder after a week or so.

I know I should shoot and immediately upload to PC - but that's often not possible/convenient.

Any advice out there?

If I buy a DVD camcorder, am I still able to upload the movies to PC for editing?

store your tapes in a metal biscuit tin with a few sachets of dissecant such as silica gel

Yes you can upload videos from a DVD into your PC for editing - but remember that video on a DVD cam is recorded as MPEG and not DV so you will be starting off from a lower quality base.

I've never heard of tapes going off that quick due to heat and humidity only - I have had plenty of holidays in the tropics of well over a week and never experienced any problems at all - are you sure your not storing them anywhere a large magnetic source like a big speaker or a TV set.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'm sure my problems are related to storage yes.

I must confess that most times my 'live' tape is stored in the camcorder. The camcorder sits atop a shelf in the lounge. Near to a PC, but not the TV or a speaker.

I'm assuming it's the tape that's gone - is it possible it's the camcorder? I clean the tape heads regularly.

Perhaps it's time I upgraded to a top quality machine. Any recommendations here? I want to upload to PC and edit ....... picture quality (especially colour quality) is important to me. I'm not particularly concerned with weights/sizes and have a budget of around $600