Newbie - What digital cam ?

[MATT JENNER]

Hi all

i am sorry if this is one of those oh no not say again posts,

what i want is this

i fly model hellicopters and and am continually asked can you send me a video on email of your flying,

so hence the reason for a digital cam,

all i want to do is video myself flying, and maybe do some other videoing at my leisure,

i want to be bale to hook it up to my laptop/home pc and edit it so i can watch it on DVD on my cinema screen as well

i know a little about the old style camcorder (8mm) but no absolutly nothing about the didgy ones,

any help would be great

many thanks and happy new year to all

Matt Jenner

[MarkE19]

My personal opinion is that you should go for a miniDV camcorder as these give the best PQ - well unless you want to go to HDV (high def DV) and pay the additional costs. And while on the subject of cost, how much do you want to spend? Prices of DV cams goes from under £200 all the way up to bankruptcy
Editing on a PC is fairly easy to do. All you need is to make sure the PC has a firewire port as this will be the best output from the cam. If not you can add a PCI card to the motherboard for around £20 and this will include a cable to connect the cam to it. If running Windows XP then you have a very good and easy program for capture & editing called Movie Maker 2. Have a read of this site for loads of help on the program and even if you use something else it will give loads of helpful advice on getting started in editing.

Good luck,
Mark.

[MATT JENNER]

Hi Mark

Many thanks for the post,

you say mini dv, is this the hard disk, or does it have a mini disk in ?

i am willing to spend up to 300.00, i notced you talked about movie maker 2,

i have XP pro, and i have service pack 2 installed but i have no movie maker 2, i do have dvd creator 2, is this same ?

if not where can idownload the movie maker 2 as everytime i try i go to windows update and it says you dont need to update a t this time

Many thanks

Matt

[MarkE19]

No, miniDV is a tape based camcorder - These are the tapes. they are about 4mm and hold 1 hour in SP or 90 minutes in LP.

To find Movie Maker 2 - click on Start > Programs > Accessories
and it is on that menu but listed as 'Windows Movie Maker'

Mark.

[MarkE19]

Here are a list of camcorders up to your budget of £300. Personally I like Sony camcorders, but Canon & Panasonic are also worth a look. Have a look at some of the features offered on them and try and work out what you do and don't need. Feel free to ask if you don't know what some of the features are, or what they would be useful for.

Mark.