[FizzyFizz]

I've got about £450-£500 to spend on a new camcorder but am SO stuck on which sort to buy! I'm hoping someone here might be able to help.

Basically, I've had a miniDV camcorder for the last 5 years which was great (it's now broken!!) but I kinda like the idea of filming straight to DVD as I've already got a stack of DV tapes that need copying off onto DVD which I NEVER get round to doing!

I'm not really fussed about video editing but I'm a bit worried about the 8cm DVDs costing so much, not lasting very long and the quality not being that great. Is that true? I'm really quite fussy about the quality.

I think HDD camcorders are a no no as the thought of having to tape it all off at some point sounds like a nightmare!

Is miniDV still the way forward in 2006?

Can anyone help out?

Many thanks indeed.

Mini dv camcorders are generally better picture quality and more easily editing on the pc than dvd. Although with dvd camcorders, you can just take out the dvd and slap it into a dvd player, dvd rom drive and press play. I prefer the mini dv format cos I like to make dvds myself and edit the menus etc... and then add music on editing software, then burn it so it looks more professional than just recording it onto dvd and putting it into your dvd player and playing it with adding meus etc in software...

So my idea is hd camcorders are the way forward but for now mini dv is still here to stay for a while longer. I suppose everything has to get better and move forward, so mini dv will be fazed out at some point just like drts will be by about 5 -7 years time as lcd and plasma gets cheaper and cheaper.

[redsox_mark]

I’d like to separate out format (e.g. resolution), compression, and media.

Today’s HDD cameras use mpeg2 compression – same as with the DVD camcorders. So the disadvantages of this format in terms of quality and editing (as compared to miniDV) are same for HDD and DVD.

Now having said that… if you look 5 to 7 years in the future I’m sure things will change a lot. In that timeframe I think we will see HD video taking over from SD. Now today’s HD cameras either use tape (HDV), or memory cards (Panasonic P2, Sanyo HD1). I’d tend to agree that eventually either memory or disk based “media” would replace tape.

Mark

DVD camcorders are rubbish! People who buy them have been hoodwinked by convenience and then find that the discs won't work their player ha ha ha ha ha

I'm being facetious, mainly to annoy the dvd camcorder fraternity who usually pipe up at this point with lame excuses about why their power hungry, massive, clunky unstable camcorders are every bid as good as a zoetrope (or something)

Baiscally, if you aren't stupid, buy tape. It's the best there is for now.