Memory card camcorder around £300-£500; thoughts/recommendations?

[TonyCains]

Hello all,

Following the arrival of a new baby (everyone say "aahh"!), I'm finally going to get a camcorder, and am after some advice.

I know MiniDV gives the best possible quality, but convenience is also important, and besides I want something that can also replace my current stills camera (Canon Powershot S30) so it needs to be small and light. I thought about an HDD-based device but memory card prices seem in freefall at the moment and in any case I can always archive stuff to my 60 Gb Archos AV500 if I run out of cards.

There are plenty of rubbish memory card camcorders around £100, but it seems if you pay a few hundred you can get decent quality. (HD would be nice, but doesn't seem essential, and in any case I don't have an HD TV and my PC is too old and slow to process it; having said that, a 16:9 mode would be nice.) The cameras that seem to fit the bill are the Sanyo Xacti C6 and the Panasonic SDR 100, with the Sanyo seeming to have the edge for the best price / video / stills compromise.

Have I missed any obvious choices, or is anything else coming out in the next few months? Any feedback on these cameras would also be appreciated.

Ta very much!

[alpine101]

Well, you rule out HD, but don't forget the Sanyo Xacti HD1a. It's got a few odd reviews, in the main because it's being compared to cameras costing at least twice as much. But I wouldn't part with mine!!

[TonyCains]

Yes, the HD1 is a seriously tempting bit of kit, and HD capability would be good for future-proofing (I could always just keep the raw footage until I get a better PC). But it is over twice the price of the C6, and there are some bad reports about low-light video performance.

[stuker]

what SD card are you using with the xacti HD? I have a std sandisk one but HD recordings seem to drop frames and i think it may be down to the SD card not being fast enough.

any recommendations?

thanks
S

[alpine101]

Originally Posted by stuker

what SD card are you using with the xacti HD? I have a std sandisk one but HD recordings seem to drop frames and i think it may be down to the SD card not being fast enough.

any recommendations?

thanks
S

I use a Transcend 4GB 150x SD card and I have a couple of Sandisk Ultra II cards as spares (one came included by Sanyo with the camera): I've had no dropped frames. I did try another make of 2GB card, supposedly 80x, and the camera didn't want to format this. But the Transcend card seems to be fine: I chose it after reading +ve reports on other sites. It gives me 58mins in SHQHD mode: I'm rapidly filling up hard disks these days!.