What level camera for me is OK for broadcast?

I have seen some home movies which on my computer monitor look quite good. And in fact on my computer monitor they look better or as good as broadcast tv looks on a standard TV. (apples and oranges I suppose).

What kind of camera is suitible for website delivery of movies?

when I have downloaded some of the movies I see on youtube I must
say that except for the videographer's problems related to lighting and
bad positioning otherwise the image quality is quite good.

Is there a web site which shows movies and then tells which camera
was used in the video?

I have gone so far as to write to some of the smaller porn sites to ask them what kind of cameras they use. Since they are the only commercial sites which have samples of videos and a contact they were my only resource.

In one case I got a reply from a woman run site. I sent perhaps 20 letters.

I'd appreciate knowing how to determine what camera to shop for so that
I don't overbuy for my purpose and of course I don't want to have to
relatgate my new camera to the dust bin and buy another.

in fact I would like to buy 3 cameras. What I have in mind is to shoot
3 perspectives of the same scenes.
And if I may this brings up a question.
Is there a way to sync the 3 cameras at the edit points ? I'm aware of
the timing and syncing abilities of the broadcast cameras even though I
can not think of the name of the feature. But what about prosumer
level cameras? If the sync is only at the edit points is it really an issue
with respect to sync?

One thing I am aware of is that audio will probably be from 1 of the cameras
only with proper microphone placement. And since audio is only from 1
camera then sync will be a problem if there's voice audio associated
with 1 camera's audio and another camera's video. I might have to
mike 3 times over with 3 camera's microphones to get sync to work.

I don't expect to resolve this in one post. but any response is helpful to me
at this state of mind. I'm wanting something but don't know what I want
except the results to be good.

[MarkE19]

Originally Posted by VideoUserAtHome

What kind of camera is suitible for website delivery of movies?

For websites you can normally get away with fairly low quality video as it will be highly compressed and shown in a small window. Any miniDV camcorder should be more than good enough for displaying via the web.

Originally Posted by VideoUserAtHome

when I have downloaded some of the movies I see on youtube I must
say that except for the videographer's problems related to lighting and
bad positioning otherwise the image quality is quite good.

The chances arethat most of the video was recored on miniDV cams, but with DVD and even HDD cams becoming more common I should think they were used a few times as well.

Originally Posted by VideoUserAtHome

I'd appreciate knowing how to determine what camera to shop for so that
I don't overbuy for my purpose and of course I don't want to have to
relatgate my new camera to the dust bin and buy another.

As I've already said miniDV should be good enough - for now. But with broadband getting faster I don't think it will be too long before HD become common. So an HDV cam should be a bit more future proof.

Originally Posted by VideoUserAtHome

in fact I would like to buy 3 cameras. What I have in mind is to shoot
3 perspectives of the same scenes.
And if I may this brings up a question.
Is there a way to sync the 3 cameras at the edit points ? I'm aware of
the timing and syncing abilities of the broadcast cameras even though I
can not think of the name of the feature. But what about prosumer
level cameras? If the sync is only at the edit points is it really an issue
with respect to sync?

smpte timecode
This is the way the pros sync different cameras and even external audio recording devices. The good news is that miniDV cams support smpte timecode so with the right editing software you should be able to get a multicamera shoot in sync for all cameras.

Mark.