Good day all.

I'm looking for some advice on a digital camcorder. The purchase will be made in 3 to 6 months. As I am currently using the DSC-H2 for recording demos and jam sessions for the band I am in. It's working great, as we are able to get the raw feeling and instantaneous real emotion from the original conception of a song.

We're looking for a multi-purpose camcorder with outstanding quality and battery life. We want to set up the camcorder, press record, and jam for hours without having to worry about running out of space or battery life. I'm sure we could plug it in while in the house, or building and not worry about that, but we hang outside at a bonfire or what not and may need long battery life.

Is it best to get a camcorder with say 30gb (27 hours)? I'm really into the idea of having a hard drive in it to extract the video from but not too familiar with the durability of said hard drive. I would be worried about whether the life of the camcorder would be dependent upon the life of the hard drive. So what do those companies figure the consumers should do when the hard drive goes down for the count?

I'm okay with going over a $1,000....but hesitant about anything near or over $2000.

We want the best video quality there is, so I'm looking into High Definition camcorders if it's really worth it. The cam would be used for jam sessions to get every second for archival purposes, also being able to record already created songs for the same, and great enough to create professional looking music videos. I'm aware that this requires some lighting equipment so if anyone has any tips on this as well please share them.

I've looked into this cam, and was wondering if you guys would recommend it at all.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1166840341098

How well does JVC rate as a camcorder equipment company?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

CF-FB

[rhubarbe]

Nope, I don't think we'd recommend that cam because according to Internet wisdom there is an inherent fault with the image stabilisation (it knocks at the stops at each end) leading to JVC issuing a "fix" for it in the new firmware that does nothing more than disable it to all intents and purposes.

For filming inside at night, in dark conditions most people would recommend the Canon HV20, which is about the best around at the moment but won't suit you as it's HDV not HDD.

The Canon HG10 is an HDD cam that's not out yet, should have a similar low light performance to the HV20 and does have a 40?GB HDD.

Although, if you aren't looking to buy for maybe six months I should have a loko round when you are about to buy since things change very rapidly indeed in this market and particualrly now with the rapid advent of HD.

[redsox_mark]

Is it best to get a camcorder with say 30gb (27 hours)?

When they quote the time you can record it is always in SD at the lowest quality setting... with HD and a high quality setting you'll get more like 4 to 5 hours on a 30GB model at highest quality (depends on the exact model and bitrate used).

wow, thanks for the quick replies and the heads up of the problems with that camcorder as well as the time allowed for recording. 4-5 hours sounds good enough....I have plenty of Hard Drive Space in my Computer. 3.5 TB to be exact. So I can transfer the video to them.

I will look into the rest of the suggestions, and keep in mind that 6 months from now you guys might give me a few more camcorders to research.

Thanks again.

[senu]

Im not sure how a direct recording to a Laptop/ SFF PC would work but it is an idea worth looking into
Regardless of camcorder format or brand, if it is powered off the mains and connected to a PC/ laptop you get unlimited power and recording time..

[felix2]

Personally I think I'd only trust recording live to a PC - at a push - if it were set up to be dedicated to that task, otherwise a couple of hours' live recording down the line, who knows what it might have done! Or use a Mac! There are also hard drive units you can plug into any camcorder for live recording, but they're £500+ (but would give direct file access and longer record times than a 1-hour tape).

Other than the JVC HD7 (which I haven't tried, but feel underwhelmed by user reviews I've seen, compared with what should on paper be a fantastic camcorder), the high def cams in that price range are either tape (using HDV format) or hard disk / memory card (using AVCHD format). If you are also planning to make & edit good looking (semi-pro) band videos, the HDV format is better quality (slightly) and (currently) more versatile for editing - but limits you to 1-hour tapes (unless you record output live to computer / hard disk).