[unknownuser]

Hi all

First off, sorry to be a total pain and ask for help as soon as i rejoin after all these years...please forgive me but I hope someone can help me make a decision

I have a budget of £300 or less (less is better!) and want to buy a camcorder for short clips on holiday, the kids playing, birthdays, plays etc, all the little memories, you know the thing.

The Xacti has caught my eye because it can go in the pocket, or glove compartment, not need a suitcase to carry it and so always be left in the cupboard like my current dv machine, and generally be easy and accesible to carry around as both camera and camcorder. The idea of flash memory appeals too as nothing seems easier than popping an SD card from the cam to laptop and dragging the files over (I have about 10 tapes of dv footage from the last 5 years that probably wont be transferred until i am old and retired and have time to bother).

I also have an HD TV. So, the xacti seems to be a good solution.

Question is, which one? Im lost in the tech specs and cant really tell the difference benefits between price and quality of the HD2, HD1000 or HD700.

Im edging toward the HD700 as they can be imported from £240, but this is an uninformed choice, purely as its cheaper than the HD100 and i assum newer and bette than the HD2. However, the HD2 has a light for those drunken nights......

If this wasnt bad enough, a friend is now telling me to look at a company called Aiptek. Please help


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after reading around the site it seems that in fact these arent a good choice due to frame rates?

I have a sony vaio ar31s 2gb ram dualcore and also have a copy of ulead studio 11 - with this will i be able to drag, drop, burn to standard dvd and play on a standard dvd player with decent quality?

thanks

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[glesgaguyav]

I use the HD2 and find that this is a great little camcorder if used in the right conditions in fact I rarely go out without it, I can put it in my pocket along with my mobile phone
The HD2 like a lot of cams is not too happy in low light but is just as good as many SD camcorders in this respect, in outdoor lighting conditions however the quality is excellent.
I am not aware of the HD700 but the main difference between the HD2 and HD1000 is that the HD1000 shoots in full HD resolution while the HD2 shoots 1280+720p.
I do not believe that the Aiptek is as good as the Sanyo.
The HD2 does record in 30fps (ony a problem if you want edit in PAL), Iam unsure regarding the others but I don't see why they should be any different, the cameras can output in both PAL/NTSC via HDMI or AV.
The HD2 has a basic inbuilt editor, cut/join clips and Ulead Video Studio 11+ recognises the clips with no problems so you can just pop your card in and transfer over.You can also record in SD if required.
IMHO they are excellent take anywhere little cams.

[philangst]

I've had a Sanyo HD2 for 6 months.Its brilliantly portable and I do use it quite a lot. In good light its pretty good but in low light or at full zoom you get disappointingly grainy footage. Image stablisation isnt that good either but still quality is nice. If you need a small pocketable camcorder its really good but as its my 1st camcorder ever, Ive nothing to compare it against!

[unknownuser]

Thanks for your replies. Have yoi found it easy to drag, drop and burn your movies?

Also, is there anything else that can be recomended for a similar price?

Thanks

[glesgaguyav]

The HD2 comes with Ulead's DVD Movie Factory 5 for Sanyo for burning DVD's I presume the others have something similar if not the same, so burning DVD's is no problem.

These cams are unique in that they are not specifically Video cameras but also Digital photo cameras so they fall between 2 stones, there are other makers such Aiptek (cheaper) but you get what you pay for

If you decide on the Sanyo then I would recommend that you download free programs such as MP42AVI and MPEG Steamclip (google search)the first program repacks the Sanyo clips into an AVI that most editing programs will recognise, the second which is used for Quicktime files will also convert the clips into other formats as the clips are recognised as Quicktime files in Windows, Nero 8 is also recommended as it will play the files as well as edit/burn/export to the HDV format.

[philangst]

Originally Posted by unknownuser

Thanks for your replies. Have yoi found it easy to drag, drop and burn your movies?

Also, is there anything else that can be recomended for a similar price?

Thanks

I've had no problem at all editing footage and burning dvd's with iMovie 08

[unknownuser]

Thanks Phil

Im losing the plot now - and changing the goalposts, but can you clarify just what I am liklely to lose by not going HD

Maybe for quality I ould be better with a Hard Drive camcorder like Sony DCR-SR32 for less money??

[glesgaguyav]

Losing the plot is common when your trying to decide on a camcorder

It's your decision but by not going HD you'll be missing out on HQ video, of course you won't miss it if you have nothing to watch it on

I cannot comment on the new Full HD Sanyo models but compared to the dedicated full HD cams the HD2 does not have the same "wow" factor (it's not full HD) but produces very good quality video, if your not going to be too crittical and looking for every flaw in the video then the Sanyo could be the one for you.
It's small, solid state (no moving parts) and the clips are easy to transfer over to a PC, they can also be viewed on a Sony PS3

A good SD HDD cam may give just as good results