New Camcorder £350 or £500 Budget

[meltonboy]

Hi folks

I'm new to this particular sub forum and know very little about thus subject.

I am looking for a camcorder. I have 2 budgets in mind - £350 quid (i.e. the misses will think that's enough) and £500 (because i like gadgets). Happy to buy off the net.

I see that there are various types of recording media and i don't really have a preference. However, i dont need to be shooting long clips. I anticipate lots of shorter clips. I quite like SD cards as thier prices keep tumbling.

I have a DVD burner on my home laptop, but i would anticipate putting files on my laptop and burning only my favourite ones, much like i only print a small proportion of my favourite digital photos.

I see that HD resolution is now becoming more available (and i have a HD screen), but am weary that resolution isn't everything and that good overall picture quality is my main aim. In fact, i am normally a man for PQ rather than fancy complex features

I'm also interested to see what i get for the extra £150 quid in the budget (i.e. to get the necessary board approval).

Am wondering down Tottenham Court Road tomorrow with Mrs Meltonboy and would appreciate some thoughts - either models or just features to look for.

Cheers

MB

[arNika]

I can't help but 'wonder' when I'm down Tottenham Court road too, why put ALL the London guitar shops within 1/2 a square mile of each other

I've been on the hunt for a new camcorder too, and general concensus seems to be that for around £400 (on Amazon) (and will keep the Missus happy!) you can't go wrong with the Sony HDR-HC5E. It doesn't record to SD, it's miniDV, which seems to be a better medium. I don't think even very large SD cards hold much footage, but they are still used in camcorders to store the stills photos.

Good luck! I'm sure plenty more advice will come in.

[meltonboy]

Originally Posted by arNika

I've been on the hunt for a new camcorder too, and general concensus seems to be that for around £400 you can't go wrong with the Sony HDR-HC5E. It doesn't record to SD, it's miniDV, which seems to be a better medium. I don't think even very large SD cards hold much footage, but they are still used in camcorders to store the stills photos.

Thanks.

Presumably whatever the medium, i can hook it into my laptop and transfer the file, then burn onto a dvd as a normal moive type file ?

MB

[arNika]

I'm not entirely sure about burning DVDs straight from the camcorder via the laptop, I always import footage to an editing suite (Sony Vegas in my case), sweeten it up a bit, then export it to whatever medium necessary.

You may want to look at a different camcorder, you can record directly onto DVD with some camcorders rather than miniDV. This would save any hassle with your laptop. I've only looked at miniDV camcorders, I think it's the safest medium to store on, so can't offer much more in the way of advice, sorry!

[meltonboy]

presumably once it's on my laptop as some sort of video file, ill be able to burn to a dvd easily enough ? sorry if im being dumb.

[redsox_mark]

Originally Posted by meltonboy

presumably once it's on my laptop as some sort of video file, ill be able to burn to a dvd easily enough ? sorry if im being dumb.

The simple answer is yes.

But the details are more complex to explain. If you mean DVD which can be played on an ordinary (standard def) DVD player, yes you can do this, but you would need to downconvert the footage to SD. (The HC5 can do this in the camcorder; or you can do it in software).

There are also various ways to put high def material on an ordinary DVD disc, but it won't be playable on a DVD player... it will play on (depending on the method used) a PS3, Blu-Ray player, even a HD-DVD player... of course PC...

I'd spend £500 and get a high def cam. HC5 is great value. If you perfer flash memory based models, look at the Panasonic SD9, or new Canon HF100.