Camcorder of School

[gaz2810i]

My Wifes Primary School has asked me to purchase a Camcorder for use of there School Children. It has to be A HDD Cam which can record at least 2 hours, be extremely easy to use and very durable. I have been given a budget of no more than £400 but ideally would like to spend around £250-£300.

Does any body have any suggestions and places to buy? Cheers.

Gary

[redsox_mark]

Sony DCR-SR55? From one of these online vendors

http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/pl/8-10...B%3B%3B&q=sr55

Video quality of HDD cams in this budget range are just OK, but the Sony models are solidly built and easy to use.

[rhubarbe]

I would say that an HDC-SD5 with a 16GB SDHC card will give you three hours recording (nearly) at max bitrate and will cost just less than £400 for the cam and the card.

OK, it's not a HDD, but it does the same job (if not better), is more versatile than a HDD because you can take the card out and (even) give it to the child to take home if you're using small capacity cards like a £5 2GB card.

It is also high definition camcorder which may be good for quality but the children may have a job holding it still enough. I don't know.

if it were my kids I'd go for the SD5, from Amazon.

[redsox_mark]

On the other hand, if they want to make DVDs etc on a PC, and the PCs may not be the most powerful, AVCHD could make that more challanging.