I have the measley sum of £350 to spend on camcorder.
i have a couple of questions,
1. can i get a digital camcorder for this amount one that i can connect to the PC and upload stills and moving pictures(I've seen a format called "digital-8" but wasn't sure if it was true digital).
2. what one should i buy if this money stretches to one.

sorry for the dumb questions, im a complete novice.
Cheers for any help.

[TommyVecetti]

Digital 8 is digital. Just uses Hi-8 tapes instead of Mini-DV ones.

Things you need are DV in and DV-out so you can upload to your PC and then download back to tape afterwards. Although you can buy a DV-in enabler for about £40

Tommy, thanks for the reply.
if possible could you have a look at these pages on amazon and tell me what my best option is for £350.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...13488-6819061?

[TommyVecetti]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...239019-7858851

This model is in the price bracket you quoted, it has DVin and Out according to the page, it takes Hi-8 tapes which will record digitally and then you can upload the footage via the firewire to your comp, edit and record back to camera, as a final product.

Seems a good model from the reviews.

[TommyVecetti]

Cameras don't tend to come with a firewire cable, but you can get one from PC world for about £7.

[MarkE19]

If your budget is tight then be careful if wanting to edit on the PC. This can add a large amount of money onto your budget before you even realise it.

To start with you will need a firewire port on your PC (from around £20 up and most PC's don't have them).
If running Windows XP then you already have software (Microsoft Movie Maker, but download the free upgrade to MM2), if not then this will also be required (around £30 up with a card).
Loads of spare disk space. 4 minutes of footage will use approx. 1Gb of disk space. Hard disks cost just under £1 per Gb ie 60Gb drives from around £50

Digital8 camcorders are only made by Sony, but they save to tape in the same format as any DV camcorder. They can record to old Hi8 tape, but these are not ideal as they are not designed for digital recording. D8 camcorders can often play back old 8mm/Hi8 tapes that were recorded on old camcorders, so could be handy if you have any old tapes.

Mark.

[TommyVecetti]

>>>If your budget is tight then be careful if wanting to edit on the PC<<<<


Yes, but get the camera now, upgrade PC to edit later. Not many other options, unless your suggesting he buy an analogue Cam, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone.

Thanks again for the replies, I'm in a situation where my PC is pretty Archaic and has as much free hard drive space as i've got spare cash!!!!!!!!!!
can the Sony camera be linked to my PC and with the aid of the relevant software be used to take still images from the video to be able to print them.
I am in 2 minds as to whether to get a still digital camera, but a friend advised that digital camcorders are able to do this on even the cheapest of models.
thanks again for the help. It is much appreciated.

[Orbitalzone]

Spend just a tad over £350 and get yourself a JVC GRD50 which is a great value DV camcorder with loads of features such as DV in and out (ideal for DV editing and archiving) Analogue in and out (Ideal for usind the camcorder to connect up to old VHS deck and record onto DV tape or direct onto PC for editing. Also it's a basic stills camera but low resolution of 640x480.

I've had one for a while and think for the price it's amazing. Good results are achievable.

Someone here will tell you it sucks on low light, which to some extent is true but true of virtually all other lower price DV cams. Also the still camera is low quality by todays standards. but even the top range DV cams aren't anywhere near as good as a £150 digital still camera.

JVC GRD50 prices HERE

[TommyVecetti]

I am in 2 minds as to whether to get a still digital camera, but a friend advised that digital camcorders are able to do this on even the cheapest of models.

Some of the more expensive camcorders have megapixel capture for still images. the others just capture the size of the video frame which is really only suitable for e-mail. But even then, I'd advise getting a separate dedicated digital camera for stills.

What should you get, well it depends, what do you prefer doing more of? Videoing family events, or taking still photos of them?

thanks for the replies again lads. heres the story anyway...
went to Gran Canaria on hols last month and had my Digi-cam stolen It was a Fuji-Finepix S304 with a 128mb memory card, this would store a whole holidays worth of snaps, roughly 100 or so.
now with the insurance money im in 2 minds as to whether to get a Camcorder instead.
the main problem i had with the still camera was the battery consumption, which was ridiculous, after snapping a dozen or so pics the batteries started to falter.

As i stated in the first post I've never owned a Camcorder before and was looking for what would be my best option.

thanks again I really appreciate the advice.

sorry, failed to ask in above post, what is the differance between mini-dv and digital 8, is there so much of a better quality that someone with my eyes would be able to tell the differance. or would a low price mini-dv machine be as good as a more pricey digital 8 machine

[MarkE19]

To be honest, in your price range the difference quality wise between DV & D8 will negligable. As I said in my previous post, the main differences are size & choice of maker.

Camcorder or camera?
Well I've got both and to be honest I use the stills camera more. It's smaller and easier to carry around. But then again some of the camcorders are small ands light compared to my Sony TRV900. I went for a high quality camcorder, so I lost out on size/weight. Why can't we have both in 1 unit?
With the camera I did cheat and get a large Minolta Dimage 7 & a smaller Canon S30. Both are good in their own right.
In an ideal world you would also be able to get both , but in reality this is often not the case. Think about which will get the most use and therefore give you best value for money.

Mark.