Pick Me A Camcorder

[Gibbonius]

Hi all,

I need some help sorting through the plethora of camera options out there. I had an order for a Panasonic NV GS330 based on what I'd gleaned from lurking on here but now I'm pretty certain that Mic-In will come in handy eventually so it's cancelled.

We want to record stuff both indoors (reasonable low-light performance probably necessary) and outdoors for distribution on YouTube. However, we need to be able to put it onto DVD so the quality still needs to be good.

Absolute maximum budget is £300 and I'd be grateful of any suggestions. As far as I can tell, I'm going to get a better SD cam than HD at that price range and I'm not sure if HD would be much use to us anyway.

Cheers

[A n d r e w]

Originally Posted by Gibbonius

Absolute maximum budget is £300 and I'd be grateful of any suggestions. As far as I can tell, I'm going to get a better SD cam than HD at that price range

Not necessarily. The factor most limiting your choices, though, is the microphone input requirement. Canon makes some mini-DV models with mic in, as well as the FS100 which records to memory cards. These are all standard definition and can be found for less than £300. Bear in mind that the mini-DV camcorder (e.g., Canon MD235) will give much better quality video than the FS100.

Good luck.

[Gibbonius]

Thanks for you advice Andrew. Picked up a Canon MD235 for a song yesterday.

We haven't had a chance to try it properly but it seems perfectly adequate for us.

[evilgenius]

You can buy my Canon Mvx450 for £180 if you like. Its barely been used.