camcorders

mulder

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novice needs help!!
I,m thinking of buying a camcorder for useing at home but was wondering what to buy, is it worth buying a VHS camcorder for £250 or bottom of the range Digital camcorder for around the same price?
 
If you already own some Hi8 tapes which you will want to capture from then look at a Digital8 cam. Other than that go with MiniDV. Don't even consider any of the analogue formats.
 
As torrent said, analogue is old technology and therefore why limit your options by buying it!
Digital is now and the future. You will have a lot more options open to you. If you want to edit on a PC then capture cards for a digital camcorder are very cheap (approx £20). You then have the option of copying to a VHS tape, or creating a VCD or DVD. This casn be done with analogue,b ut the quality will be a lot lower and the capture card will be £100+. Even just copying to VHS you will see a much higher qualiy picture than with analogue.
The only down side to a digital camcorder is that they are not as good in low light conditions.

Mark.
 
I know i sound a bit thick guys
but if i bought a DV camcorder could i just copy to video tape (by-passing PC) as the analogue would do and what cables would I need to buy for doing this?
also how much on top of the camcorder itself would I have to pay for software to allow me to make VCD's on my PC?
 
You can copy DV footage direct to a VCR. The cable required should be supplied with the camcorder.
VCD's can be created on the PC without having to buy any other software if you have Windows XP. XP is supplied with MS Movie Maker. Update this from the MS web site to MM2 (free download) and this is the only software you require to get going. If you do not have XP then there are loads of free/cheap software options that can be used. Often a firewire card can be purchased for only a few pounds more that includes basic software. Then all you need to do is use the CD-RW software (Nero etc) to copy the created file to CD-R.
Full instructions on creating VCD's can be found at www.dvdrhelp.com

Mark.

ps no you don't sound thick. We all have to learn from somewhere
 
Forget VCD - very last century

DV is good enough to work well as a DVD so burn your own DVDs:)
 
Martin,
I agree that VCD is old, but where as a CD-RW drive is fairly standard on most PC's for the last couple of years, DVD-R is still not and a lot of people will not have the budget to add one (or the knowledge). For these people VCD is still the best/only option. Give it a year or 2 and then VCD will be a dim memory for most.

Mark.
 
Thanks for the help guys!!!
MartinImber you are right about VCD being old but I'm thinking about my home movie footage that I want to keep as I don't have a dvd writer my only option would be VCD at the moment. My VCD's hopefully will be able to play on all new formats in the future Such as DVD players etc as it's on a disc as a pose to video tape.
I have been surfing about a bit finding out as much info as possible about dv cams I've spotted one around my price range Panasonic NVDS60B but it has no DV in is that going to be a real problem? Also guys will I be able to copy home video footage from a vhs videotape to my pc with the above DV Camcorder as I have some old home video's from way back that I would like to transfer to disc?
 
If the camcorder does NOT have DV-in then it will NOT have AV in. You will therefore not be able to use the cam as a capture device for VHS recordings. Also, if you get a cam with DV-in it may not have AV in. Check closely before you buy.
DV footage takes a lot of disk space on a PC, therefore DV-in on the cam means you can copy full quality edited video back to the camcorder so you can remake a VCD/DVD later and free up space for new projects.

Mark.
 
DVD writers are currently plummeting in price

But VCDs should be fine for temporary usage
 
the Camcorder I was looking at does have s-video in and out though what's the benefits of that?
 
When connecting the camcorder to a VCR the S-Video connection will give a better picture than the standard composite.
The only problem is that a standard VHS VCR will not work with S-Video connection. You will just get a black & white picture. Only use S-Video with an SVHS VCR.

Mark.
 

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