Help finding a new Digital Camcorder for £500

GavTNewbie

Established Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2002
Messages
247
Reaction score
28
Points
102
Age
45
Location
Cumbernauld
As title, got budget of £500 and want a digital camcorder - im looking to buy in time for xmas...

Im new to this area and would like some help/guidance on make/model features to look out for, and where to get them.

Must have:
- linkup to PC, so that MPEG's can be created
- decent (ish) sound recording

Would like:
- touch panel LCD screen
- some sort of DVD recording capabilities (I know I may be pushing it for this for a £500 machine, but ill try)

After a bit of searching, ive found these
http://www.prcdirect.co.uk/PRC/PRC.filereader?3f8aa34102b7c1242740d43a3b580694+EN/products/DZMV350 (for £600 ish)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008PS7J/ref=br_lf_ce_0/026-0472236-3483636

http://www.unbeatable.co.uk/CatalogueItem_9640.html

Any of them good, or should I avoid these?

Generally, what accessories would you say are a must, as Ive noticed that there are loads of them when you select a camera in a place like PRC Direct.

What about software/hardware for the PC? Is a firewire port required for these cameras, or does USB suffice? What about video software for his PC (running MS XP) to accept stream from camera and encode MPEG's?

Thanks in advance for comments :smashin:
 
— As an Amazon Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases —
Hi GavTNewbie, When you've made up your mind on which one to go for, have a look on pricerunner.com for the best price. If you then go to your local Jessops store they will price match it. That's what I did when I bought my Panasonic NV-GS50 which is the one I would recommend. you can pick this up from techtronics.com for £486.99. Here is the link. http://www.techtronics.com/uk/shop/...b-dv-digital-camcorder.html?refid=pricerunner It isn't a DVD-ROM disk player, but as this is new in camcorders you maybe better going for the tried and tested miniDV tapes.
ASH1 :smashin:
 
To answer some of your questions in a different order to what you asked.

Make sure you have firewire (both in and out) if you want to get uncompressed video onto your PC for editing.

Then buy a firewire card for your PC (less than £20).

For software for starters, look at Movie Maker 2 if you are running Windows XP as it is pretty good and even better, it is free from Microsoft.

Accessories?

A good case is a must. Also, consider a tripod although it really depends on what you are going to use the camcorder for. Extra batteries are always useful and don't forget to get plenty of mini DV tapes (as they can be bought for £2 each).

As far as DVD recording goes, don't bother getting this built into the camera. It drains the batteries, makes the camera bigger and is still a very new idea.

A better way would be to buy a DVD burner for your PC so that you can edit the film first and then burn the finished movie to DVD.
 
cheers for input guys.

ash, that panasonic one at techtronics is now £414.46 (£486 ish after VAT)

ill keep looking just now, as i plan to buy nearer december time (although im getting very tempted just to buy it now).

would jessops price match the Panasonic mentioned ash, even if it meant a price drop of about £100 ?
 
Hi,

They've not been mentioned yet, but you'll find that the Sony camcorders come highly recommended (just read loads of topics on this site!).

The trv33 seem to be one of the most popular, although at £549 (www.ajelectronics.co.uk) is slightly out of your price range. Other Sony models which easily match your criteria (ignoring DVD recording which can always be done on a PC), are the trv22 at £477 and the trv19 at £399. I seem to recall the trv19 came out very highly rated in a Magazine review a few months ago. About the only things that the trv33 has over these two models is a colour viewfinder and an Anamorphic widescreen mode.

As far as Jessops being prepared to drop by a large'ish amount, I spoke to them the other day and was told that, as long as it is a UK based company, selling UK stock (i.e. not grey imports) then they will match the price.
 
Originally posted by Networkguy

As far as DVD recording goes, don't bother getting this built into the camera. It drains the batteries, makes the camera bigger and is still a very new idea.
[/B]
News to me.
I have last years model of DVDCAMS:smashin:
I think they have been on the market for about three years which is not a new idea(agreed it has not taken off big time).
Dixons ,Currys ,Comet don't stock them so most people can't buy them.
The batteries don't drain any quicker,the new Hitachi DVDCAMS are about the same size of most DV CAMS.
The new Hitachi DVDCAMs have USB2 which are quicker than firewire(which if i remember correctly was meant to be the next big thing when it came out but is mainly used for DV CAMS).
DVD recorders are replacing Tape machines!!!
Tape is old,you know it is.
Hitachi, Panasonic and now Sony do DVDCAMs
90% of people will have there camcorder for a very long time as it is not used very much,is DV Tape the future?Sony have brought out at least two different formats since DV Tape!

Easy editing
Stick you DVD-RAM disc from you DVDCAM in one of the new Toshiba, Panasonic HDD Ram recorders,copy to HDD(no loss of quality),edit out the crap bits ,record to DVD-R.
Disclaimer: I don't have one of these recorders and have not tried thee above.

Tomorrow is today,don't be left behind DVDCAM:smashin:
 
DV still has a long life ahead - very low compression - unlike the MPEG2 cameras such as DVD and MicroMV.

MicroMV is a naff idea, DVD is a playback format as far as I am concerned.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom