Muffleman

For some reason, I have never been too bothered about getting a camcorder. But with the birth of my first just 5 months away, I think it would be nice to catch all those 'beadle moments'. (And I don't mean losing fingers and growing a dodgy beard )

I'll spend £500 if I have to, but I know squat about camcorders ! I'd definitely like to edit my work on the pootah though.

Saw this the other day http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/produc...RDVD100&clear= but I'm not sure about the recording to 8cm blank DVD's, I hear they're expensive and don't last long. Plus it's a bit more than I want to spend really.

Any advice ? Suggestions ?

Cheers



Matt

Brendan Hughes

Just doing the same research myself. Posted a question a week or so ago but got no reply . A TV journalist recommended us the Sony TRV-33 (couple of years old, so cheapish now) - otherwise move up to the TRV-60, or TRV-80 if you want all-singing Bluetooth. For vertical rather than horizontal construction, look at DCRPC-105. These are the ones that got rave reviews when I looked last week.

I wouldn't get Sony's Micro DV or the DVD ones, the media format is too exclusive.

Muffleman

Hi,

Thanks Brendan. I too had heard good things about the Sony TRV-33, but looks like it has been replaced now ?

I'll keep looking and PM you if I buy anything

Cheers


Matt

Brendan Hughes

TRV33 pretty much replaced by TRV60 - latter seems to be a bit bigger though.

This seems to be the latest of Sony's product range. Haven't seen any reviews though so I don't know if it continues to get rave accolades or if Sony somehow dropped a bollok. One criticism of the newer ones was the controls on the touch screens, but if you only use it on auto mode (like most of us) this won't bother you.

Scooby96

I've got a nice dcr-trv145e up for grabs??

£350 with case, charger, tape, protective lens, iLink cable etc etc

dtriggs

If you want to edit on the pc then I wouldnt recommend the DVD camcorders. I bought a Panasonic DVD camcorder in December (in singapore so much cheaper) and although it is a great camera to film with, it becomes just a disk drive when plugged into a computer so you cant stream video onto the pc. Worse than that it needs the software that comes with it (that is a pain to use) as nothing else can read the format of files.

The Camcorder is designed for you to edit the film on the camera itself then copy straight on to a proper sized dvd. As I have a Panasonic dvd recorder this works fine as the small dvd disk goes into the tray and then can be copied to HD then copied back to a dvd-r or dvd-ram.

This may not be true of all Dvd camcorders but be careful. A mate just bought a sony and thinks it's great.