Camcorder help me buy one please
 

am looking to get a DVD camcorder for around £250

what would you recomend? normal size DVDs would be best

have seen the sony DVD110 but not sure if its any good?

thanks
ian

Why a dvd one? That are very large, power hungry, and not very user friendly when it comes to editing the footage...

what would you recomend? the mrs want to buy me something for xmas, and she had her mind set on a dvd one for how easy it is to watch on the tv.

but if you can recomend something that is better for around £250, ill convincer her that it is the right choise :)

Personally, I'd go for one that takes mini dv tapes. Much better battery life, and the picture quality is just as good. Not quite as easy to show on the telly. but you can connect the camera via a video lead...

what about the hard drive ones?

They are a bit power hungry as well, although the main problem is capacity and storage. If you are on holiday and fill up the disc with video, you are pretty much stuffed. At least with tapes you can just stick in a nother one. Also, when you get home you have to transfer the video off the of the hd onto some other storage medium of your choice.

arrr see what you mean, think ill just stick with the DVD option.

trying to find some buyers guides online, but not much luck yet, also not really sure what to look for in these things

Sony DCR-DVD410 sounds good

Removable media recroders arent power hungry, you can replace the SD card with a fresh one when youve filled-up: and theyre far less prone to the errors suffered by optical and fixed disk devices.

Simon

any links to some good ones?

Ive been looking at a Samsung, but I dont have the details to hand. That was well below your budget though: I only want it to mount in a car. Panasonic make some nice ones thatll be within your budget.

I didn't look at those because I wanted a Hi-def camcorder (and there wasn't enough storage space on memory cards for my purposes - I went for a Canon HV30 in the end). Should be fine with standard definition video though.

I've heard very good things about the panasonic range. Worth a look I'd say...

bttt

anyone?

I've been looking at the Panasonic HD-range - the SD card ones.

However, I was also looking at the Canon SD-card based ones for a friend/customer. The FS100 in particular.

I always used to recommend miniDV - decent battery life and you can buy tapes in loads of places should you need more. I wouldn't buy a DVD or HDD ones - both are power hungry and I don't think DVD is a good medium for recording video etc on the fly.

I do fancy the SD ones though - good on battery and the advantage they have over miniDV is the simplicity of taking the SD card out and putting it straight onto computer. You can then write to DVD if required.

looks like a SD card one looks like the one for me, any good deals about at the min?