Camcorder recommendations?

[Gibson486]

My fiancee wants one.

I found a Panny HDC-SD800 for $500. Only thing missing it an accessory boot, but then again, not sure how much of an enthusiast she would be.

What should I look for? I mean, $500 is the max she wants to spend, so is there anything under that price that can even come close?


wrong forum....can you move this?

 

[Kaido]

What does she want to use it for?

 

[Gibson486]

Recording events....you know life events. She wants to buy a good one. We bought a cheap Panasonic on black friday yearssssss ago. It was horrible.

 

[Kaido]

Recording events....you know life events. She wants to buy a good one. We bought a cheap Panasonic on black friday yearssssss ago. It was horrible.

There's a few items to factor into play here:

1. Optical zoom
2. Low-light performance
3. Durability (waterproof etc.)
4. Post-production workflow

The biggest thing that zaps people is the post-production workflow. Everyone likes to play with a camera & record hours of video, but no one likes to go through and edit it all My default recommendation for a basic camcorder is actually the new iPod Touch:

http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/

You get a 720p touchscreen camcorder for $199. The iMovie app is five bucks more, so you can edit right on the device. Shoot, edit, send to Facebook/Grandma/Email/Youtube - done. It's basically a new version of the Flip camera concept. If you want something a bit more durable, Kodak makes the Playsport Zx5 for $130, which is waterproof & 1080p:

http://www.amazon.com/Kodak-PlaySport-Waterproof-Pocket-Camera/dp/B004FLL5BI/

I have the older Zx3 and it's pretty great for a basic handheld cam. It does surprisingly well in low-light, like at concerts.

If you want something with an optical zoom, then the options start to open up quite a bit more. But keep in mind - you'll need a big hard drive for footage storage, some editing software (and training to use it), etc. So it may depend on how techno-savvy your fiancee is...my family can handle iMovie & Windows Movie Maker, but that's about it.

So are you thinking pocketcam like an iPod or Kodak, or more real-camcorder style with a zoom and stuff?

 

[Gibson486]

Nah, we are thinking real camcorder with optical zoom.

We do not want a hard drive based one. We want one that is flash based. Whether or not it has internal flash memory, we do not care.

The biggest compliant I am seeing with lots of these more expensive camcorders is the output file. It is some weird format that you have to transcode (most companies give you that software however) in order to edit it.

 

[Kaido]

Nah, we are thinking real camcorder with optical zoom.

We do not want a hard drive based one. We want one that is flash based. Whether or not it has internal flash memory, we do not care.

The biggest compliant I am seeing with lots of these more expensive camcorders is the output file. It is some weird format that you have to transcode (most companies give you that software however) in order to edit it.

Basically, as the image quality gets better (higher resolution images & higher bitrates), the file size gets bigger. The trick that camcorder manufacturers use to get around this is to record to a highly-compressed file format, such as AVCHD, which results in a relatively small video file. This way it fits nicely on small, inexpensive flash memory cards.

The problem is that file formats like this are difficult to edit because they require a lot of CPU horsepower to deal with, and even very fast multi-core chips can't crunch the data effectively. So there are basically two options - either transcode to a different format, or purchase some software that can do native editing. Transcoding can take a long time, but you can edit the footage on more computers because it's not as processor-intensive.

The newer software like Adobe Premiere leverages the new GPU's for processing, so you can do effects faster. I use Sony Vegas at work (version 9 I think) and it can edit clips of AVCHD natively on a basic computer (just splicing stuff up). Vegas is pretty nice because $600 gets you everything from editing to DVD/Bluray authoring in one complete package. And I'm sure there are some free tools out there now that deal with editing (plus the stuff that comes with the camera itself).

The biggest thing I try to pound into people's heads regarding camcorders is to figure out your workflow before you get your camera. Everyone I know has a camcorder and everyone records a ton of video, but hardly anyone has anything to show for it because they don't know what to do with it afterwards. You want a workflow that you can put in place and use, which requires installation & education (training to use it, even if it's something simple like Windows Movie Maker). Once you have that down, then it's simply a matter of "doing it" rather than figuring it out, if that makes sense.

That HDC-SD800 you're looking at is pretty nice. The best advice I can tell you is to look at a bunch of footage on Vimeo & Youtube and find something that you like. Most cameras in their respective classes look more or less the same (ex. Flip cameras look like Kodak Playsports, GoPros look like ContourHD's, Canon zooms look like Panasonic zooms, etc.). Panasonic, Sony, and Canon all make great camcorders.