Cost Effective Digital Camcorder?

[EagleKeeper]

Titles say it all.

Thanks

 

[hevnsnt]

What is your pricerange?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: hevnsnt
What is your pricerange?

Gut feeling is $300-400.

Daughter is the one that wants it. Gramps is the one that must buy it

 

[mugs]

Buydig.com has good prices, or Dell if there's a coupon out.

Edit: and there is... add dell.php to the link in my sig

Edit: Dell has 3 week shipping estimates on all of theirs, try Buydig: http://www.buydig.com/shop/searchresults.aspx?cti=2113&pti=2109
Notice the $50 rebates on some.

For tapes go to Costco - $22 for 8 tapes last I checked.

Buy a second battery (aftermarket)

 

[Mr N8]

You can get the Canon Elura 80 in that price range and Dell, right now. The Canon ZR300 has the same deal and same starting price, but also has a $50 MIR.

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.gottadeal.com/DirectDeal/12066">
http://www.gottadeal.com/DirectDeal/12066</a>

 

[EagleKeeper]

Are there systems that use memory sticks/cards vs tapes? Benifits/cons?

A future potential would be to take the output from the video camera at a later time and put on optical disk.

 

[hevnsnt]

get a minidv (digital tape) camera

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
Are there systems that use memory sticks/cards vs tapes? Benifits/cons?

A future potential would be to take the output from the video camera at a later time and put on optical disk.

Yeah, my Elura 90 does that as I'm sure many other cameras do. I'm sure there are cameras that are memory card only, no tapes - for $30 you can get a one-time-use camera that works like that, takes about 30 minutes of video and they put it on DVD for you. You can hack it so you can take the video off yourslef and never return it, but that's more or less stealing.

Disadvantage is that flash memory is expensive, and you can't fit nearly as much video on one. DV is 25 Mbps, so 11-12 GB for an hour of video. Clearly you're not going to get the same quality or the same amount of video from flash memory.

Getting it onto optical disc is easy, assuming you have firewire. The easiest way to get the video onto your computer is probably with Windows Movie Maker. I think you can burn the DVDs with that too, but don't quote me on that. I know Nero can.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Thanks for the feedback.

I understand that the use of flash memory will not be feasible.

As long as Ican dump thevideo onto the PC (if desired) vai firewire or whatever setup the camera has, I should be all set.
Off to BB or Circuit City for ideas; then I need to find the credit card that the wife has not touched recently

 

[RossMAN]

Get a MiniDV with FireWire then you can download it to your PC to edit then burn to DVD.

 

[Vegito]

Sorry to bring this back.. newest thread i can find..

Why would they sell thse smaller camcorder with flash ? you can bearly film anything on it..

I have a digital 8 but looking for something better.. so mini dv is the best right now right ?

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
Get a MiniDV with FireWire then you can download it to your PC to edit then burn to DVD.

I want to get a camcorder for my wife for Christmas. Simple to use is paramount so do you have any recommendations I should look at given what you said above?

 

[Vegito]

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/

big site to read... has a lot of info.. start there...

theres a buying guide