looking to get a DV Cam

[QueBert]

looking at 3 models

PV-GS320

SDR-H18

VDR-D230


I know the GS320 will have by far the best picture with the 3CCD sensors. But, I am sort of intrigued by the mini DVD one, seems like it would be the easiest to work with after the videos been shot. The H18 looks nice because it has a 30 gig HD, but it costs the same as the 3CCD one. Are there any benefits to having a miniDV? my neighbor swears by the tapes and is telling me to not get the DVD version, but he sounds like a fan boy when he's talking. I like the HDD one but essentially it's the same price as one that shoots much higher quality video, just with miniDV tapes.

the CCD MiniDV one is $500
the HDD one is $500
the DVD one is $430

I'm leaning towards Panasonic because I've read the video looks really good, and they have image stabilization which is supposed to be really awesome. Don't see any other video cams in the $500 range from other companies that offer that.

suggestions?? thanks

 

[gsellis]

The 320 is a great camera from what I hear. There is a review at Camcorderinfo.

With the DVD, you will need an editor that does MPEG-2 native editing to edit. With the HDD camcorders, you need the latest editors from Sony or Pinnacle for the same. My main gripe is archiving. While tape is slower to ingest, it is its own backup.

 

[QueBert]

so the HDD model stores the video is some weird format? I was wondering about that, didn't really think I could hook it up and pull up explorer and copy movie.mpg over from it. I have Sony Vegas I got off Ebay so I'm cool with being able to edit the video regardless of the media. thanks for your reply I'll check out the link.

 

[gsellis]

The standard definition HDD is probably in MPEG-2 also (not sure if there are variants.)