What to look for in a good digital camcorder?

[Darkknight]

If any of you video gurus could help one not so up to the newer camcorder technologies.

For the most part I know opticial zoom is way more important than digital. I know sound is very important and battery life.

Can anyone tell me what to really look for in a digital camcorder? Specifics really. Best brand and software to get the movie into Mpeg and so forth.

Who knows, maybe it will produce tickling shorts in the future. 🙂

With my new Superbowl payout (yeah Bucs!) I can boost up my amount to spend on a digital camcorder to $1000 or so now.

I can't seem to find a good site about what to look for in a good camcorder, if anyone has links, I would check them out.

Thanks for your time in reading this.

DK

 

[guitman69]

Here's what little advise I can give.

First of all, you need to make sure that both the camera and the computer have a firewire port (also called ILink, and IEEE1394). You do not want to try and download a movie into your computer using USB. Before I got the firewire card for my computer, it took about 30 to 60 seconds to download one frame of video (and there's 30 frames in one frame of video).

Next, don't get a camera that will also take still images. The lens on video cameras cannot take very good still images. The pictures come out very grainy.

Also, try and find a Digital 8mm camera, meaning it uses HI8 tapes instead of the smaller DV tapes. The camera will be bigger, but the tapes are a lot cheaper.

Now, when you start looking and you find a couple of models that you like, go to www.techtv.com/freshgear and do a search on the models you were looking at.

 

[He-Man]

speaking of lenses, if you like to use your camera for far away shots--like far away enough that you need a telephoto lens...get a camera that has...what're they called, lens filter? or threads? one of those is right....right? lol

See, I learned this when I bought my digital camera for taking still pics. After awhile, I wanted to get pics of things further way...only prob was...my camera doesn't have the little holes or whatever they are on the lens, that allow you to attach telephoto lenses, wide-angle lenses, etc....

right now, I'm looking for a good video camera too, where I can add stuff like a flash, telephoto lenses and other stuff. and of course, being able to upload movies to the computer.

And this time, I'm going to get all the info I can before I buy my new camera...I wanna do it right this time ( even though I still like my other cameras as well).😀

 

[Darkknight]

guitman69,

Thank you for that advice! I very much needed to know some of those things. I will definately check out your link once I go another round of camcorder "tryouts" at my local stores this weekend.

What is the quality difference between Hi8 and the DV tapes? I know the Hi8 tapes are cheaper.

Thanks again.

And He-man, I was like that with my last camcorder 10 years ago or so.
I'm doing a lot research this time. 🙂

DK

 

[guitman69]

What I was talking about was Digital8, a digital camera that uses Hi8 tapes instead of the smaller(and more expensive)DV tapes. The format shouldn't matter between the two, because they are both just recording 1's and 0's onto the tape. The difference would be the quality of the camera.

If you want to download the vidoes onto your computer to edit them, then you are going to need a digital camera. Hi8 is an analog format. Digital is a much better format than analog. For one thing, the signal does not degrade over time, or with repeated copying. Also, the resolution is much higher than with an analog camera.

 

[He-Man]

Here's what little advise I can give.



Next, don't get a camera that will also take still images. The lens on video cameras cannot take very good still images. The pictures come out very grainy.

Even then, you could STILL get still images, right, through some kind of program ? (like a video-editing program for the computer)

Seems like it might be possible, because I once uploaded a video clip to a program that just did animation....there was alot of frames...but hey, they weren't moving...they were images...so I guess I mamaged to get some still images anyway. lol

Just curious to know, since all this stuff is interesting to know.

 

[guitman69]

He-Man, you can always get images from a video camera. It's called an still image capture. Most programs that will download the movie onto your computer will let you do this.

What I was talking about is some cameras have a still function. They take still images and save them to a memory card, usually at a much lower resoultion than even a cheap digital still camera, and the lens is made for video, not still images, so the pictures end up very grainy looking. The lens of your average consumer grade camcorder is just not designed for still images.

Also, since the camera is not designed to take still images, it has no flash, and usually takes a long time to save the image to the memory card.