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Buying a Video Camera
So, I'm looking to buy a video camera: the old one I've been using for several years now uses those old 8mm tapes and it's getting hard to find them, not to mention the fact that the video quality is pretty meh.
Anyways, I'm thinking of a camera with a hard drive, but am also considering one of the DVD-R ones. Honestly, I haven't done very much research into this and was just wondering what everyone else thought was the best bang for the buck...I'm thinking no more than maybe $700, and it'll primarily be for casual use: it's a family camera, but it should be good quality, and with a good bit of record time.
Anyways, I'm thinking of a camera with a hard drive, but am also considering one of the DVD-R ones. Honestly, I haven't done very much research into this and was just wondering what everyone else thought was the best bang for the buck...I'm thinking no more than maybe $700, and it'll primarily be for casual use: it's a family camera, but it should be good quality, and with a good bit of record time.
Comments
If you've got $700 to spend you should be able to score a pretty decent hard drive camera. I would probably go something like the JVC GZ-MG135, which retails for around $750AU. Its got a 30 GB hard drive so you should be looking at about 7 1/2 hours of DVD quality recording, its little, and very easy to use. Bear in mind that this is the model number in my shop in Australia and it may be slightly different where you are. Just look for the entry level JVC hard drive camera and it should be the same thing.
The other thing to consider is that Mini DV tape cameras are ridiculously good value at the moment, The quality is still awesome, just as good as a hard drive unit, but because they have been around for ever the prices are dirt cheap. For the same price as a entry level HDD you would be able to get an awesome 3 CCD mini DV camera. The only real disadvantage is that unlike a hard drive camera, when you plug your tape camera into a
computer, it transfers the video all as one file which you then have to go through and chop up to make the finished movie. Every time you hit record on a hard drive camera it creates a separate file and you can just dump all the files down to your computer and rearrange them easily.
All in all it just depends on what sort of person you are. If you don't mind mucking around with editing and want the best picture quality for the money your looking to spend, then go a Mini DV camera. If you like things to be simple and don't want to have to carry a whole pile of tapes around, then get a hard drive camera. As you can probably tell I sell cameras for a living so I know all the ins and outs of these things. Let me know if you find any models your interested in and I can let you know what I think.
Um. Best idea is to pick one or two cameras you like and research the accessory prices. >>; And dun be cheap.
Also, there are three types of recording for a digital video camera nowadays: DVD-R, which as has been mentioned has a fairly low recording time; Hard drive, which is rather expensive and can, I've heard, have some gyroscopic effects from the spinning platters; and flash media, which is expensive as well, but has fewer moving parts.
Personally, I think only High def. camcorders are any good and right now, they're still over $1,000. I'd just get a nice camera. They record very decent motion video. Let that tide you over until High def camcorders get cheaper.
We just went to disneyland and I took the camcorder and camera to record my son. I found that trying to get the camcorder out and ready everytime I wanted to catch my son's reaction to something was too late. And I would record for about 5 minutes and just get boring stuff. It was easier to carry the camera around, snap a photo or take a video on that very quickly.
All I want in a video camera is something small, with long battery life that can store many hours of video in a single go. We're talking about something I can carry around a convention all day and not worry about it. Additionally, it has to just work as a hard drive that has normal non-DRM video files on it when I connect it to my Linux machine. Video quality doesn't have to be HD amazing, it just has to be nice enough for Youtube and iPods. As of yet, I have not found a product. Anyone know of one? Preferably not stupidly expensive.
But the GZ-MG130 is the exact same camera as the one I was mentioning earlier, and its a great little unit. You're right in saying that the only difference between that and the GZ-MG255 is the fact that it has lower pixel count, 0.68 MP to 1.07MP. Megapixels makes absolutely no difference in the quality of digital video recording. The only difference it will make is that the still quality will be marginally better (although still terrible) and the stabilisation will be a touch better. Considering that, it is not worth the extra money. So if I was choosing between these two I would go the MG130 and spend the extra money on a long life battery for it.
The only other thing I would say is that cameras seem to be much cheaper in the US than they are here. I recommended that one based off the fact that you would only be able to afford an entry level hard drive video camera based on Australian prices. If you wanted to get a jump up in picture quality, and didn't mind spending up to $700 then the JVC GZ-MG255 is a pretty awesome camera. The main difference between the two models is the quality of the lens. The MG255 has a F1.2 aspherical lens with a 2.0MP CCD. Essentially this means that the MG255 is much more sensitive to light and handles low-light situations better than the cheaper model.
So, if you were only going to use the camera during the day when its nice and bright, then it won't make all that much difference. But if for instance you had to film a kids football match at night, then the MG255 will be able to handle that more effectively, whereas the MG130 will tend to look grainy and noisy when light conditions are less than optimal.
So there's a bunch more information for you to be confused by!! To be fair either one of those cameras would do everything you need, it just depends on when and how you are going to use it. The best bet is to go somewhere were they have them set up so you can have a play with them. Let me know how you get on though, and don't hesitate to ask more questions.
Also the Sony records the video on to the hard drive in a weird format. Subsequently you have to use the Sony video editing program if you want edit on your PC. That would be ok if it was a decent piece of software, but its very limited and basic. With the JVC you can use the included software, or otherwise just drag and drop the MPEG2 files off onto your hard drive and use whatever program you want to do editing. Considering the SR42 is $50 more than the equivalent JVC, its not really worth looking at in my opinion.
Is $499 too expensive for you though??