Any suggestion? Looking to buy a new Video Cam

[HZM]

My old video cam die on me lately. Like it or not, had to get one.

Understand nowadays version comes w built in harddisk, is it good and advisable? I used to heard from Adrainli that he still prefer DV tape over DVD becos of shock / movement. Any good pointer is appreciated.

Budget ...1.5 -2.5K

Cheers

Mike

[Adrianli]

That was long time ago leh.

Now technology so advance wif shock proof liao.

The DVD n HD camcorder market not settle yet as the mega pixel keep increasing!!! Just wait for it to settle n not rush into it. The canon 4 megapixel one not bad but a bit pricey.


If u need one, borrow from me my DV camcorder lor. I have two.

[Adrianli]

I would say I prefer the HD over DVD due to its huge HD capacity. But the drawback is if HD bye bye = camcorder bye bye. But also must look at the batt life. I think so far the standard package come wif a batt that last only an hour.

[HZM]

Thanks Adrain for the info. Anyone own or tried Canon...nowadays I kana the canon poison....always like to go with this brand

Cheers

Mike

[Art]

video cam no L Lens woh....

[msc]

Hi,
You may want to check out the price of spare batteries for the Canon. I understand from the Digital Camera and Video Cam market that Canon have the most expensive assessories.

I just got a no-frills Panasonic for my sis in-law $520 at my favourite store at Sim Lim Sq.

MS

[HZM]

Jus back from a walk from Plaza Singapura best denki. Piang, I must have in the dark for too long ..... The price of Vid Cam had dropped so much Spending quite a while since the salesgal is pretty and friendly

Anyway, think I eyeing the JVC model w built in Harddisk. One model even have dual system - HD + DV tape But so far I had no experience w JVC, wondering how good and how lasting it can be.


Cheers

Mike

[Jcho]

Check out Panasonic, not bad for price with 3 CCD, I think Canon cannot make for Video Cam

[TaRo]

My uncle's Sony DVD Video Cam keep glitching and stuff, and he says the tapes are better. I have a JVC one and it works fine.

[haowee]

JVC one I use for a long time still very good.

[Adrianli]

Anyway, think I eyeing the JVC model w built in Harddisk. One model even have dual system - HD + DV tape But so far I had no experience w JVC, wondering how good and how lasting it can be.


Cheers

Mike

Both my camcorders r JVC brand. To test if the camcorder is good, put the lens very very near ur skin n make sure u can see the strand of ur hair from the LCD screen clearly.

Juz make sure the HD can store videos n not still pictures only. Also the resolution recorded.

No comments on Canon or Sony($$$ ) camcorders.

[weeliano]

Hi Mike,

You might want to check out this site to make a better decision.

https://www.camcorderinfo.com

Here's my advice. Ask yourself, what is important for you, video quality or convenience or a balance of both. The budget you stated can get you a whole range of cameras. I own 2 brands, a Panasonic and a Canon. Most sub $1000 camera's features and video quality are pretty similar, if you are looking for all round performance in miniDV tape cameras Sony, Canon and Panasonic are good choices.

For miniDV cameras that are above the $1000 range, you can get very good performance from the competing brands. JVC recently came out with ads touting their tapeless hard disk video cameras, Sony also followed suit with their own hard disk cameras. If image quality is paramount over convenience, then I suggest you avoid these cameras. Besides, hard disk cameras are still less than 3 generations. Until the encoding method improves ( All hard disk consumer cameras currently use MPEG2 compression similar to DVDs) to full resolution DV or HDV and have higher storage, I personally won't buy them. DVD camcorders offer the greatest convenience, but you must be aware that MPEG2 is a lossy format, meaning that it is a compressed format, you will see heavy artifacts when you try shoot on a lower bit rate. For example most DVD camcorders allows you to shoot standard high quality half hour footage on their mini recordable DVD-Rs. However you can choose to lower the encoding rate to double the recording time, if you are shooting video that doesn't have much movement like someone giving a speech, you can choose this setting, but if you are shooting airplanes zipping around in the sky, you can see blocky artifacts. So if video quality is very important to you, avoid DVD camcorders at all costs!

HDV or High Definition Video is still a relatively new format for consumer use. Unless you got money to burn, avoid these as well. Although they give outstanding video quality, you can only view these on High Definition capable Plasma or LCD TVs. Another drawback about HDV is that you need a very powerful computer to edit HDV footage as the resolution is almost double the normal resolution we see on the old TV format. Higher Resolution in HDV means high data storage on tape.

In terms of battery life, until recently Canon has a bad rap for battery life, Sony is the leader when it comes to battery life efficiency, Panasonic is not too bad either.

So in the end if you ask me, the three brands I'll consider are Sony, Canon and Panasonic, not to say the rest are bad, just that these are the brands of cameras I'ved used in my professional work.

Hope this info will help you make a better decision.

Oh yes, don't be surprised that under normal use, your camera won't last more than 5 years. Consumer video cameras are not supposed to last very long. If you want robustness, you will need to spend more, in the 4k range and above to get an entry level semi-professional camera. Needless to say, cameras above the 4k or 5k range can shoot footage good enough to broadcast on National TV and they last much longer too if stored and maintained properly.

[alex_bong]

camcorder

i owned jvc camcorder find it last better than the battery. If for my will consider :
1. JVC.
2. Panasonic.
3. Canon.
4. Sony.

one thing get the bigger OPTICAL zoom u can. (Good for RC flying event recording)

currently miniDV tape still the best and cheap solution i think, cause u can find these tape more ez when u travel.

[HZM]

Thanks guys for the info. Yeah infact I am going to decide on Built in harddisk model. Didnt know they deliver lower quality. Now I am back to square one as to get DV tape or DVD disc type .... sigh.

Mike