video camera advise wanted please

[ianrobbo1]

I'm in the market for a video camera and am looking at a Sony,! but which one or maybe an alternative, any advise as to what I should look for, I'm after a couple of things from it, ie, ease of use, reasonable battery life, long play, able to transfer to computer and edit,anti camera shake, and I'd like to use it on my bike "when its going" Bert :f OH!! and a "reasonable" price would be a benefit!! any suggestions please, :h

 

[derek kelly]

Can't say I know a lot about sony products, but I can certainly verify the high standard set by Samsung. I have a Samsung Digital camera and a Samsung camcorder [not Digital] and both are excellent products.

 

[Samster]

Ian - I'm on my third 'budget' MiniDV camcorder in 9 months - the first, a JVC made so much tape and zoom noise that it came out on every recording I made, took it back and exchanged it for a SHARP ViewCam (VL-88?), it was a wonderful piece of kit to use but after just two months came up with the dreaded 'dew error' rendering it useless..........again took it back and this time ended up with a SONY DCR-HC19e. Would highly recommend taking a look at this one.

So far so good, under ?300, has a button on the side marked 'Easy' for the wife and kids (it cuts all the menus down and makes everything auto - virtually foolproof) - the build quality is better than the other two as well, and it's much more capable in low-light situations. Menu navigation is via the touch screen LCD. The anti-shake works as well as any other, and it has the all important IEEE 1394 'Firewire' port to chuck footage onto the PC in it's raw state without loss of quality.

For video editing on the PC I would seriously advise that you capture footage via Firewire. You can do it via USB but the results are dissapointing, you're edited project when burnt to DVD will be half the quality that the footage is when you view it straight from the camera on the TV. For this you may need to put a firewire (IEEE1394 capture card) in your PC - they're not dear.

As for editing software on the PC, well it's a minefield. I have copies of all the major packages (Pinnacle Studio 9, Adobe Premier, ULead VideoStudio 9 etc) but if you're new to it I would start by getting to grips with Windows Movie Maker (found within Windows XP). This will allow you to get to grips with the basics.

Here's the Sony I'm using at the moment:

 

[Stevebrooke]

JVC do a Hard Disk dvd camera. The link below is to a page of JVC camcorders at Empire Direct. The HDD ones are in the middle and lower down.

http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/conte...niMaxPrice=2270&Compare1=&Compare2=&Compare3=

 

[ianrobbo1]

cheers chaps, :bow: reason I'm going for the Sony is I've other Sony equipment and havnt been able to fault it!! :bow: Sam I've been looking at the VD92e a very similar look to the one you've posted, I havnt even touched on editing programmes yet, as I'm a complete novice to video!! :blush: I hadnt noticed if the "92e" has the "idiot" button so I'll be looking at the 19e, thanks again.