help buying video camera

I need to buy a video camera and have no idea what kind to buy??? Have any suggestions?

Flash drive or Hard drive?

Dont think I will need HD.

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Tx

look at my videos you'll see:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQuam3oHTU
that was taken with the Pentax


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6xtUkIyfM4
taken with the Kodak in HD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzT9eEYoNnE
With the Kodak non HD mode

the most versatile would be a Pentax optio MX, they are hard to find, but very inexpensive
the next one up, is even better Kodak Z1012.

in either case you are looking under 100 dollars.

Thanks

Anyone else out there

Well my advice in the past has always been to buy a tape camcorder for video. Tape? Haven't been in the loop lately but up until recently tape camcorders was still standard for professionals.

Tape Pros:

• Cheap portable storage capacity, it can store 14GB of data for a few dollars compared to $$$ for each flash card. For practical purposes you can carry an endless amount of storage.
• Camcorders with tape use the HDV codec which uses less compression so the material is easier to work with when editing.
• Cheap backup. What I do is transfer to external harddrive so I have a easily accessible copy at my disposal and then I'll store the tape elsewhere like a relatives house, you'll have a copy in case of catastrophic loss.

Tape Cons:

• Transfer to the computer is real time, one hour of video takes one hour. (* some high end camcorders can do this more than 1X).
• No playback through the tape on other devices, you'd have to transfer to computer and author a disc.
• Tape has proven to be very reliable with no major issues since it's introduction but that depends on proper storage. It is more susceptible to damage because of moisture and other elements compared to flash.

Flash/HDD Pros:

• Easy file transfer to computer or other devices.

Flash/HDD Cons:

• Expensive and limited storage capacity. Keep in mind once that card is filled you either need another card or transfer it to computer.
• It uses a more compressed video which is harder to work with. The more compression a video has the more CPU required to encode and playback.

As far as quality comparisons go comparing HDV(tape) to the AVCHD(flash) codec is a toss up from the many articles I read with HDV maybe having a slight edge.


In the past video on still cameras (or anything recording video to flash) was just a nice gimmick. With the advent of the AVCHD codec and the much larger flash cards shooting video on flash is now doable. Tape is in or past it's limelight...

Having said that If I was going to buy a dedicated camcorder I'd be getting one from the Canon HV line:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/5 ... ition.html

OBI307 wrote:Dont think I will need HD.

FYI you can get some really good deals on SD camcorders but I wouldn't consider it. This is like saying I want the quality of a an 8 track when you could get a CD...

It may not seem that important now especially if you only have SD TV but in the future you'll be wishing you used it. For example years ago I started shooting everything in wide screen long before I had a wide screen TV, I suffered through the black bar years but now my video is full screen. I told my brother same thing and he even mentioned it the other day that he was glad he took my advice.