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Which is, as of 2009, a good drive based consumer video-camera?
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Addicted to MacNN
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I have done a search but the topics that came were more than one year old and when it comes to technology that's has to be like a Super Mario Warp Zone…
A friend is going to the USA -Chicago- and wants to buy a camcorder there since those are less expensive than here in Europe. So given I haven't touch a video-camera since when the Handycam was all the rage, it's nobody surprise I have no clue about it… all I know is the video-camera has to be hard drive based and budget is around $450-$500
He was told about a SONY, don't even ask for details cause that's all I know… a SONY, like if there was only one camera or brand… I have read good things about Canon, but first things first, it actually has to work flawlessly with a Mac and needless to say with a PC. He is really worried about how hard moving the footage from the cam to the computer will be… that means to copy the movies from the camcorder hard disk to the Mac / PC hard disk(s) has to be hassle free cause he is not an expert by any means and all the video-cameras he has had were tape based models.
I took a look at Canon & SONY websites and I wonder why anyone would choose a camera with memory cards instead of a hard drive based one, is it a matter of the camera body size?, price?. It just doesn't make any sense to me.
TIA.
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"That plane's dustin' crops where there ain't no crops."
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Moderator  Join Date: Oct 2001
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With a hard drive in a device that moves around a lot, I'd be really worried about the drive crashing. Memory-card based cameras have no moving parts (other than the movement of the optics), so there is little to no possibility of a crash or loss of footage.
In some respects, I'd still go with a tape-based (miniDV) camera, because you can import into iMovie directly without waiting for decompressing the footage (required for AVHCD cameras, I've read).
But you should probably read some CNet or Epinions reviews before making a decision. You should also check Apple's list of supported cameras for their video tools.
Steve
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Celebrating 10 years and 4000 posts on MacNN!
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Clinically Insane
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Newt 2012-The Republican Revolution Returns!
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Posting Junkie
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Canon HG20 ($600) if he really wants hard-drive based, HF100 ($520) if he's ok with SD cards (which I'd recommend). iMovie has to convert AVCHD to an intermediate codec to edit (ugh), but the intermediate files are no larger than DV; other editing programs are happy to work with AVCHD.
The knife is already in miniDV, let's give it a twist. No one wants the fragility of tape or the agonizing realtime import process.
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