[lothar56]

I was talking to my dad today as we went to Sears to check out camcorders. We got a JVC VHS-C a few years ago but it's falling apart and he wants a replacement. He was looking at another VHS-C but I convinced him digital is a better idea, because then you don't have to worry about tapes and stuff like that, you just store it on your computer, among other things. It will be used for a lot of family events, along with my little sister's volleyball and basketball games. She's got a year of high school left then will undoubtedly play in college (yes, she's good.), so he'll want to tape those games too, which means a lot of footage. He decided that digital probably was better, but cost is a big issue. Another thing is how to get the video viewable on TV. He has my old iMac (DV/400/10gig/544MB/CD-ROM/OS 10.2.8). So the issue is what to do with the video and how to get it to a TV. So here are my questions:

1. For his uses and cost, would VHS be better? Having to buy those tiny tapes over and over again would get expensive I would think.

2. If digital is the route to take, what's the best entry-level camera to get good quality? I'm thinking MiniDV, and I don't want an off-brand piece of crap, but cheaper is most definitely better. He was hoping to spend about $200 on the camera.

3. Storage is an issue, as the iMac only has 1GB free space as of right now. I could free up at least a gig by deleting my sister's old iMovie project, I'm sure that's hogging a lot of space. But importing an entire basketball game will take more space than that. Again, the key is to spend VERY little money. Spending none would be preferred...

4. What's the best choice for a DVD burner? I already have an external firewire enclosure, should I look for an internal unit taken out of an older Mac or is there a better (but still very cheap) solution?

Any answers?

[mduell]

1. Probably not.

2. I like MiniDV, but DVDR may be the better way to go because its easy to play on a TV. If you go with MiniDV I like the Canon Elura series or Sony. For DVDR look at Sony, Hitachi, and Panasonic.

3. The iMac is useless for editing as-is; an hour of DV is over 10GB. A 120GB drive (largest your iMac supports) is $67.

4. Pioneer DVR-110D for $42. You can get burners as cheap as $37, but you'll probably make more than $5 in coasters with them.

[lothar56]

How about Samsung for MiniDV? I noticed on Amazon they had a couple cameras for around $200, which would put it in the right price range. The picture quality really doesn't matter as much as the build quality, this needs to last quite a few years. How expensive are the DVD cams? The few I saw at Sears were pushing $400-$500. And what do they use for media, regular DVD's or small ones, because all I have are slot loading drives (iMac and iBook) so that would not be friendly.

[lothar56]

Also, if I get Tiger and the burner you mentioned for the iMac, I'll be able to use iDVD and burn stright from iMovie, right?