[melman101]

Hey all, I am in the market for a Digital Video Camera. I have never owned one (only analog), and am wondering what I should get. I don't need anything fancy. Under $800 bucks is what I am looking for. Just something to use with my new iBook that I just bought. Any ideas where I can look to buy and find out info about dig video cameras. Remember I am just am amateur having fun.

thanks
Mel

[IMKoRnNuts]

This Canon ZR10 is supposed to be pretty good for the money.

For what it's worth, I hear the new Panasonic 601 (or 401 if you don't need analog into the camera) are better than the Canon mentioned above. I have been shopping around intensively and I think that dbuys.com has a good price and an excellent rating on www.resellerratings.com

--WB

[GreenMnM]

If you already have an analog video camera you could get an analog to DV bridge. They're all $300-$400 but you can use your existing camera as well as import video from a VCR.

There are several on the market right now. Sony's Digial Media Converter (DVMC-DA2, look for it at the Apple online Store under "Accessories" and then under "Other", good luck trying to find any information about it at the Sony Web site, it's really terrible. The Apple Store says $399, but if you like the features you can find it for closer to $300 somewhere else). Dazzle recently released it's Hollywood DV Bridge http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge.html I have the Sony product and it works great, but the Dazzle product is about $100 cheaper. This is Dazzle's first Mac-compatible device. Formac also has a new DV bridge http://formac.com/html/shopformac.ht...roducts_studio . It also lists for $399.

I suppose it depends on how much you like your camera now or if you were really looking forward to upgrading it. Original digital video does definately look better than analog video converted to digital video.

-Doug

[Glenstorm]

Originally posted by IMKoRnNuts:
This Canon ZR10 is supposed to be pretty good for the money.

Canon just came out with some new cameras in the ZR line. Most have multimedia cards for still captures. personally I have an Elura2MC. It is a nice camera but does not do low light well at all! When purchasing it I didn't realize I was mostly paying for a VERY compact design. It fits totally in the palm of my hand. The trade off is a small lense that results in bad low light performance. In hindsight I would have gone with a bigger camera like the ZR's or one of the Sony's. I saw the new ZR's coming but I couldn't wait for them. (My baby was growing up and we were missing too much footage!) Good Luck!!

[osiris]

I'd stick to a DV camera - using a VHS/VHS-C or any lessor format will only produce less lines of resolution, washed colors and overall poor quality compared to an all digital DV solution.

I have a Sony VX1000, VX700 & a DVMC Media Converter and do extensive work for clients with all this stuff. I once had to capture VHS through the media converter and boy, did it look like crap compared to the digital stuff. Keeping it digital makes a difference, even on sub $1000 cameras like that Canon ZR20.

But the real question is what you plan to do with it - for home movies almost anything will do - I've seen RCA VHS camcorders go for $300, add a Sony DVMC for $300 and you can have a shoot and edit solution for $600. (BTW Apple's price for the DVMC is way over priced - B&H in NYC has em for $250-300)

So it depends on your needs and what you're willing to compromise. Go to a store if you can, and try different cameras and have fun with it.

just my 2 cents

[BigMark]

Originally posted by melman101:
Hey all, I am in the market for a Digital Video Camera. I have never owned one (only analog), and am wondering what I should get. I don't need anything fancy. Under $800 bucks is what I am looking for. Just something to use with my new iBook that I just bought. Any ideas where I can look to buy and find out info about dig video cameras. Remember I am just am amateur having fun.

thanks
Mel

Read: http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Forum9/HTML/000692.html

&
http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Forum9/HTML/000804.html