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HazelGirl · May 10, 2007, 01:13 AM

This time I have cash! I went looking around for some in-store (I want to be able to play with them in my hand before making the purchase).....I went to Best Buy, Circuit City, and Wolf Camera.....and now I'm more confused than ever. I want a small, consumer camcorder that has decent quality and is compatible with my mbp. I want to be able to easily transfer the video to my mbp. This will be my first camcorder....I hav eno idea what I should even be looking for. I thought I did at first but I don't....DVs and Mini-DVDs and hard drives oh my!!! I'm not trying to spend over $400, that's for sure.....I'd be doing a lot of outdoor recording...decent sound quality is important and it would be nice if it is ood with night recording. I will be using it abroad so if it needs to be plugged in to anything to be charged, it needs to be able to handle the voltage...I have plenty of adapters. I'm a woman with small hands so I want a camera that's not to big. I hear Panasonic and Canon are brands I should look for. I also hear conflicting reports of whcih is faster, usb transfer or firewire transfer......which is faster????? HEEEELP please!

ewiser · May 10, 2007, 05:33 AM

Well do not get a DVD recorder. As they produce DVD's that need to be decoded to edit. An if you use a iMac or Macbook or MBP the slot drive will only jam up when you insert them into it.
I would stay with the Mini DV tape camera. They produce a great picture and are easy to use. They work well with iMovie. I use a professional Panny camera for my video work and love it.
David Pogue just reviewed the new Hard drive Video camera's.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/te...=1&oref=slogin
My only problem with them is that they record in Mpeg2 which does not work good for editing.

gperks · May 10, 2007, 05:09 PM

Seems like a miniDV camcorder would suit you just great. I have had a poor quality issue with Canon, and good luck with Panasonic. Mine has Firewire ("IEEE 1394" they sometimes call it) and works perfectly with iMovie.

I checked Panasonic's site for you, and it looks like the PV-GS320 at $500 is this year's equivalent to mine. There's a little sister version at $329, the PV-GS85.

http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs...00000000005702

That's what I'd check out in the stores. Amazon has the big-sister version for $399, which fits your budget and ought to be a great camera.

HazelGirl · May 11, 2007, 01:23 PM

Thanks for the suggestions you guys! So it looks like I should get a MiniDV Panasonic with firewire.

I'm just curious though...when I went to the Apple Store, they said to make sure that I use firewire for fast transfer.....but when I went to the other stores, they all said that usb was faster. Is this the case only on Windows PCs while firwire is always faster on Macs? I'm just wondering ..

ewiser · May 11, 2007, 01:29 PM

The problem with usb is that it uses your computers buss along with everything else on your computer to access the camera. So your milage will vary. Also most PC's do not come with firewire as Mac's do.
So they don't want to hold up a sale. Firewire also lets the computer control the camera's forward and reverse and stop and pause functions.

bearcatrp · 02:01 PM

The mini DV tape camcorders use firewire. The hard disk and the dvd based ones use USB. For your first camcorder, the panasonic would suit you well. My first was the GS59. Works good. I upgraded to the hard disk SR100 and a big difference. iMovie will import when you connect using the firewire. Depending how much you taped will depend how long the upload. Then you can have fun cutting, adding transitions, etc.. Don't let anyone scare you on the hard disk ones if you go that route. Just one more step to get it in iMovie, otherwise, no difference in quality. Shop on line as you will get a better deal and usually don't pay taxes on it. A good site for camcorder information is Camcorders - Independent Camcorder Reviews, Ratings & Comparisons . You will find a vast amount of knowledge there.
Randy

gperks · May 12, 2007, 12:54 AM

USB 2.0 is rated at 480Mbps, Firewire 400 at 400Mbps. So you (and sales droids) would think USB is faster. However, in reality, Firewire is the better of the two at dealing with constant streams of data, such as from a camera or harddrive. I don't know why - USB has more overhead or something.

Firewire has other advantages. You can chain devices - so if you have an external HD to store all that video on, you can daisy-chain that with the camcorder. Firewire also delivers more power, so you can find external drives that don't need a separate power supply. Some USB drives do that too (not all) and some require that you use the power from two USB connections!

If you want more reading, http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html and http://wiki.marandcustomsolutions.co...B+vs.+Firewire

Anyway, either Firewire or USB will work for your camcorder.