Video camera recommendation please

[alpslapper]

We're after a video camera. We had one years ago whih broke and we never bothered to replace but I'm being put under unrelenting pressure now to replace it (from the kids). I wasnt that keen to be honest as it's not something we ever used much and never missed. Can't remember what our old one was but it was very basic and I do recall you had to put coal in the back and wait for it to build up a head of steam before you could use it

I've had a look at some in catalogues and on line and to be honest I cant make head or tail of all the techno gobblidy gook thatgoes with them.

So - youre help required please...

Has to be something the kids can use easily

Would be good if stuff from it can be easily loaded onto the pc

kids want to make little short films with it so easy follow editing stuff would be good

I might want to take it out on the bike when doing trips etc so need sto be fairly robust

Whats with these new fangled hard disc ones? no tapes, just record to hardddrive - any good, are these the way to go?

Has to have decent battery life

Would rather it didnt have tapes so a dvd/cd or hard drive one.....

Above all else easy to use and one that the technology wont be outdated as soon as I buy it

Any help appreciated

[Lord Vader]

must say i will be following this one as well as i would like one to do some clips.I am more interested in the best option for use on a bike

[Whealie]

Come in XRVJim. it was something about a sort of mini something-or-other disc not a hard drive and Panasonic made one for about £300. I asked him all about it at the National but had a hangover and can't remember the details.

[Lord Vader]

had a hangover and can't remember the National.

Fixed it for you

[Larry Biskit]

I have found the Sony dvd205 video camera I had, quite good, has a couple of not so good things tho. This one takes the mini dvd's, that cost plenty by the way. I use the rewritable disc's, otherwise you'll go through them like crazy.

Easy to use with touch screen that has good menu to play back what youve recorded etc, and basically point and press go type camera. Takes reasonable pictures as well, so an all in one camera.

The cam on normal set up was zoomed too close as standard so hard to film or take pics of things next to you or even 3 meters away. Way more than other cam's Ive used.

The disc's take time being "finalised" to take out of the recorder and play in DVD player/TV etc.. This sometimes takes around 10 mins, and can get quite tedious waiting on it.

Also while recording and zooming in and out, the button could be heard easily on the playback, that was using the toggle one way and the other as gently as possible.

The cam didnt like too much vibration, which stopped the recording when mounted on my handlebars going along around 60kmph on a relatively smooth road. Have done this with other tape camera's and had no problems.

Also Mac users will find this difficult to download to the computer, you can put the disc into the comp but the video format isnt liked by mac's and their software, for editing with the likes of final cut pro etc... There may be a new Apple mac or program that can get round this now.

So all in all, it has its good points, but too may bad points for me, so as my house got burgled ( BASTARDS !!! ) I will replace it eventually with a cheapish tape camera.

Still others might find these cams great, I know my wife had it sussed out in no time, so thats something.

[Lumiya]

With more and more memory cards hitting 4gb (with a few at 8gb) there's no reason to go for a disc using vid cam. Also for bike usage they've simply no moving parts apart from possibly an optical zoom.

Kymmy

[alpslapper]

So HDD is the way to go?

[Lumiya]

So HDD is the way to go?

Not if you want your camera to still be working after strapping it to an AT and bouncing it around the countryside!!!

Kymmy

[alpslapper]

Right. But I assumed a HDD woulnt have any moving parts (as in your previous post) and therefor would be a good thing??? no?

[Lumiya]

Right. But I assumed a HDD woulnt have any moving parts (as in your previous post) and therefor would be a good thing??? no?

HDD is simply a HARD DISK DRIVE. which involves a little platter (or more) spinning at high speed with a read/write head floating over the surface. Really just a small version of what's in your PC/MAC

HDD technology has come a long way and can withstand a great deal of G's compared to old versions (Used to work at a place that had big massive 20MB drives that took two people to move them, also had a tilt indicator that if you went off 10 degrees the drive was scrapped!!!) but be warned, the G figure is normally with the heads parked (drive not being used).

The new HDD's are fine for shoving in your pocket, running for the bus or sat inside of a car going along a road, but that's it!!

My suggestion was a camcorder that uses cards (SD/MMC or some other system) The cards are now at 8GB capacities and can be reused a lot more times than a re-writabe disc. Also unlike a rewritable disc you can delete individual recordings without having to wipe the whole lot!!

Kymmy