Cheap digital camcorder?

bk

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask.

My sister is looking to buy a cheap digital camcorder (<€300) for recording her kids indoors and out and of course I being a techy get the job of finding one for her.

The problem I have is that I've never owned a camcorder, so a little help would be greatly appreciated.

I think a flash memory camcorder might be the best for her, simple to use and robust and I thought SD should be sufficient for her, HD might be overkill.

I like the look of the Panasonic SDR-S26:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-SDR-S26-Flash-Memory-Camcorder/dp/B001QXDLDI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249601705&sr=8-1

Any opinions on this camcorder or recommendations on better options?

One thing that concerns me is that some reviews say it isn't great indoors (low light), but then this problem seems to be the same with all camcorders around this price.

DDigital

From my experience, anyone who's not fairly knowledgeable about camcorders usually has trouble with memory card cameras. Ive lost count of the amount of people who've brought them to me full to the brim with footage with no clue as to how to get the footage off the card/hard drive. If you've no PC/laptop, that causes further problems. As for the manual, well you know how people can be with those.

For ease of use and cost, I'd recommend a Sony Mini-DV camcorder. Theyre not far off the €200 mark and the image is great. The camera takes Mini-DV cassettes, so at the very least, you can change cassettes and relieve yourself from the worry of full memory cards etc.

Personally and again from the experience of talking to non technical people, there appears to be a hard sell attitude in shops without any though of the customers level of ability.

Hope this helps.

bk

DDigital wrote: »

From my experience, anyone who's not fairly knowledgeable about camcorders usually has trouble with memory card cameras. Ive lost count of the amount of people who've brought them to me full to the brim with footage with no clue as to how to get the footage off the card/hard drive. If you've no PC/laptop, that causes further problems. As for the manual, well you know how people can be with those.

Thanks, that won't be an issue for my sister, while I may be inexperienced with video cameras, I'll have no problems helping her get the video off the memory cards and editing it for burning to DVD etc.

Also she can already do it for her camera and it is much the same process.

Is there any other reason why mini-dv might be preferable over flash?

Any one any opinions on this camcorder and any alternatives?

seamus

bk wrote: »

Is there any other reason why mini-dv might be preferable over flash?

Mini-DV tapes are cheap and relatively high capacity (13GB). You'll get a single MiniDV tape for less than a fiver, whereas 12GB of flash will cost you upwards of €40. This means that obviously you can keep the raw footage on your MiniDV tapes and just put in a new tape for filming. If you need to free up some space from a flash camera, you have to transfer the filmed data off of it.

Being "the tech guy" in my own family, using tape means that if she fills a tape, your sister can simply insert a new one and keep filming while she waits for you to come and transfer it to DVD or whatever. With flash or even HDD, she might have to put all filming on hiatus until you have to time to clear the camera.

I've been researching cheaper cameras a lot recently as I've never had a camcorder before, and by all accounts, SD Camcorders using tape come in excellent quality under the €300 mark.

Amalgam

Hmm, DV does have advantages, but..

How patient is your sister. Transferring and converting DV footage to DVD compliant, or web compliant video is fiddly and does take time.

DV does have advantages, the tapes can be stored away long term, which, in the context of recording her children, family events etc, might be what she has in mind, as opposed to data stored on optical media, which may degrade, depending on storage location, heat, light etc.

The Panasonic is a nice choice, for their price, they have lovely glass, nice big lenses to let light in. No point in getting a camera with a high resolution, that has a lens\optics the size of a pinhole.

All the Panasonic cameras in that range record DVD compliant files, so, if you have DVD authoring software, it is just a matter of drag and drop, without any encoding or transcoding. (converting from one file format to another, leading to a lowering of quality)

I would lean towards a flash based camcorder, in fact I would go for a Panasonic. Root about though, they have a large range of digital camcorders, some more compact than others.

The ability to dump a file from an SD card onto a PC, then upload directly to YouTube is something that just happens very quickly. The case with DV, well.. the file format is far less portable, it takes ages, as I sadly know from experience. (Panasonic DV user here)

If you want to handle them physically, PC World in Jervis Street have a good few lined up on the shop floor.. You don't need to be assisted by floor staff either. *cough* it doesn't mean you have to buy there..

I forgot to say, steer clear of Flip Ultra etc.. they have their uses, but you'll note any websites using digital camcorders to review tech equipment don't use them.. You'll often find they're using a Panasonic or Canon. I bought a mint boxed Flip Ultra for 60 euro.. and even at that price, I felt it was too much for what it is, basically a portable glorified webcam.

bk

Thanks for the great feedback everyone.

I think I agree with Amalgam, my sister will probably have an easier time getting the video off flash memory then Mini-DV.

Once she has it copied to PC, I can come along every so often and back it up, edit it and burn to DVD or copy to her PS3.

BTW you can get 16GB SDHC cards on the web for a little over €30. Yes still more expensive then Mini-DV, but if you keep copying off the flash you can use it over and over again.