digital video camera??which one to buy??advice anyone??

[bulkdriverlp]

went to walmart and looked at em yesterday. i already have digital cam. noticed theres MINI DVD and DIGITAL8 and DVD or something like that. i wanna upload to my computer and write on discs and stuff like that. have a baby on the way in jan so i need time to learn how to use it. any advice? thanx in advance

[Pappy]

i want the one made by sony that records on a full size dvd. maybe thats what ill get for xmas

[black box films]

Here are some great camera review sites:

http://dvspot.com

http://camcorderinfo.com

[copter]

Mini-DV is the way to go.

[Quad18star]

Originally posted by Pappy
i want the one made by sony that records on a full size dvd. maybe thats what ill get for xmas

Thats the one I want , but they are close to $2000 up in my area . :(

[Guy400]

I recently purchased a video camera. I looked at the Sony that burns directly to a DVD disc. The concept is great but the technology just isn't there yet. I read a lot of reviews and nobody spoke too highly of these cameras. The video quality is not as good. I wound up buying a Canon Optura 40 a few weeks ago. I got it on sale from www.beachcamera.com for $639. I bought it on a Sunday evening and on Monday they raised the price to $899. In shopping local electronics stores I couldn't find my camera for anything less than $900.

As copter said, Mini-DV is where it's at right now. The only PITA (and this applies to nearly all camcorders) is that you'll have to have a Firewire cable and connection on your PC to download the movies. If you're unlucky like I am you don't have a Firewire port so you'll have to buy a Firewire card and install it in your PC.

[250exen]

Originally posted by Guy400
I recently purchased a video camera. I looked at the Sony that burns directly to a DVD disc. The concept is great but the technology just isn't there yet. I read a lot of reviews and nobody spoke too highly of these cameras. The video quality is not as good. I wound up buying a Canon Optura 40 a few weeks ago. I got it on sale from www.beachcamera.com for $639. I bought it on a Sunday evening and on Monday they raised the price to $899. In shopping local electronics stores I couldn't find my camera for anything less than $900.

As copter said, Mini-DV is where it's at right now. The only PITA (and this applies to nearly all camcorders) is that you'll have to have a Firewire cable and connection on your PC to download the movies. If you're unlucky like I am you don't have a Firewire port so you'll have to buy a Firewire card and install it in your PC.

guy, your right, but i have to add that some cameras have a usb 2.0 port on them. this isnt as fast as firewire, but its pretty quick/
also, firewire cards arent very expensice so its all good....

[Disaster]

Is what i want is this...ITs a awesome camera from what ive heard..

http://www.abesofmaine.com/viewproduct.asp?id=jvgrdv800usrb

[Guy400]

Originally posted by 250exen
guy, your right, but i have to add that some cameras have a usb 2.0 port on them. this isnt as fast as firewire, but its pretty quick/
also, firewire cards arent very expensice so its all good.... My Canon has an A/V, USB and Firewire ports. From all the camcorder forums and reviews I've read they all said the USB is too slow to reliably transfer video. A lot of quality will get lost.

Yeah, Firewire cards are only about $25-$30 but it's still an added hassle if your PC isn't already equipped with one. I was told that the $100 version of Pinnacle Studios 9 comes with a Firewire card so that's the route I think I'm going to go.

[bulkdriverlp]

Originally posted by 250exen
guy, your right, but i have to add that some cameras have a usb 2.0 port on them. this isnt as fast as firewire, but its pretty quick/
also, firewire cards arent very expensice so its all good....
ok the ones i saw had usb ports on em, but wtf is firewire? my puters bout 3 years old its a hp with a 1.8 celeron how do i know if its got firewire or whatever?

[Guy400]

Firewire is a cable type like USB is except it handles a lot of information better than USB. The claimed speeds of both is stated as similar but in the real world Firewire is much faster at transferring large amounts of data. Take a look for a port on your PC that's about half the size of a USB port and the symbol will look like this:

http://www.iomega.com/cdrw/images/sup_zipfw_1394.gif

Apple invented Firewire and have used it for years.

[LTandRaptorider]

Originally posted by bulkdriverlp
ok the ones i saw had usb ports on em, but wtf is firewire? my puters bout 3 years old its a hp with a 1.8 celeron how do i know if its got firewire or whatever?

I have an HP Pavilion 540... about 3 years old and it only has USB. I would imagine yours is the same. I need to install a fire wire card for my new digicam...

[bulkdriverlp]

i have a hp 513c doesnt have a firewire port dammit, guess ill have to look into one huh?

[speedfreaksguy]

I have a Sony TRV-11 mini dv. It is an awesome video camera. I would recommend buying a Sony. Check Ebay. I have seen them so cheap on Ebay that I thought about buying another one for a backup. I use a Sony Vaio laptop. It has a firewire port and all the video software I will ever need.

[hond_rider52]

i just bought a jvc gr-d32u mini dv cam corder for 550$ canadian, and the quilty is so ****ing amazing and it has so many diffent functions, i would recomond this camera to anyone.

[SGA]

I have a sony digital camcorder. I like it, seems really good.
Heres the prob. Regular USB wont cut it. I had to buy a firewire card for my old computer (Celeron). That works ok, but the computer just cant keep up with the data streaming in from the camera. To work, it would set to very low resolution (Blurry) videos.
My new AMD Athlon XP 1.7ghz computer works great, has a built in IEEE 1394 (firewire) slot. Nice clear videos . Ive never used the USB-2 on it because firewire seems to work well plus I think its faster anyway.
You need a AMD athlon or a pentium 4 with at least 512 Ram to capture clear video.

Heres another secret. XP comes with a program for capturing video called "Windows Movie Maker". You will find it in the start menu under Programs/ accessories. It sucks.
Heres the good part. Go download from the microsoft website
"Windows Movie Maker 2". Its a great program, really good editing features, plus it automatically recognizes most brand camcorders. It also automatically picks the the best video quality matched to your computers speed. I have had two other video editing programs, $50 or so each, and I like WMM2 the best, plus its free. I really dont need a professional editing program for what I do .You can also download WMM2 with Win98 I think.

[SGA]

Heres a link which tells about Firewire.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/IEEE_1394.html