I would assume brands like this would only provide high quality products but what features should i be looking for. Someone above mentioned the CCD. Figures would be helpful.

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/pukweb04-...eb-s/index.htm

This is what I have been looking at.

A friend of mine recommended this to me, he has the 450 version.

I've seen the imagine quality and its very nice. But carrys a price tag of around £800, abit too steep.

It looks like a CCD sensor captures 800,000 pixels. Would this be sufficient to get good quality full screen video.

Edit: What does everyone think of this one
http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1884...dv-camco.html#
Last edited by djorbiter : 01-09-2006 at 12:04

CCD figures won't help you gauge picture quality, it's the lens that really matters.

Sony tend to use Carl Zeiss lenses which are often regarded as some of the best lenses.

Canon's lenses are also very highly regarded in the photography world, so you can be sure their camcorder lenses will be good too.

Whatever you do, don't buy a panasonic, their drive mechanisms are famous for being crap. I've had mine just over 18 months, and it's broken!

Ok how about something like this: Sony DCR-HC24E Handycam MiniDV
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...0&v=2#infoarea

Looks pretty good value to me. If you're not looking to spend more than £300, you've probably got a good bargain there!

Well i think i'll get the sony then. Thanks everyone for your help.

I bought a JVC Everio just a few weeks ago. Works very well. The Mpeg2 quality thing doesn't bother me since I DVDR everything anyway. With a 30gb hard drive, there was enough for an entire holidays footage. Uploaded and DVD'd in no time at all at home. I would argue that a hard drive is more reliable than the mechanism of a tape machine. My last DV tape based camcorder chewed up a tape while uploading a nice day out with the kids. Having said that, I did take some extra cover just in case the disk packed up.

As with all things, I would say that it depends on what you want it for. Family events etc, I would say a £250 DVD camcorder would probably do. The only thing that put me off DVD camcorders was the limited space on the small DVDs. 30 minutes was not enough. I can see the appeal though if you are not interested in editing the footage, and just store the used DVDs in a cupboard.

Oh and sorry for highjacking this thread Saffron. I'll hand it back to you now.

Thats fine dj, I am still looking around and your posts are helpful too.

Can't make up my mind on that panasonic. Need to justify that 1k.

I'd highly recommend Panasonic or Sony over any Canon camera, the Panasonic also has a lovely Leica lens, the best of the best!

I'm also in the market for a camcorder and was also recommended the Panasonic NV-GS500. Have also been reading allot about it on forums and reviews online. It seems to be the best camcorder you can buy for under £1000 and that is better than some camcorders which cost over £1000.
I have found it online for about £600+/-, which I think is reasonable and within my budget. I also think if I'm going to keep it for +/- 5 years then it will be a good investment as it will be ahead of the game in many departments. I'm also not really thinking of HD just yet and so am not bothered about getting a HD camcorder.

The only thing I have not done is go into a store and test out various camcorders. So have planned to do it this afternoon and then hopefully will be closer to a decision. I hopefully will be purchasing my GS500 soon and will let you know what it is like once I have tested it out. That is unless somebody who knows enough about camcorders can tell me I'm wasting my money buying such a good camcorder and not just spending £300 buying a normal one from Argos.

I'd higly unrecommend Panasonic cameras, as they are notorious for having drive mechanism faults! I've had mine for about 18 months and it's completely gone. I wouldn't mind but I don't really use it that often, and it's been well looked after.

Look at a few of these links and you'll see what i mean!

This seems to be the norm with most things now days and one person has good luck where another has bad. Sorry to hear about your issues you have had. But I know a few people who use Panasonic and they have had no issues. I have also ask on the Panasonic3CCD forum about this issue and there have been no recalls for such a issue. So it sounds like it must just be a isolated problem with a few camcorders.

Lets hope that if I do purchase the camcorder I will not have any issues. Touch Wood!!

We have that one, it's exellent. Sony lenses are such great quality.

I hope so too....to be fair to Panasonic, they do seem to be taking the problem quite seriously when i've spoken to them about it...I'm just waiting on an outcome from them as to whether they'll repair it free of charge or not.

ok I need help too! I'm going on a 6 month backpacking trip round the world and I want a whole lot of footage to remember it by. I'd like to be able to take decent film in the dark, and also to edit the vids when I get back. From everything I've read I think a minidv one will suit me best but if I want to take, say, an hour of footage a week it means lugging round 24 cassettes with me. I don't suppose theres some magical format that I don't know about? I'd be loathed to get a hard drive one because obviously I can't upload videos as I go, so once it got full I'd be in trouble.

As you can gather I'm no expert and I'm not looking to win any oscars, but seeing as I'll probably be chained to a desk for the rest of my life after this trip I want to create a well edited dvd of my travels. Do we think this one http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...0&v=2#infoarea that was posted before will do the trick?

Ta muchos

edit: Also, battery life's kind of important...
Last edited by flooozi : 03-10-2006 at 16:13

You probably won't use as many tapes as you think you will. I took 40 mini DVD tapes to Oz for 4 weeks and only ended up using 9!

Ive got quite an old sony mini DV, although the quality is good it is really noisy and the noise is picked up. Its always been like this since i bought it (brand new). If you can try a camcorder before you buy it definately do, and look out for this.

apart from that though i cant fault sony

The Panasonic NV400GS/GB is the best standard definition miniDV camcorder there is and should be fairly cheap now. Other panasonics won't be of same quality. Sony has good HDR-HC3E for hi-def and canon have HV10. Canon make good simple camcorders which are quite robust I have MVX10i which was amazing for when it came out.

I know this is an old thread, but that is awful! Did the tape end up getting physically destroyed as a result, or did you manage to salvage anything from the chewed up tape? That is exactly why I would NEVER, EVER buy a tape based camcorder and only ever buy a camcorder that uses either mini DVD discs or SD cards!

You think that's bad? When he was trying to untangle the tape from the mechanism he got his hand trapped. While flailing about in pain he then accidentally knocked his wife into traffic. It was only by sheer luck that a bus avoided her but as it veered out of her way it crashed into a Greggs. They had to shut it down for almost THREE WEEKS while repairs were carried out.