Thread Title says it all. Looking for the best digital camcorder for the best price. If there is a great one below $200 that would be even better.

11/26/2010 3:03:30 PM

This is an absolutely solid machine; but it's $100 out of your price range:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/671645-REG/Canon_4355B001_VIXIA_HF_M30_Dual.html

I also have a flip video and a Creative VADO and at one point had the Kodak flip - all decent machines for handy video but you can forget having zoom.

Otherwise I'm not sure there is anything in that price range that's HD. You'll have to drop back into standard def territory, and honestly you're almost wasting you money on anything SD. Maybe some other people have better ideas.

11/26/2010 3:28:56 PM

Well I can go over $300 but I don't want to just throw money away.

11/26/2010 4:02:57 PM

The HF line is some of the most highly regarded AVC type cameras on the market. They've won best in class for like 4 years running on Camcorder Reviews. Until recently they were like $800-$900 (the price paid for the first one I got - with no internal memory, SF cards only.) Make no mistake - they're excellent cameras.

Panasonic and Sony also make some great cameras at this price point; but sometimes sony programs their codecs to work better in vegas instead of regular editors like Premiere or SpeedEdit.

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/ratings.php

11/26/2010 4:17:11 PM

You can get a JVC (HD) for $400 with a 60 GB hard disk and like 80x optical zoom.

I bought mine for that price 1.5 years ago, but at that time, it was not HD and the storage was 40 GB. It is quite smaller and lighter compared to Sonys and Panasonics with a hard disk in the same price range.

Of course, you can get them even smaller if your forgo the hard disk (SD card). And the price would then also be about $250-$300.

11/27/2010 2:14:05 AM

^My dad has one of those; unless they've changed in the last 2-3 years they wrap their files in some filetype that makes it retardedly hard to edit the video. At one point I had to have a script that would go through and change the file extension on all my files just so Premiere CS3/CS4 would import the video to be edited. And even then i had to convert to an intermediate format before editing was friendly.

But, it did have decent battery life and for parents who never bothered to sync it to a computer it was great - you can pack A LOT of video into those hard drives. You're almost guaranteed just to charge and shoot without worrying about space.

11/27/2010 9:10:28 AM

What about this package deal from Best Buy?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Sony+SR68+Handycam+80GB+Hard+Drive+Camcorder+Red%2C+Tripod%2C+Case%2C+Extra+Battery/9999142900050022.p?id=pcmprd142900050022&skuId=9999142900050022

I am not worried about HD vs SD.

11/27/2010 10:33:50 AM

bttt

11/29/2010 10:14:41 AM

Quote :

"I am not worried about HD vs SD. "

well if THAT is of no difference to you, then you really should define your definition of "best", because obviously image quality is not a part of your equation

correction: may be a reading fail on my part. not sure if you are talking about high definition vs standard definition or hard drive vs secure digital card

Are you looking for portability? battery life? ruggedness? ease of editing the footage?

in its class, I will second wwwebseurfer's suggestion. I have a HFS100 and am pretty happy about evertything but the ease of editing, which is more of a format issue (my computer is no match for 1080p AVCHD footage, as most standard machines will be)


[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 11:20 AM. Reason : .]

11/29/2010 10:57:02 AM

^also true. You'll want at least a Core2Duo or better if you're wanting to edit those 1080p AVC files. They'll tear up your machine.

I'm running quad core with 6GB of RAM and I have to run just Premiere CS5 if I want to edit with any speed. You try piling on After Effects and Photoshop at the same time and it gets with me.

11/29/2010 12:43:01 PM

Core2duo will not cut it (that's what i have). Quad core with a ton of ram will be the minimum requirement if you want your preview rate to be measured in frames per second, not seconds per frame.

11/29/2010 2:24:52 PM

^what software are you using? CS5 offloads all that stuff to the graphics card if it's compatible. I use a C2D 1.8ghz with 1080p footage without that much trouble...

11/29/2010 2:41:43 PM

i got CS4, graphics is not integrated but also not great, it's an all-in-one HP touchsmart. CS5+more RAM would help by utilizing 64bit processing I would imagine. Maybe a decent graphics acceleration card would help too, but I was under impression that the AVCDH encoding/decoding is a cpu-based process unless you get a dedicated video editing card designed to handle specifically that task.

But you are talking a decent workstation with a pro-level editing suite, not your uncle's dual core laptop that he is using to put together a family video for christmas. Although im sure in a few years the family laptop will be there to tackle this.

[Edited on November 29, 2010 at 3:05 PM. Reason : however i will try a "trial" upgrade to CS5 and see if that does anything]

11/29/2010 3:02:21 PM

^64-bit helps, as does the new mercury engine in CS5. And CS5 can offload onto any CUDA compliant NVidia card - and there's a buttload of them that can do it.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_gpus.html

I skipped CS4 and went straight from CS3 to CS5 - to me it was a huge leap; I had been running 64-bit for a good while and the performance gain with the extra RAM was significant. However I do more after effects than Premiere; and AE eats RAM like candy.

11/29/2010 8:56:11 PM

You can always transcode the footage to make it easy to edit on even a P4!

Over 2GHz helps in h.264 codecs alot. Under 2 suffers. I've edited on both and notice a huge difference on just clock speed. Its very CPU intensive, not so much on RAM.

CS5 does offload a lot with the mercury engine (only to NVIDIA cards at the moment).

I edit with Sony Vegas and transcode my footage before editing it. Works great.

.02

11/30/2010 11:23:30 AM

What do you transcode it to?

I was hoping to keep it native so it can be played on a blue ray player once I get a burner. I also would like to be able to edit the footage from my canon t2i. I do not mind transcoding that footage(canopus HQ maybe? what would you recommend?)

I would like to keep the computer I have if at all possible with a ram upgrade, but it may be a futile effort. I can post the specs when i get home, let me know what is my best solution in your opinion.

/thread hijack

11/30/2010 11:45:01 AM

http://www.squared5.com/

MPEG Streamclip is a free transcoder.

http://www.cineform.com/neoscene/

Cineform Neoscene is like 100$.

I use Cineform personally, and it works great. It transcodes to a AVI format using Cineform codec.

I've used it for my T2i, HF100 (h.264 and AVCHD) and its works fantastic. Totally worth 100$.

11/30/2010 11:47:40 AM

what do you output to?

Also, what is the transcoding speed on your machine (and what are the specs). Is it real-time, or faster?

also, using my external FireWire drive asa source drive would not be any faster than using my single internal drive for both system files and video data files?

This system worked very well for DV editing, and I haven't really done eny editing for a couple of years. Now I have accumulated a ton of HD footage that i need to deal with.

Maybe i should get into a future-thinking mode and just replace my system...

[Edited on November 30, 2010 at 12:03 PM. Reason : .]

11/30/2010 11:54:56 AM

I output to all sorts of formats. Most often WMV 720P.

The speed is close to real time if not faster. Atleast with my media.

Firewire would most likely be slower than internal drives, but once transcoded, it can be easily edited with USB 2.0 (which would be slightly slower than FW400)

What system you running now?

I am running an overclocked e6600 (at 3Ghz) with 6 GB of ram and it works great. A quad-core of the same clock would be beneficial, but I can't justify it just now.

11/30/2010 12:50:27 PM

It's an HP TouchSmart with Core 2 duo at 2.16GHz, 4 gigs of RAM and a nvidia GeForce 9300M GS with 512 megs of memory running windows 7 ultimate 64bit.

I did some more tesing in Adobe CS4 today and it will play AVCDH video in the timeline on draft for 15-20 seconids, then it starts stuttering pretty noticeably. I guess I could shut off some additional processes to help things out, but looking at the performance monitor it is my CPU the is getting maxed out. The RAM doesnt get to 100% during playbeck (although still have to check during rendering). Donwloading the trial Premiere CS5 right now and see if that changes anything.

One other downside to this computer is that it does not have an HDMI or a DVI out for the preview monitor. I always like to see what the footage will looklike on a full size TV. With DV, i was playing realtime preview to the camera via firewire which was subsequently showing it on TV via composite output. With HD, I imagine i would be best off running my HDTV as a second monitor. Internal Blu Ray burner would be nice too. Looks like the system will need an upgrade before becoming a fully functioning editing rig, and the touchsmart on the way on becoming what it really should be- a kitchen computer

12/2/2010 12:31:27 AM

So my fiance wants a camcorder for christmas and I was looking at getting this:
http://shop.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10051_10051_249404_-1

Anyone have any thoughts/experience on it? Would it be worth it to pay $50 extra dollars for the HF M30 that has less memory (it seems to me the HF20 is a better camera, just last years model)?

[Edited on December 6, 2010 at 4:10 PM. Reason : ]

12/6/2010 4:04:00 PM

i got the HF 20 last year and love it. i consider the video quality excellent, especially in well-lit areas, but i don't have much to compare it to. i record everything at the MXP setting and only use the built-in memory

the bundled editing software is terrible (assuming it comes w/ a refurbished camera), so i haven't tried any editing at all... windows 7 recognizes the camera and i pull off the video clips via usb... then i use another application to join the *.mts pieces together for one video

i've used it quite a bit and the battery life is still pretty good after a year

12/6/2010 4:23:05 PM

Quote :

"Looks like the system will need an upgrade before becoming a fully functioning editing rig, and the touchsmart on the way on becoming what it really should be- a kitchen computer "

UPDATE: sourced a Dell XPS 9100 and an nVidia GT220 from Craigslist, LG 10x BluRay burner from BestBuy, and Adobe Premiere CS5 from teh Internetz = PROBEM SOLVED

This setup flies. Dual 1080p streams from the Canon T2i + transition in real time. w00t! Touchmart+CS4 would even TRY to play it, it was just stuck on the first frame with the audio playng intermittantly.

Will need to get the non-trial version of Premiere in order to see how it does on AVCHD.

12/14/2010 11:10:25 PM