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My mother-in-law want to give my brother-in-law a camcorder for christmas and asked for my opinion. I know shit about camcorders, so i'm asking you, the endless source of wisdom that is the Beteo hivemind.

Are the good brands for digital cameras the same as for camcorders? Are there any specs that i should be aware of? It's supposed to be something fairly cheap, maximum 300€ or something.

Chinny!

I asked a similar question a while back but my budget was £50. I got an excellent JVC "mini-dv" (which means digital tape) recorder off ebay for £23 in the end.
This type all have a firewire socket which you can get the video out of without needing any special driver on the PC. Works a treat.

It's all about the solid-state ones these days admittedly.

DV is still good! Don't fall for the marketing!

There are great bargains to be had and on paper at least the tech specs of DV are better than some of the solid state cameras. DV is also dead easy to edit unlike MPEG variants. OK so I now edit on an MPEG 2 varient (XDCAM) but if you are on a weedy home computer DV is great. Lets face it I was editing DV happily on a P166 ten years ago.

+ You can stick a DV tape on the shelf and keep it for years. No need to backup your footage or run the risk of losing the footage. Decent Sony tapes are as little as 2 quid an hour and anyone who reuses DV tape is a cheapskate of the highest order.

Also keep in mind that a good SD camcorder will be better than so called "HD" camcorders. Just because you have the pixels doesn't mean you have the resolution. I speak as someone who owns 2 professional HD cameras and my newer more expensive one is far better than the older one.

If you do go for solid state, ensure you get something that edits to an established standard. Nothing worse than to have an OS upgrade and then find the driver for your camera doesn't work and EvilJapanese Corp won't be producing a new driver.

I can't offer a recommendation in that price bracket, but I've got a Canon HF-20 and am happy enough with it. It's a 1080p solid-state thing, and it's lovely, although HD video is a pain in the arse to edit on anything less than an uber-beast of a machine.

FWIW2, Sony Vegas Movie Studio is bloody great for video editing - I much prefer it to Premiere Elements. It's literally just a cut-down version of Vegas Pro - fewer tracks, a bit less automation, that sort of thing - unlike Premiere Elements which is all cluttered up with big idiot-friendly buttons that mask all the useful functionality.

[coughs] Final Cut Express if you are a Mac user.

Your footage is a pain in the arse to edit probably because it's an MPEG4 codec. Takes alot of grunt to edit on the fly which is why professional kit uses MPEG 2, and even then you are better off doing your intermediate rendering and final rendering into Apple Prores, which is a proper frame based codec.

It amuses me to see all these "HD" camcoders on the market when frankly the optics are barely any better than their SD counterparts. Pixels count for jack if you have a lens that cost a fiver.

Check out this site BTW:

http://www.camcorderinfo.co.uk/

Oh, absolutely. The Canon I've got was specifically bought because the reviews said the lens was excellent and properly sharp. And yes, it's an AVCHD camcorder, which requires a shit-tonne of CPU grunt to edit. My quad-core box manages it okay, but my dual-core laptop struggles somewhat, especially if I've got any effects in there too (Red Giant Magic Bullet is bloody great, but more than doubles my rendering times...)

I remain very impressed with iMovie, which is free with the Mac, having used it about 3 times only. The point being that I managed to make it do what I wanted each time, with a minimal level of swearing.

I won't ask how you obtained that.

Ensure GPU processing is enabled. Be warned though it only supports certain GPU's. From memory it's NVIDIA only however they may have revised that. With the right card it should be fairly nippy.

I run Colorista and you barely notice the extra rendering time even on the Macbook. GPU takes the strain. Magic Bullet is nice but Colorista (which is also by Red Giant) will give similar results if used properly.

Feel free to ask, I paid for it Got a 50% reduction for being an owner of Vegas, which made it just over £100, which I figured was reasonable.



Magic Bullet requires GPU processing, in fact. Works on both my NVidia laptop and ATI desktop, though, although neither of them are especially kick-ass cards.

Honestly, if you're not doing anything too advanced then Windows Movie Maker is a fine bit of software. Just remember to output it under the 'dv-avi' setting and then re-encode it how you like.

Didn't used to. Was a tick box in the preferences in After Effects.

I like Magic Bullet but it is slow and overpriced considering you get Apple Color included with Final Cut Studio these days.

The "film look" part of Magic Bullet is now rendered useless by the fact that most pro cameras can now shoot progressive happily enough anyway hence why Colorista is better for me. It was a nice trick to have though when we were all still stuck in the world of interlacing.

I'm surprised MS haven't made more fuss about Movie Maker in the way that it does with Media Player with numerous new versions of the latter.

It's like Security Essentials - if they accidentally make something competent, they can't bundle or freely distribute it and shout about it without being hit with an anti-trust complaint.

What is the best camcorder to record a basic training graduation? My mom wants to purchase a new camcorder to use at my basic training graduation for the Air Force. I am ashamed to admit, I dont know a thing about camcorders. I did some researched and talked to a few people who recently purchased a camcorder and I'm still very fuzzy. Does anyone have any suggestions? Specific brand and model? Maybe, a general rule of thumb or ruleS of thumb for purchasing a GOOD quality camcorder.
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Welcome, newbie! There are a few ways you can go with camcorders at the mo. Old schoolers like Chinny will insist that Mini-DV tapes are still the way to go, but for a casual user, something in the removable storage range might be more your style. Look for the SD card range. My brother has a JVC that does TV quality vids straight onto an SD card and it's unbelievably simple to use.

Are you in the US of America, bethaniax?

The Canon Vixia range (as they are called in the USA). Preferably the higher end ones.

I'll probably get one as a third camera for next year. I find myself in situations sometimes where I wonder what the fuck I'm doing placing 5 grands worth of camera in the line of fire when I could have a cheapie in the side pocket of the camera bag for those one off shots. The people on the pro forums I frequent have use the high end Vixia (they are called something else in the UK) alongside their EX1's with pleasing results. Still looks like camcorder footage natch but if you stick a wide angle adaptor on them you can get away with fleeting wide shots etc.

Legria in the UK. As I said earlier, I've got an HF-20. It wasn't cheap for a consumer camcorder, but with a monopod, and a bit of time in the edit, it's really quite remarkably good (although low-light performance is poor - but that's not really a problem most of the time). The HFC range is even more impressive.

I've been vaguely pondering a wide-adapter for a while - I love wide-angle in my still photos - but getting hold of things like that can be difficult and expensive; any recommendations for where to pick one up from?

Ignore the shit website, Hague are great:

http://www.b-hague.co.uk/camera%20supports%20systems.htm

They have lots of great stuff such as jib arms etc. But they do sell wide angle adaptors. Although keep in mind sticking a wide angle on a domestic camcorder still won't be as wide as the stock lens on a bigger camera.

A wide angle for my EX1 is 400 quid. Ouch!

Remember that most wide angle adaptor will only allow a partial zoom at best.

Yes, but what about for basic training graduation?

This:

http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/public/view_item_cat.php?catalogue_number=sony_srw-9000

NB: You may need a lens as well.

Damn you, I'm now looking at Steadicams. You're going to cost me money, you are.

Get a Fig Rig. It's the best way to get any small camera to look like something far heavier on screen.