Ack! I have been looking for a video camera to purchase and am retarded when it comes to "this here newfangled technological breakdown", and need help/suggestions.

The choices are pretty much narrowed down to a Sony or Canon product, Mini-DV format. Is there anything better?

All I want to do is be able to get decent video and make several copies of it, to send to family and friends. Can I copy the video to a CD-R?

What camera is the better product?

You usually can't go wrong with Sony when it comes to camcorders. Mini-DV is the latest and greatest. If you want to save some money, you can still get Digital-8 cameras. Either one will give you digital quality. The Digital-8 is just larger in physical size.

Digital camcorders allow you to copy the video to your computer via a Firewire cable. You'll need a Firewire port if you don't already have one on your computer. You'll then be able to edit the video and write it to CD. You can either write it as a video file or make a VCD.  A VCD will play on the majority of DVD players. That might be handy if the person you're sending the video to doesn't have a computer but does have a DVD player.

[img]edjones7.home.mchsi.com/line.gif[/img]
[url=www.nra.org][b][red]NRA[/red][/url] [url=www.nra.org][blue]Life Member[/blue][/url]
[url=www.gunowners.org][b][red]GOA[/red] [/url] [url=www.gunowners.org][blue]Life Member[/blue][/url]
[url=www.saf.org][red]SAF[/red][/url] [url=www.saf.org][blue]Supporter[/blue][/url]
[url=sas-aim.org][red]SAS[/red][/url] [url=sas-aim.org][blue]Supporter[/blue][/b][/url]

I LOVE my Mini-DV.  I've got a Cannon ZR20, had it for a couple of years now.  Broadcast quality digitial video and audio.  Easy transfer to a PC or Mac via the firewire for editing.

You'll see some models touting digital stills with some sort of memory card.  Keep in mind that these are less quality than you'd get with a dedicated digital still camera.  A nice feature, but you can still pull 720x480 stills from the video with any of the DV cameras.

Once you extract the video from the camera you can save it any number of formats, it just depends what you have for tools.  If you're using WinXP there's software already included.  For basic stuff the Windows Movie Maker works fine.  Want to get real serious? There's good software if you're a budding Cecil B. DeMille.

Be advised that raw DV-AVI is 127MB per minute so you need a fair amount of hard drive space to store it while editing and encoding it.  Also keep in mind that encoding video is only as fast as your PC or MAC.  I upgraded from an Athlon 950 to a 2500+ otherwise encoding video would take all night (or it seems like that).

After you're done editing you can save the work back to your DV camera.  That way you have full quality video rather than reduced quality/size of an MPEG, AVI or Divx copy.

Next step for me is a DVD recorder.  They've finally gotten cheap enough and the new ones work with most, if not all formats.

Oh, one last word of advice.  When I was playing around with buying my Cannon, I REALLY liked the Sony's specs and features but I couldn't deal with the ergonomics of the unit.  Just seemed like holding a brick and I couldn't properly use the controls to save my life.  Make sure you actually handle a live camera and make sure you can use it otherwise it will just collect dust (or you'll cuss everytime you pick it up).

While the quality of modern digital consumer camcorders is excellent, it's not technically considered broadcast quality.  Most consumer grade camcorders only have 1 CCD.  A professional broadcast quality video camera has 3 CCDs.  To get a video camera with 3 CCDs, you're talking big bucks.

FYI, a CCD is what gathers the image from the lens and converts it to data.  The more CCDs a video camera has, the higher quality the image.

[img]edjones7.home.mchsi.com/line.gif[/img]
[url=www.nra.org][b][red]NRA[/red][/url] [url=www.nra.org][blue]Life Member[/blue][/url]
[url=www.gunowners.org][b][red]GOA[/red] [/url] [url=www.gunowners.org][blue]Life Member[/blue][/url]
[url=www.saf.org][red]SAF[/red][/url] [url=www.saf.org][blue]Supporter[/blue][/url]
[url=sas-aim.org][red]SAS[/red][/url] [url=sas-aim.org][blue]Supporter[/blue][/b][/url]

Good point.  I was thinking in terms of resolution only, but you're right.  The 3CCD pro-sumer gear is beyond awesome (I played around with some of the Sony stuff and nearly cried when I had to put it down and come back to reality).

But it's not quite what you need to send grandma a vid of the grandkids bday party (unless you have a few extra thousand collecting dust).  [:D]

Sony usually costs a little more, but I have never regretted spending the money on Sony cameras.

It all depends on how much you want to spend.  The Sony VX-2000 is a great camera. Last year it was around $2,800, this year you can probably buy it for half that. Takes great stills as well. I filmed my predator hunting video with one, and have gotten many compliments on how clear it is. There are some less expensive 3CCD camera's. Sony is my pick.

Here's a clip from my video with the VX-2000.

CAUTION EXPLICIT KILL SHOT:
[url]http://comingtothecall.com/videos/coyote.wmv[/url]

Sure it is a lot of news footage you see now is done on mini-DV, many of the network reality shows use mini-DV footage. There are still a huge numbers of local TV stations in the US using older equipment that is not as good quality as mini-DV.

Mini-DV is easily better quality than an NTSC broadcast signal can transmit.

Mini-DV can be had with 3-CCD, with some of the more expensive 3 CCD mini-DV cameras it is virtual impossible to tell the footage from any “professional broadcast quality video camera”. These mini-DV 3 chip cameras start at under $2000. But there are many consumer mini-DV cameras have 1 CCD designs that are easily “broadcast quality”.

You could run most local TV operations solely on consumer mini-DV and no one would ever know, it is being done.

Uh oh, I just checked and my laptop has a grand total of two and a half gigs left, out of ten. Is there a good, cheap way to add a second hard drive for the video editing?

If the laptop has a Firewire or USB 2.0 port (must be USB 2) it is easy just get the appropriate external drive.

If no Firewire or the USB port is not 2.0 the best bet is to bite the bullet and replace the internal drive.

If you intend to do serious editing on a laptop is a poor choice. You need massive amounts of hard disk space and as much memory and processor speed as affordable.

this coming from a reg guy... meaning I dont do it for a living nor try to win photograhy awards..

I bought a Sony CCD-TRV118 NTSC <$269 with every thing I would ever use. >  seems like an entry level camera..

Has worked great for me..
no fancy firewire here.
I got a program called Dazzle < digital video creator 80> FOR 49 BUCKS  it converts rca outputs to usb.. not the best  but i ve recoreded everything I needed to VCD just cause I could [:)]

I wannted a DV but didnt wanna spend a MIN of $400   for as much as ive used it.. Im glad I went with the less costly VideoHi8

whatever you do - dont buy a JVC

SONY VAIO SYSTEM!!!