I was ordered to find my wife and i a new digital videocamera in the 3-400 range. I looked around in my techno suckiness and i saw that they are either using a Mini DVD or some other form of tape looking thing. I would prefer to have a really easy to use, small and expansive one that can hold a shitload of memory or can at least take a good card upgrade.  If anyone has any good advice or whatnot or is an expert i would b ein your debt if you walked me through the various models or recording etc etc. Thanks

This is what I can recommend for you whether or not you go with my suggestion on brand/model, definitely check out the place.  Abes of Maine-  Great place I dealt with when I got mine.  I got the Sony DCR-HC42 Mini DV camera and love it, it's easy to use, even my wife figured it out!  It's Mini-DV so the picture quality is digital tape and looks great!  Comes with good software, and there are some good accessories to be found for it.

Stick with the Mini-DV rather than those that provide the DVD disks themselves, from what I understand, there's compatability issues with the DVD models, and the blank media is much more expensive.

As for the company, I really appreciated the technical help they gave me on the cameras I was looking at, very knowledgeable and didn't give me any high pressure sales pitch.  Definitely check them out, you'll save quite a bit of cash instead of going down to Best Buy/Circuit City where you'll probably deal with some eager 19 year old who knows more about World of Warcraft or Civilization games than any of the products he sells.

Good luck.

The Canon Digital Elph cameras have been consistent winners for years.  They're compact, full-featured, have a reasonable zoom capability, and take great pictures.

Abes of Maine  ...I dont think so.  They have a 4.5 of 10 rating at reseller ratings.com and specialize in gray market cameras. AVOID.

www.resellerratings.com/seller2003.html



Dont ask arfcom what DV camera to buy.  Thats like asking a whore what love is.  You should ask the guys at dvinfo.net  Im a member there too and its like arfcom but for digital video cameras.

what ever camera you choose, check resellerratings.com and pricegrabber.com for the best price.


FYI:  Dont buy a Samsung or JVC, their camera lines are poor. Do buy a Panasonic or Sony or Canon in that order of precedence.

Quoted: The Canon Digital Elph cameras have been consistent winners for years.  They're compact, full-featured, have a reasonable zoom capability, and take great pictures.

Elph?  thats a point and shoot digital camera.  This guy wants a mini-dv camcorder.

Quoted: Abes  ...I dont think so.  They have a 4.5 of 10 rating at reseller ratings.com and specialize in gray market cameras.

I got the full retail package with all the software, manual and accessories, no gray market on mine.

Quoted: Quoted: Abes  ...I dont think so.  They have a 4.5 of 10 rating at reseller ratings.com and specialize in gray market cameras. I got the full retail package with all the software, manual and accessories, no gray market on mine.

so you are one of the 45% that like them....what about the 55% that didnt?  I'll pass and go with ANYONE with at least an 8 or a 9.

btw: Ive bought from B&H photo video($3600) and buydig.com($1600), both good experiances.

Having gone through this saga towards the end of last year, I took a look around at everything, did all the research and then I bought a Panasonic Mini-DV Model : NV-GS300
Similar to this USA model : PV-GS300
My one is a little outside your price range, but there are lower spec models of the same.

I like mine a lot, excellent results.


Panasonic

Just my 2 cents

Edited, because I miss read your post, and thought you were looking for a digital camera!

Sean

Quoted: Having gone through this saga towards the end of last year, I took a look around at everything, did all the research and then I bought a Panasonic Mini-DV Model : NV-GS300 Similar to this USA model : PV-GS300 My one is a little outside your price range, but there are lower spec models of the same. I like mine a lot, excellent results. www2.panasonic.com/static//LargerPhoto/PV-GS300P_LCD_Open.jpg Panasonic Just my 2 cents

those are nice!  I used to have a PDV-DV953 and a GS-400k, I loved those Panasonics.  I really liked the Leica lens technology they use.  I now have a Sony HDR-FX1, which is nice and all but I want to sell it to get the new Panasonic HDV camera.