Camcorder Choices

I bought a 60g JVC this winter and I love it. No more tapes and the smaller size is nice. It has a long zoom which you will probably want with concerts and sporting events. I was able to tape all of about 10 basketball games before I came even close to running out of room on the hard drive. Backing it up on the computer and burning a dvd is very easy to do also. I just wish I had bought this a year or so ago.

I am looking into getting a new camcorder also. We have a handycam that uses the mini disks and i hate it. the hard drive type camcorder is the one we are looking at. it seems to be the smallest and hold the most video. i think it will also be easy to edit the movies.

We have a 21 mos. old and divide our time between Europe and the U.S. So, we really want to capture all of our travels. We bought a Sony Handycam. It is fabulous!! It has a 40GB hard drive in it and records up to 28 Hours of Video. It even records in Dolby 5.1 sound. We bought the light attachment and that has made a big difference in the quality of low-light videos we've taken. It has a separate Memory Stick just for the photos and even with all of our travels we rarely fill it entirely up. We also carry an SLR Camera with us for photos. Our Handycam is nearly two years old now so I know they have even improved more. It is also extremely easy to back up the data onto our laptop. In fact, it comes with a doc where you can simply hit the "burn disk" button and it will do it automatically. We prefer to burn and save manually and then we send videos to the grandparents so they can see all the new countries with us.

I hate lugging around camcorders too. My husband bought a Flip camcorder a couple of months ago and we love it! Its the size of a small camera and will fit in your pocket. We were amazed at the quality of the video! The price is around $130, so affordable. It has a USB plug in that flips out on the side and it hooks right into your computer. I can't remember how much it holds, but we've never run out of space. The only drawback is that there is no zoom, so what you see is what you get. We tried a Kodak version this past week, but didn't see much difference. Best Buy has a 14 day return policy, you can take it home and try it out for 14 days and return it for a full refund, so the Kodak went back yesterday, just another suggestion. Hope you find what you're looking for at least you know you can try one out!

Hi,

Before you go to Best buy, try Costco or Sam's Club. We just got one from Costco for $250. I love it! It's so easy to use and light weight. I love Costco because their return policy is very good, no questions asked, not like best buy. No hassles! Good luck!

D.