Camcorder advice?

bficky

With the birth of my first child imminent (4 weeks from due date), grandparents on both sides have informed me that we need a camcorder to record the daily life of my kid (sleep, eat, poop, repeat). I see my use for this camcorder to be taking short to medium length clips at home and maybe outside once in a while, at least in the near future. Both sides of our family live +6 hours away, so emailed or hosted clips will be the most used method of sharing.

My first instinct was to go with the DVD option. I found a few ones I liked online, and the Canon DC22 stood out. The $399 is in my budget (absolute max at $500, preferably $400), it has a good review, and it's a Canon, the same as my SD450 digital camera (which, the more I think about it, makes little sense since I don't use the Canon software for anything - I do everything in Picasa).

However, the more I research, the more I read that the best way to go is still the miniDV option. This seems so archaic to me, using cassettes instead of going the digital route, but I read article after article about the benefits of the lossless capture of the video, the longer capacity of the media (60 min of miniDV vs. 20 min of high quality DVD), and the ease of manipulation once on the computer. I'm definitely not going to be shooting feature length movies with this thing, but minor editing / creating video montages isn't out of the realm of possibilities. Are videos recorded on DVD really harder to deal with on the computer?

While I'm at work, away from reading reviews and articles, I convince myself that miniDV is ridiculously outdated, that DVD is the future, and that all my tech friends will laugh when I bust out my camcorder that has cassettes. When I get home and start looking again, all the evidence says otherwise. Anyone out there have experience with camcorders that he or she would like to share? I could use the advice.

Kami

You will absolutely, positively need MiniDV. It's the best quality to money ratio on the market, especially for entry-level digital recording. Don't be tempted by cameras that write to a Harddrive, or DVD, you'll want MiniDV, for ease of use, and the fact that they're very easy to store.

The straight-to-DVD quality is absolutely horrid, I can tell you from personal experience, both in and out of the classroom. Your friends won't laugh at you for owning MiniDV, if they understand anything whatsoever about recording.

However, pulling out a huge-assed straight-to-DVD camera, or Harddrive option, will get the laughs a-goin'.

silversh4d0w

Any video editor will tell you that miniDV has far from become outdated. I was in your situation a couple of years ago. Since then, coming through multiple projects and heavy editing with a multitude of professional programs, I rest very confidently on the fact that miniDV is the only plausible option when actually managing and editing footage.

If you plan on becoming a more-than-home-movie editor, I highly suggest you buy a miniDV cam.

However for ease of use, if you don't want to deal with the sometimes painstaking process of publishing your videos to DVDs to show the fam and friends, I would suggest a DVD cam.

Cams that are between 300-600 have little difference between them other than fun filter features and maybe a .7-1.3 megapixel difference for their 'photo' mode (laughable) so don't fret too much on what make/model you grab, although it's always fun to investigate your purchases.