Hello all. I am hoping you folks may be able to help me in my search for a HD video camera that has an external mic jack input. I have done some searching and not found many if any at all that are suitable that do have an external mic input, so perhaps im missing a gem out there that you guys might know of. Ideally looking for the following features... Price: ~ £280-£350 or of cause less. Storage: SD(any type)/flash ~8gb. Video: 1080p in an easy to edit format, something like wmv/avi. Audio: 3.5mm jack for external mic. Extras: optical or digital zoom (optical prefered), screw hole for tripod fixture, lcd viewing screen, support for still shots. Mainly for use around the office and not outside. DV Cams are a possibaility although we are trying to move away from the need of having DV tapes to something more convienent such as SD cards etc. Look forward to any help or input Many thanks.
I've heard good things about this - http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/q3hd/ EDIT: Buttoad of test footage - http://www.youtube.com/user/samsontech
Cheers, not a bad device, it appears to have a lot fo the features i am looking for and more, although I think I am really looking for compact cams rather than pocket cams as this is to be used in an office enviroment, this is certainly worth thinking about and proposing as a replacement for a DV-tap cams.
i just bought this (end of december), and i'm impressed actually, as i had my doubts about the audio quality. for a pocket cam i don't think it gets much better, atm, anyway. quality hd vid for such a small device too. my only complaint would be the size of the controls, but it is a pocket cam after all, and unless you have oversized hands/plump fingers, you shouldn't have any problems operating it. also mounts easily to my full-size tripod (you can get a table top tripod as part of an accessories pack). unless you're willing to spend more for additional features/flexibility on a standard compact cam, i don't know that you'd surpass the a/v for the price. i paid $249.
Nice to hear zatanna, thanks. Thanks for the tip. I am going see if a local store has one in stock that I may be able to have a play with. Still keeping ym eye open for a compact cam rather than pocket, but as you have said the price to feature ratio is pritty good compared to most compact cams.
Just a point of clarification if you haven't already made a decision. Technically HDV is a format of video, not a specific kind of tape. Because HDV and DV use similar data rates, both formats can be recorded on Mini-DV cassettes. Just about all of the tape-based HDV camcorders in the market today use Mini-DV tapes. Some tape manufacturers have taken to adding "HDV" on the tape label, but this is mostly a marketing technique. It is similar to HDMI cables branded as "Type II 1080 Deep Color Certified!" Having said that, HDV looks to be at the end of its life cycle, and most of the camcorder manufacturers are moving to file-based recording. If I had to buy a new video camera today, I would pass on HDV and seriously consider something that records to SD or CF cards. Most of the modern codecs will give you better video than you'll get with HDV compression, and you'll be able to skip the time consuming process of capturing video from a tape.
