A friend of mine is looking to buy a video camera just for general use and asked me if I could find out what the best deal is. I know very little about this area; hopefully someone around here could point us to a decent model. They're looking to spend around £400 - though it can go higher if necessary - and they'd rather have a high capacity hard drive model than a Flash unit. The latest Sony models look promising, but I was wondering if anyone had any better suggestions? Thanks.
Any particular reason your friend prefers a hard drive to flash cards? I currently have a Canon HV20, and I can honestly say it's a wonderful camera. It has some flaws, some of which were fixed in the current HV30. Although both of these models record to miniDV tape, the next iteration is said to record to flash media. I'm considering selling mine soon to pick up a tapeless unit. Right now Canon has the HG20, which records to a 50GB hard drive. According to the brochures, this will allow you to record for 5 1/2 hours at the full data rate (24mbps). It also has the option to record to SDHC cards. From what I've seen the various Sony HD camcorders (HDR-SR10 and above) are very good. The HDR-SR10 offers the capability to record to either an internal hard drive (with over 4 hours of record time), or a memory stick, similar to the Canon HG20. The HG20 has manual exposure modes, as well as the option to switch to a pseudo 24p mode. As far as I can tell, the HDR-SR10 does not offer a 24p mode (for that "film look", nor does it offer manual exposure controls). Over in Panasonic's world, the HDC-HS9 is comparable to the Canon HG-20 in that it offers recording in both 60i and 24p modes, and it records to either a hard drive (60GB - over 7 hours at 17mbps) or SDHC card. All of them can switch from HD to SD, though I 'm not sure why anyone would ever redord in SD! Honestly, which ever one of those you can get for the least expensive price will serve your friend just fine. a lot of places offer rebates this time of year, so you're sure to find something in the right price range. Edit: Actually, what your friend really wants is one of these. As for the price range...maybe find one on e-bay? -monkey
Wow - very helpful post! The HDR-SR10 looks ideal, and it's at a big discount on Amazon as well. Thanks a lot
