Howdy Folks,
I'm a realtor and need a camera to do virtual tours..I like the hard drive recorders and think that's the best way to go...I have no clue and the last camera I used was a Sony DV recorder... I need to do simple virtual tours of homes and properties... I will haver to sync music and text to them as well...What would be the best camera?

Best Buy had a Panasonic 30 GB camera on sale for $349.....any suggestions?
Thanks.......

The software that you are using will help determine what camera to get. Once you pick the editing software, choose the camera by how much you can afford and whether or not it will handle the hard drive files without too much conversion hassle. Panasonic, Sony and Canon make some very nice consumer and professional cameras. Hard to go wrong with one of them. I'm still partial to MiniDV format because it compresses the stream the least of the video streams. When it comes to quality as pertains to files size, bigger is better.

What are some good softwares? I thought the old DV was better?

I used a Sony DCR-SR42 on a house recently. It was easy to use, the video wasnt that great but it should do..What kind of editing software would be best for this camera?

It all comes down to how much control you want over your output and how much time you have to learn how to edit. windows movie maker and I movie - both come free with a pc or mac respectively. pinnacle studio or sony vegas are a little bit more powerful although they will be a little harder for you to learn. adobe premiere, final cut pro or avid are broadcast standard if that is what your output will be. my suggestion would be to start with the freebies and take it from there. you could also download a 30 day trial of vegas from sony.

Thanks I'm gonna start small. I have a sound studio(Pro Tools) on one of my computers so I should be able to get the video thing rolling....

in that case i would recommend avid or one of the stripped down versions of it. the pro tools interface is most like the avid interface and anyone who understands the concepts of dnle (digital non linear editing) either for audio or video should be able to learn either format, although to master the craft is a different story which is why sound and vision editors remain two different jobs.

avid looks to be a good fit thanks