camera choice help

hi
my wife and i are looking at buying a camcorder to capture our 4 yr old son , we have around $800 US to spend
we are keen on a hard drive model to save having to carry around tapes or discs,
after spending several hours l;ooking on the net i am very confused , 3ccd or 1 etc
we only want basic controls and it needs to to be one of the better ones in this price range for taking footage in low light
I hope someone can steer me in the right direction
thanks robin

congratulations on deciding to buy a new camera. There are other posts that can help with the choice between one chip or three. The average household will get by fine with a single chip. That being said, I'll take a 3 chip camera in my price range any day because of the increased color depth. I can't see the difference being color blind, but the people watching will, especially in this day of High Def, etc. Make sure that the computer that you will upload your video to for editing has enough horsepower to do the job. You can hook your camera up to the TV for viewing, but you'll want to dump it to DVD, it's just easier. The panasonic 3 chip cameras are very nice, I currently use 4 of the MiniDV ones in my classroom and have gotten some really nice video from my students. If you stick with one of the major brands you really can't go wrong. Make sure you leave some of your budget for a spare battery and a tripod of some sort, they can come in handy on vacation, etc.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/3results...mat_Hard+Drive

hi michael
thanks for your advice, I bought a sony dcr-sr200e since my post.
my wife hates it. she says it is too grainy in low light. I dont know much about video but we also get grainy pictures with our canon powershot g5 in low light . I think its just a light level thing.
anyway it is really easy to use and except for in low light i think the picture is fine for the price range

thanks again
robin

Congratulations on the buy. The Sony's are usually know for their low light performance with their CCD's. You have one with a CMOS chip, so I can't speak for the comparison. I own a DCR-TRV19 and have been very happ with the results. You are both correct about the grain. As light disappears, the camera increases the chip; sensitivity or gain, and grain becomes more pronounced.

Good Luck with it.