Hello.
I am in need of some advice from some of you folks that know what you are doing more than I do. I know a little bit about cameras/video, but not enough. There are thousands of choices it seems and I want to buy the right one. I will outline below what I am looking for and what I have looked at so far.
I definitely want digital storage like hard drive, and NOT DVD-R or mini-DV. I am a computer guy and I can handle converting it if necessary and all the burning/editing. I do not know what format the video is stored in on the hard drive, is it wmv, dvd, avi, or what?
I would like to stick to something with a reputable name.
The use will be for my family. I have 2 young sons and my wife and I want to capture all sorts of stuff. This will be indoor and outdoor.
I do have a budget, so I cannot spend anything like $1000 or anything. I am looking in the $300-$600 range.
So far, I have looked at:
Hitachi DZHS500A
JVC GZ-MG130
Sony sr200
Sony sr82
I am baffled I must say.
The hitachi has dvd and 30GB HDD, but I read reviews of bad picture quality. I want good quality that is not dim or pixelated. I am not a video enthusiast, but I want it to look good on tv.
The JVC gets decent reviews, but some say that video quality is very bad in low light. Overall, many people complained about video quality.
The SOny's I am baffled on. I see that the 200 seems to have some type of better quality, but many less features like smaller zoom, smaller HDD. The 82 has lots of nice features, but like I say, the 200 is "said" to have better quality.
So whats the deal? Are these good choices? If not, what would you suggest?
BTW, I found good looking prices at http://www.access2digital.com.