Interested in a video camera

[kokoko3]

Hello, I'm very new at this whole Video-cameras things and I don't really know anything about it so I thought I'd ask:
I'm interested in a video camera in order to make short movies in ok+ quality, for websites and perhaps a little for dvd, I don't ask for to much and I think I'd rather have the recording at a digital format (something like flashstick so it would be much easier to move to my computer), if you think that it's easy to move to the computer with DV tapes tell me because honestly I don't know, but I do plan to edit my videos quite a lot.
My budget is raughly 300$, Is it possible?

[Skyman]

Welcome to the forums! I hope we can help you out.

You should be able to get quite a nice camera for $300.

Only you can answer if you should go for a tape based camera over a hard drive or flash memory camera. Tape based cameras do record a higher quality video as it isn't compressed the way memory based video cameras are (it should be noted that there aren't so many tape based high definition cameras except in the broadcast and semi pro areas)

The process of "Capturing" video from a tape based camera involves the camera being connected to a firewire port and the camera replaying the video whilst the computer records or captures it. This happens in real time, so if the tape is half an hour long then it will take you half an hour to capture. Their are advanced ways to make your capturing more effecient using batch techniques but they aren't really suited to home use but more for professional editing. If you don't have a firewire port in your computer you would need to buy one but you can get them for less than $30 these days.

You need to know what editing software you are going to use as not every program will support the formats that are created by some memory based cameras - especially the heavily compressed video of the really compact flash based cameras. This means you would need to convert the video which slows down the process and looses more video quality.

Finally have a look at the link in my signature for the reviews section for useful reviews on current cameras and when you buy one post a review to let us know what you think.

[Skyman]

re reading your post I think you might find something useful if you read the mini dv vs dvd thread - again the link is in my signature (about video compression)