Need advice for purchasing video camera and computer

[wookiewok4]

Hi everyone. This is my first time on this forum. Hope I explain myself well, and hope I'm posting this in the proper spot.

My wife and I are about to have our first child (in August). I've never been a knowledgable camera person, but now that we're going to have a baby, we both want to be able to capture and chronicle the precious moments of our child's life on film. Since we're also at a point where we need a new computer too, I'd like to purchase a new digital video camera and computer.

I want to be able to easily shoot video footage (preferably storing it on a hard drive in the camera -- to me that sounds like it's the easiest and least confusing storage option) and quickly transfer it to the computer, where I can easily edit and make movies, email clips to family, & burn it all to a DVD.

I'm hoping some of you can give advice on features that are necessary or nice to have in a digital video camera or computer, or even recommend specific camera models, video editing or movie making software, etc.

[fx101]

Well first you need to give us a budget. I recently bought a Canon Vixia HF10 (around $900) and that gave me nice HD (1080i) quality and 24p smooth cinema quality video. In general, the canon camcorders tend to be great, midrange to top of the line. I am going to say right off the bat that with babies, memories happen only once. I would say to be futureproof it might be worth it to get an hd camcorder. Expect $700-900 if you know how to shop around. As for a computer it really maters what you're looking for. I am a huge fan of the Mac based video products including imovie (although I now own Final Cut Pro). An imac with imovie and an hd camcorder will give you pristine quality in a really easy to use package. Again, I need a budget because what I'm suggesting might fall outside it.

[wookiewok4]

I'd like to keep the budget for the whole package (computer and camcorder) at about $2,000 or less.

I'm not very familiar with Mac products. I teach at a middle school and everything we've got is PC. Aren't Macs (at least the good ones) expensive anyway?

[Skyman]

Aren't Macs (at least the good ones) expensive anyway?

Yes and no, They may cost a little more than your standard pc but they come pre loaded with everything you need to produce great looking movies and the learning curve with I movie and I dvd are a lot less steep than many of the offerings for wintel machines. so you might pay a little more for your mac, but you will save hours in front of the computer which is important when you are learning to edit. the process should be fun and creative not tedious and technical. that said i use pc's at work and like what they have to offer. any pc with a mid range cpu reasonable amount of ram and an ok graphics card will get you started (depending on your camera you will also need a firewire port in it, again something that comes standard with the mac. but these are less than $20 these days so i doubt they will break your budget. have a read of the mini dv vs dvd thread as this will talk about the different standards and formats of camera and will help you decide which camera is best for you. hmm it sounds like i am pushing you to go mac. this is not the case, when you buy a pc it should come with some sort of video editing software (especially if you get a firewire card) and you may also want to look at dvd authoring software if the editing program you get doesn't have it built in.

I hope this helps
Simon

[byjamesderuvoDHQ]

My recommendation was going to be a MAC as well. The quality of the iLife software is unmatched for the video hobbyist who simply wants to make home movies for his family to enjoy. And you can get a MAC mini for video that costs less than

It has an Intel Dual Core 2 processor, 120GB hard drive, MAC OSX, iLife, and you can also run Windows on it. So you get the best of both worlds. Beef up the memory and for around $1000 you have a solid machine.

As for a camera, are you wanting to go HD? If so, my recommendation is the Canon HV30. You can downconvert to SD if you aren't ready to take the HD plunge and keep the original source video on tape in HD format for when you are. Again, best of both worlds! Cost is around $800 US.