with the pending arrival of our first baaby I am in the market for a decent camcorder and am trying to work out what the minimum spec is one should look for? In particular with respect to optical zoom, mega pixels, ccd and connectivity (firewrie seems best int his regard)
The one thing you need to look for would be ease of use and transfer to PC via firewire with a decent software. Unfortunately no camcorder comes bundled with a decent video editing softwater. You have to purchase your own. Look at Adobe for video editing software.
One of the better things going nowadays are the camcorders with the ability to record through a removable hard drive. I believe JVC Everio has this ability and I think Sanyo(not sure). This eliminates the need for a recording media that can change or in the case of Sony, proprietary. By using proprietary media, you will be stuck in one name brand forever because if the media changes, you have no choice but to go with the same brand that is backwards compatible.
If you have to use recording media...use MiniDV and not those funky 8mm tapes...again if your camera breaks, you are stuck with only a handful of cameras that will play the old tapes. Avoid DVD recorder type cameras. Still unreliable and you have to wait until the recording finalizes before you can change the DVD to load another blank one. If you mess up the whole thing is shot because nothing can read it.There are also compatibility issues.
The camcorder with an external hard drive will have less problems because your PC will just treat it as another drive.
Look for firewire and the ability to interface flawlessly with your PC and the ability to interface with a stand alone DVD recorder.
Megapixels are irrelevant and totally useless in a video camera. If you want still pictures, get a dedicated camera for the purpose. The video camera just really stinks at this and another extra price for crap you don't need.
Optical zoom - good stuf but there are no minimum requirements. It depends on the type of shootng that you do. Forget the digital zoom...another useless gimmick.
CCDs - Everyone is touting the greatness of multiple CCDs and such. But does it really matter when you are taking home movies or it just another selling point? Pay mind to your budget and do not fret if your camera has mulitple CCDs or not. That is just another bragging point. You either need it for your award winning Sundance Film entry or you just want to preserve memories. Try out the camera, compare the picture quality and decide if the difference is justified.
Dear Berny, I've read lot of posts and suggestions re:topic. I've found your's very useful. You seem to be a profy in camcorders. Which model would you suggest in $500-600 range. I intend to use it in Europe. I'm a frequent traveller with good IT skills. I appreciate your opinion.