buying a camcorder: hard drive + analog pass through + record in avi

[mustbeburt]

well, i'm in the market for a new camcorder. i currently have a panasonic mini-dv and it's actually pretty good. however, the lcd screen doesn't work anymore. i've decided to upgrade to something i really want. can anyone help me by pointing me towards a camcorder that does the following?

-records directly to internal hard drive (no tapes)
-has an analog to digital pass through option (to convert vhs to dvd)
-has the option of recording in .avi (not just mpeg2)

any help would be fantastic. thanks!

[Atak_Snajpera]

Maybe it is time to buy Full-HD camcorder like this
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=348554

[mustbeburt]

thanks for the quick response! however, i don't think i need something that records in hd because i don't have an hd-tv. also, that camera is at least $300 out of my price range. any other suggestions?

[Atak_Snajpera]

thanks for the quick response! however, i don't think i need something that records in hd because i don't have an hd-tv
down converted 1080p material to 480p will look alot better than standard DV. You don't have HD-TV now but some day you will have. Prices are falling down very fast even for Full-HD tv. If I were you I would wait and save more money. This camera has excellent quality. Noise is very low. Besides all files are recorded in segments to files directly on flash memory. It means that your camera is seen as external hard-drive. My grandmother used to say "Poor people can not afford to buy cheap things". I hope you know what I mean :)

[mustbeburt]

i'm sorry, Atak, but you lost me with "1080p material to 480p".

the reason i wanted .avi files was because that's what i'm used to and i know it's very good quality. however, i'm only using this camera for family videos. i don't do much editing at all. would there really be a noticeable difference in quality using buring .mpeg2 files to dvd instead of .avi files? if not, then i'd be interested in a camcorder that saves the files in .mpeg2 (if that's cheaper).

and, yes, i know what you mean. if you're on a budget, make your big purchases GOOD purchases. however, i do need to stay around the $500 or less range.

[Atak_Snajpera]

i'm sorry, Atak, but you lost me with "1080p material to 480p".
Full-HD = 1920x1080 pixels , MiniDV = 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL).

the reason i wanted .avi files was because that's what i'm used to and i know it's very good quality.
.avi is just a box where you put video and audio. you confuse video codec with container. That canon uses the latest video codec available at the moment. it's called MPEG-4 AVC or H.264.

[mustbeburt]

ok, i understand. however, i'm still hoping to spend around $500. i asked a friend about this and he was thinking Sony might be a candidate. does anyone know of a Sony camera that has all of these capabilities?

[2Bdecided]

SD (http://www.david.robinson.org/pics/sd.jpg)
SD on an HDTV (http://www.david.robinson.org/pics/sdhd.jpg)
HD on an HDTV (http://www.david.robinson.org/pics/hd.jpg)

That can't be had for $500, unfortunately, unless you buy used.

Of course a "good" SD DV camcorder can be had for much less than this now, as can various HDD models. I don't know about AV input on these - that feature has been removed from most DV camcorders recently.

For recording format, you need MPEG-2 SD for DVD. You can convert anything to this.

Those camcorders which record directly to DVDs often produce faulty MPEG-2 streams that most authoring software chokes on if you try to copy them onto another DVD. As such, these are vastly inferior to camcorders which give you a high quality reliable video which you can encode to MPEG-2 for DVD yourself.

You could buy a DVD recorder and forget about analogue inputs on the camcorder - that would increase your choice considerably.

The JVC Everio range may be worth looking at, e.g.
http://www.jvceverio.co.uk/technology.php

Cheers,
David.

[Atak_Snajpera]

Maybe it is time to buy Full-HD camcorder like this
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=348554
This one has FullHD (1920x1080p) resolution instead of 1440x1080i