Which camcorder media format do you like? About This Page:

[Mares75]

I'm looking into getting a camcorder for DBF this Christmas. I want to get it earlier in time for our trip in November so I'm starting to look around. I'm trying to decide which format would be best. I used to have a camcorder years ago that used the mini tapes you played in a larger VHS tape. I'm kind of leaning towards flash memory at the moment. The DVD's don't seem to have much record time per disk, the HDD ones make me sort of nervous - what if the HDD dies? So what do you have and what do think are the pros and cons? TIA!

[Cam22]

I too get confused every time we start looking at camcorders. We've never owned one, which is amazing considering how long video recorders have been out. I have asked for one for Christmas several times, but fail to decide on which I'd prefer.

[DVC_Increda_Man]

Well I hate to tell you but the Mini Dv tapes that they have now are still the
best if you plan on editing and making DVD's. All the big Pro Camcorders
still use tape also because its still has the best qualty of all
the different kinds of recording media.

You will have to decide what you really want to do with your videos.

Mini Dv tape captured in a AVI file in DV type 1 format is the easiest
format to edit right down to a single a frame!

All the other formats Mpeg2, Tod, Mod and Mpeg4 are not user friendly
if you want to do editing and making DVD's of the quality that you would
send to your Mother!

So study the formats and software it takes to edit the different formats
and go from there.

P.S. The software that comes with your camcorder are stripped down versions
of editing software so don't expect much from that either.

Good Luck