What kind of Camcorder is the best?

What kind of Camcorder is the best?

• I'm trying to get something fairly nice for my business, I just have no nothing about video camera's. In your experience, what is the best brand of camera, or best model of camera?

• Answer:

  If looking for video quality, buy the best bit-rate you can. Some ads include this, some you need to do a little basic math and dig into the owners manual for. The below is a general guideline on the formats. DV: Very high quality, 13 gigs/hour for a standard def frame of 720 x 480. MiniDv tape based HDV: Also very high bitrate 1440 X 1080 HD: HD refers to a frame size and not a quality standard. Cheap cameras can get 4-8 gigs hour, after about $350 all handicam-style units get 11 gigs/hour. DSLRs get 20 gigs/hour and the best in this format ($3500-$9000) - get about 25 gigs/hour with better compression (intra-frame 4:2:2 rather than interframe). Then there are 4k cine cameras between $20,000 and $100,000 Brands, the photographic heavy hitters are all good, I like Canon but have no problems with Sony, JVC, Panasonic. You don't give enough info about desired use or budget, and with cameras from under $100 to over $100,000 it becomes important to know this info. In general though, I am NOT a fan of consumer HD twinkie-cams (HDV if you can), and would only buy into this format if I could afford the Canon XF100 (or similar). If you must go HD, at least spend enough to get to the 11 gigs/hour mark. DSLRs are O-K for some uses, but have their own baggage that may or may not work for you. The tape based formats are solid performers, and the tape is a built in archive. But, they actually require MORE computer horsepower than (consumer) HD and your computer will need a firewire port. These cameras are a bargain in the used markets because the tape has fallen out of favor with consumers.