What is a good but affordable video camera better to buy?

What's a good digital video camera to buy and what do you look for in a good video camera for picture quality?

• I'm looking to buy a video camera for the family, but I also might want to share movies I make on the internet. So, I'd like a decent quality camera that can do semi-professional work.

• Answer:

  Three things you want to look for in a camcorder: Price, Quality, What are you using it for. Price: Decide how much you can spend. Camcorders range in price from $300 to over $5000. Once you decide how much your willing to spend, you can decide on the next factor. Quality: Each format (VHS, MiniDV, DVD) has its own level of "Video Quality." VHS is refered to as analog video becuase there is no digital signal on the tape. MiniDV and DVD are digital formats. Digital formats have one drawback to video quality. They are compressed data streams. Simply, to save space, the amount of information for each frame of video is compressed. Depending on how much compression takes place, determains how sharp the video will appear on your TV. DVD and Hard drive based camcorders us an MPEG2 compression. MiniDV uses a different compression ratio. The other factor in video qulity is the number of "chips" or "CCDs" in the camera. Broadcast quality cameras use 3 CCDs, each CCD for each color of light in a TV picture (Red, Green, Blue). This makes the image more lifelike. What Its Use: Depending on what your using you new camcorder for will greatly determain what camcorder you need. If your looking for something to just point and shoot for family vacations, a single CCD camcorder that records on Hard Drive, DVD or MiniDVD would work fine. If you want to see what you've shot right away, then choose a DVD-R based camcorder. When finished, you just put your DVD in your player and watch. If you plan on editing on a computer, MiniDV, DVD and Hard Drive camcorders are best. MiniDV has the best video quality and takes up the most space on your hard drive, but MPEG2 formats (HDD and DVD) take up less space and you really don't see that much difference. I hope this helps you decide what you need. There are a lot of cameras out there, so take your time and choose wisely. I myself perfer Sony, Panisonic and Samsung. Cannon, Sony, JVC and Panisonic are the most common brands used by TV stations and Video Production houses. I've been in the Broadcast TV business for over 20 years and I had a tough time finding the right camcorder. Good Luck.