What digital camcorder has good low-light performance?

Best camcorder for recording live music?

• I'm looking for a HD camcorder to record live band performance so I need something that can pick up loud music without sounding "fuzzy" and can shoot well in dim bar lighting. I'm not in the market for anything professional quality so I'm not expecting anything too high grade, just need a decent camcorder so my cousin can record his band's performances and upload them on youtube. Preferably in the 400 - 500 dollar range. If you don't have a specific model in mind, I'd appreciate any suggestions on specs or features I should be looking for in this case. Thanks in advance

• Answer:

  You need a lesson on camcorder microphones. The standard Consumer level camcorder, HD or SD Microphones, are all the same. They get their best audio to a point about 4 feet from the camcorders microphone. The further than that you move, the audio capture quality diminishes. In a noisy environment, that fall off is near vertical. So off you got with your camcorder, you get to the concert and your in the 17th row on the floor. The band comes on, you fire up your camcorder and start recording. the concert ends and off you go to your editing program. You get the footage on your computer, view it and this is what your hear. The audios best parts are of the bands biggest fan, sitting right in front of you, singing, talking, foot stomping, yelling and snorting. then the nearer background noises are mostly the same thing. The band, if they can be heard at all, are very faint in the background of the audio. If you want the best possible audio, do what is required to get a feed from the mixer to camcorders MIC port or a Digital Audio recorder. Be prepared to offer the cable you need to use on their system, this means having many cables at your disposal. Then, because you cannot get to a microphone, have fun syncing the audio and video back together. --------------------------------------… Consumer level HD camcorders have 4 problems. 1) Blurry, fuzzy, out of focus areas closely around people in videos taken by consumer level HD camcorders. 2) Any movement, even a wave or lifting an arm, while in front of a recording consumer level HD camcorder, results in screen ghosts and artifacts being left on the video track, following the movement. Makes for bad video, sports videos are unwatchable. 3) These Consumer level HD camcorders all have a habit of the transferred to computer files are something you need to convert, thus losing your HD quality, to work with your editing software. 4) Mandatory maximum record times - 1 hour, 30 minutes, 8 minutes, 3 minutes – four different times advertised as maximum record time for some consumer level HD camcorders. No event I have ever been to is that short. Either take multiple camcorders or pack up with out getting the end of the event on video. Not to mention, but the computer you upload your HD files to jas to have at least a 1 GB video card and a separate Audio card that can support Direct X 9 technology, you normal every day computer has massive troubles with HD video. Consumer level HD camcorders interpolate the video. This means they take one frame, make up the next 4 or 5 frames, take a frame and repeat this, over and over, for the remainder of the video, every video it takes is like this. With a MiniDV tape camcorder, record 60 or 90 minutes ( camcorder settings), 90 seconds or less to change a tape and record for 60 or 90 more and repeat till you run out of tapes. You can get a Canon ZR960 for $250. It is a MiniDV tape camcorder, has a MIC jack. You will need a Firewire (IEEE1394) card ($25 to 30) for the computer and a Firewire cable (less than 10) to be able to transfer video to your computer. To say this is not HD, think about this. It would cost in excess of $3500 to get a HD camcorder that could equal the video Quality of a $250 Canon MiniDV tape camcorder. http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/camcorders/consumer_camcorders/zr960