What would be a good, cheap HD camera to buy?

What HD camera should I buy?

• Hey! I want to start making my ideas come to life with a nice video camera. Unfortunately, mine was just stolen out of my locker at school =\. I'm taking that unfortunate event and turning it into a sign that I needed a better one anyway. (It's a way to cope, isn't it?) So I'd like an HD camera in the price range of lets say.. approx. 500-600 dollars. But there are just so many cameras and so many consumer reports saying different things that I can't make up my mind! Can I get a few suggestions from some real people, not, the sellers.

• Answer:

  I have the Canon VIXIA HG20 which goes for around $800. However if you do as I did and purchase from Amazon, you should be able to get it for $600 or less, any local store such as best buy and circuit city will sell it for the $800 price. The HG20 is a hard drive based HD camcorder which comes with a 60GB hard drive, allows you to store up to approximately 5 hours and 30 minutes of footage using the highest MBPS (24). With the lowest MBPS (5) you can have up to 22 hours of footage; of course the lower MBPS the lower the quality. It has 12x optical zoom, 200x digital zoom with various zooming speeds. You also have a single SDHC card slot to add more memory if you'd like. The camcorder is very small and compact which I enjoy very much considering I like taking mine to various places such as sporting events, racing, etc. The camcorder is about the size of a soda can a little bit taller and wider, but not by even an inch so it can fit in your pocket. One thing that I would like to tell you before even thinking about purchasing this is that there is no viewfinder. If you do want a viewfinder you will need to purchase the HG21 which also comes with a 120GB hard drive, however its about $750 on amazon. Everything on the HG20 is done via the view finder. In the sources you can find more information about the camcorder and I will also post my youtube page where you can find various clips from the camcorder. If you have anything you'd like to see please send me a message on youtube and I will gladly record a video clip for you. If you do in fact like this camera I suggest you go to the store just to test it out in your hand to make sure it feels right and that you like it, also, you will need a fast computer to edit the files considering they're in AVCHD format, only certain programs support this right now, Adobe Premiere and some others, however I use a program called Alive HD Video Converter which converts to most formats which should help you edit in any program you have. Be careful, there is a HV20 which is a tape based model, I would not suggest getting that. Good luck!