What's the best video camera in the $200 - $270 price range?

It comes down to needs and choices.Your needs are that you want to make quality short films that are high definition. You only have about $300 to spend. Yes you could find a good used DV tape camcorder for $50 - $100 and spend $9 on tapes, if you can still find them. You can, for now. It is an option. Not one that I would recommend but an option. I would stick with the quality brand names like Panasonic, Sony, JVC and Canon. I would also look at the current product line and then find the camcorder that was the prior top dog last year. I would expect the price on that camcorder to have dropped. You still get a current camcorder but at a price reduction. At the $300 and under price level it is gonna be tough. I would want optical zoom, external mic jack and as much functionality as I could get. I'd ask do you really need HD? There are a lot of great Sony Camcorder that are in the widescreen 16:9 for (but not HD) selling at your price points at TigerDirect. Standard Definition: Sony DCR-SX63 Handycam Camcorder - 16GB, 60X Zoom, 2.7" LCD, USB 2.0 Sony DCR-SX45 Handycam Camcorder - 60x Optical Zoom, 3.0" LCD, Built-in Mic If you do need HD I'd also look at B&H Photos web site at JVC GZ-HM30 HD Everio Camcorder Sanyo VPC-SH1 Dual Camera My point is that yes you can get a SD or HD camcorder but that is only part of it. You'll need a tripod, decent video editing software, memory cards and a backup storage drive. You can do this but it will require research and compromises to reach you goal.

Quickly, HD is a marketing term. If they told you this is a highly compressed format that is a step backward from good old MiniDv and developed because most consumers can't (or don't care to) understand the tape format and editing. Even at 9 times your price, a $2000 HD camera will record 11 gigs of data per hour. Little old 720 X 480 MiniDv gets 13 gigs/hour. That is 15% More data for 1/6th the frame size. What is even more important for you, however, is how the HD creates a crappy picture. HD relies on reference frames, as few as 2 each second. The remaining 28 frames record only a predetermined level of change, and "interpolate" (mathematically guess) the differences between frames. Disaster for action sports. MiniDv formats are uncompressed in the brightness channel, and have low compression in the less important color channel. The little compression is "inter-frame". No frame relies on its neighbor for image data. The end result is you can take footage from a MiniDv camera and up-convert it to 1920 x 1080 and still have a better image quality that footage shot in HD. If you can up your budget $50, you can get a new Canon ZR930 for $299. You will need a few tapes and a firewire cable. It is the best quality video camera going, with a Mic Jack also. Otherwise, look at the used market. You should easily be able to find a used Z or elura series. I'd be skeptical of a GL-1 going that cheap, but you never know. I've known a lot of people that got a GL for a single trip or wedding. Anyway, look into the format. At $270 with a HD camcorder you likely will max out at 4-5 gigs/hour, which is really shooting yourself in the foot for quality. You would need to add about $3300 to get a clear quality advantage over standard def, MiniDv.

Have a look at Sony DCR-SX65 Handycam Camcorder (Black) 4GB1 embedded Flash Memory for up to 6 hours of recording 70x Extended Zoom to get even closer to the action Professional quality Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens 3.0" touch-screen Clear Photo LCD Plus display (230K) SteadyShot image stabilization with Active Mode