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Faith | OK, I need a new camcorder. My last one was just a simple rca vhs-c, no lcd screen no light, and it worked pretty well for what it was. Now I need a new one and it seems that vhs-c isn't really out there anymore. Are they being phased out? The one that most places have is the panasonic pv-l353. I bought one and it was defective, horribly grainy pic on the lcd screen, made a loud noise that was recorded, and the color was really bad. So I returned that one per the advice of someone at panasonic's customer service line. When I looked at the display model I noticed that the pic wasn't all that great on the display model either. Basically dull colors and a slightly washed out appearance. So now I have been going back and forth about what kind of format to go to. I don't want a really expensive camera because I take my camcorder with me and don't want to have to worry about it. It also has to be user friendly. What I'm really concerned about is picture quality, specifically color and that it can be used indoors and not only in bright light. One person told me that sony is the best, but then I heard that sony's color is off. I also get confused with the '8' family: what is the difference between 8mm and hi8? Is digital 8 about the same as mini dv? I am not particularly interested in using my computer, I just want simple home movies, not much editing, etc. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks! |
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Derek | 8mm was Sony's first consumer small cassette video format. It was slightly sharper than VHS. Hi-8 was slighly sharper still, similar to Super-VHS. 8mm and Hi-8 are analog. Digital-8 uses Mini-DV processing to record the audio and video digitally. It's main advantages are that they re-use your old 8mm tapes (if you have them). I think only Sony, Hitachi and Samsung support these formats. Although they usually have longer (real) zoom, you may as well skip all three of these and go straight to DV. The camera are smaller, are loaded with features and the prices have come down to about $100 more than the ones listed above. Since you've had bad luck with Panasonic, have a look at Sony or Canon DV cameras. They start at around $500 and are easy to use. See http://www.camcorderinfo.com/index.php3 and https://www.ecoustics.com/Home/Home_Video/Camcorders/Camcorder_Reviews/ Hope this helps. |