Best $300-$650 camcorder (SD, or HD? etc.)

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filmguy123

Veteran
My friend wants to get a new camcorder, as his old one broke. He is not going into paid work or independent film-making. He wants to use it to make videos that he *WILL* edit, using Premiere Pro CS3 on the Mac. But they are videos like of friends on a roadtrip, day at the beach. Informal Youth camp highlights. Family stuff and vacations. Etc. His budget is $300-$650, obviously he'd prefer to spend less unless it really is worth it to spend more.


I'm not sure what to recommend him... SD, or HD? Sure, you get higher resolution with HD, but the low-light is just terrible in HD - especially for 1 1/4 sensors! Plus, there is some software/plug-ins to help with the upconvert process, and upconverting DVD players... so I wonder if the image quality for all of the live, un-lit, likely a lot of indoors stuff will be better with an SD camera uprezzed, favoring the better low-light.


Also, I was wondering - for editing, a lot of these little consumer cameras now use direct-to-disc recording, which is a PAIN in the butt to edit! So, I was wondering if there were any *GOOD* direct-to-digital recorders that used an HDV format but when straight to memory card (or HDD)... or should we try and find a more traditional, SD miniDV-tape based camera?


Also, any particular cameras or models to look into?

I feel like the state of HD + tiny sensors, and crappy direct-to-digital format, the consumer camcorder market has become a difficult place to shop for someone who wants a decent, cheap camera that they plan to edit the footage with...

Please help!
 
I'm not sure about the HV20...

HD = not so great low-light...?
Plus a CMOS sensor?
No direct to digital recording?

I'm almost thinking the JVC $800 which costs a bit more might be better: CCD sensor @ 1/3, direct to digital (but in an mpeg-2 compressed format, however, so is the hv20)....

24p/30f is nice; but 60i auto-focus is much better, and he'd be auto-focusing a lot. Especially in low-light. The worse light with hv20 would negate much of the use a 30f/24p due to auto-focus; and 24p strobing would be an issue for his shakier handheld footage anyway...
 
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OK, the HV20 seemed pretty cool from what I saw of it, and the lowlight was better than I expected for a small consumer camcorder (probably better than a 1/6 CCD SD camcorder?)

What about the Canon HF-100? Basically the HV20, but with SDHC flash recording instead of tape, and it uses AVC-HD instead of HDV. Thoughts?



ALSO, bump on this:

filmguy123 said:
I'm not sure about the HV20...

HD = not so great low-light...?
Plus a CMOS sensor?
No direct to digital recording?

I'm almost thinking the JVC $800 which costs a bit more might be better: CCD sensor @ 1/3, direct to digital (but in an mpeg-2 compressed format, however, so is the hv20)....

24p/30f is nice; but 60i auto-focus is much better, and he'd be auto-focusing a lot. Especially in low-light. The worse light with hv20 would negate much of the use a 30f/24p due to auto-focus; and 24p strobing would be an issue for his shakier handheld footage anyway...
Click to expand...
 
I am actually looking for a nice quality camera for cheap so I can make good independent films for the fests. I was looking at the HV20, among others.
 
I have to agree with everybody else - for the price, the HV20 really is a great little camera. The extra money is worth it.
 
The HF100 is only a little more... is AVC-HD comparable on this to the HV20 quality? I heard that AVC-HD has yet to match HDV quality, only because a camera hasn't fully exploited it yet. BUT, I didn't hear how it directly compares to HDV in a similiar model - which has better format/overall picture, the HF100 or the HV20?
 
I haven't done any actual comparisons, but I'm fairly certain my HV20 introduces gain in lower light than my friend's elura 90. That's all I personally have to go off of.
 
filmguy123 said:
The HF100 is only a little more... is AVC-HD comparable on this to the HV20 quality? I heard that AVC-HD has yet to match HDV quality, only because a camera hasn't fully exploited it yet. BUT, I didn't hear how it directly compares to HDV in a similiar model - which has better format/overall picture, the HF100 or the HV20?
Click to expand...

AND:

Which would probably be better: 1/6 CCD on an SD camcorder, or the HV20's 1/3.2 in CMOS sensor on HD? As long as the HV20 is just as good in lowlight as my friends old 1/6 ccd, he'll be a happy camper...
 
Depends on how many chips on that 1/6" camcorder, too. A single-chip system will have much smaller pixels than a three-chip system, at the same chip size. Then there's CMOS vs. CCD, etc. Noise levels might be different. You really have to put 'em side by side and see what you think.

Some people think the HV20 is actually good in low light, because they're not paying attention to the 27dB of gain that it uses. What bothers some, might not bother others.
 
Oh I see, yes I noticed the HV20 picked up the image well, but I only looked for a moment. Didn't realize it was adding 27db gain.

Which would likely be better, 3x1/6 CCDs or 1x1/3 CCD for sensitivity? I am guessing the 3x1/6 CCDS, as well as better color reproduction?
 
Based on reviews The HV20 is better than all those cheap 1/6 inch CCD cameras. Remember, a 1/3 inch ccd is 4 times the size of a 1/6 inch ccd.
 
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