Korean Job Discussion Forums

[merlot]

So, I have no idea what kind of digital video camera to buy and need one quick as I�m in a pristine area�South Padre Island, Texas�doing some surf fishing, ocean kayaking etc. and venturing on a road trip into Mexico soon.

I thought it would be easy.

I thought all digital video cameras used a memory card of some kind and that I could simply download video from the camera though a USB port on my Dell Inspiron 8600 (2years old) and then edit in Windows MovieMaker (or something better), and be done with it.

My Dell does not seem to have the extra port (fire�something or another) that the idiot clerks at Best Buy, Wal-Mart and circuit City were talking about yesterday.

So, to back up a bit, I was expecting to be able to run into one of these stores and grab a camera. Soon, people (moronic clerks more like) were telling me cameras nowadays were shooting tape (DV or something) in a linear format, then were digitized later or some crap.

I was hoping to simply buy a low-end inexpensive camera with a real zoom that I can buy a few gigs of memory for, and download video into my laptop via USB.

I walked out of the three mentioned stores totally confused. I just need a digital video camera�and now. There are some retail electronic stores in the general area. I don�t have time to buy one online.

Can anyone help? Model numbers? Any information? Please pardon my ignorance.

[rocklee]

Basically your usual video cameras uses tapes to record video, but now you can buy one of those mini DVD video cameras produced by Sony. It records video onto a mini DVD disc which can be read in any DVD-ROM tray (except Apple though I could be wrong). Using the supported software (to encode the video), you just copy from the mini DVD onto your computer. That take ages, encoding also takes ages if you want to edit it. However, its convenient and easier to use than tapes.

There is a new generation of video cameras out there made first by JVC/Victor. They use a built-in hard disk which you can record up to 5-7 hours of video making it totally media-less. Each recording that you do on the camera is recorded into movie files, like *.avi onto a 20-30GB hard disk. You just copy them onto your computer and its ready to be edited. The video quality is pretty good and it also comes with photo taking capabilities.

[rocklee]

If you want a semi video camera that captures OK video onto a memory card, then there are several out there (these are Japanese however but you may find them in certain stores here) :

http://panasonic.jp/dvc/s200/

http://www.sanyo-dsc.com/products/lineup/dmx_hd1/index.html
- this one is a pretty good one, its HD video!

[merlot]

Thanks for the info.

As you can see in my signature, not all was lost. I have some video capabilities through my digital cameras...