Camcorder for parents

[TnT]

Parents haven't owned a camcorder since our Sony one died 10 years ago and my mom is interested in having one again. Could be a Christmas present for them but I'm completely out of the loop on camcorders now-a-days.

My mom asked me about those direct to DVD camcorders a couple weeks ago because it'd be nice to not have to do extra work to put video to DVD. My only experience with them helping a person at my ol' computer lab was negative. Needed the proprietary software for the camcorder to pull the video clips off correctly.

My mom isn't a pro so don't need anything really fancy or super high quality. Low but not dirt cheap budget.

Any recommendations?

Thanks,
Thien

[Dr Mordrid]

Sticking with a miniDV cam has all kinds of advantages including the most important one: it'll work with most any editing software so you aren't locked into propriatory editing "solutions".

Panasonic PV-GS35

Main cool feature for "normal" people is a 30x optical zoom/1000x digital.

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Panasonic-PV-GS35-Camcorder-Review.htm

I've seen it for as little as $350 and as much as $540 online.

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

I agree that DVD cams are much trickier beasts: go for any mini-DVD.

[funky-d-munky]

I am in the same boat.
My folks are off to Italy, and are not high-tech at all. Ater comparing all of the latest cams I have decided the DVD cams are ideal for them. The SONY DCRDVD403 DVD CAMCORDER offers a few advantages for this type of shooter. The image quality has increased a lot from the first DVD cams. It looks very close to miniDV, I would say about %90 as good. It has a great still picture ability and very good colour. Those are not reasons enough to sway over miniDV, but the fact that they can shoot video and take stills on the same medium is very usefull. No swaping out SD cards. And they are going to Italy, how many SD cards would they need? Each DVD disk holds a God awfull amount of stills. I have read over 900! but that may be at the lowest setting. Take a picture, shoot some video, take a few more pictures, it all goes on one disk. The disks are dirt cheap. Buying them in 50packs it works out to 50 cents per. Rewritables are also available. When you are done filling the disk you choose to finalize it, then you can drop it straight into a DVD player. Instant gratification. You have to remember we are talking about older folks here. They are used to 8mm film and slide projectors. The DVD player on top of the TV is their new slide projector.
As far as editing goes, the DVD format cams are a little more difficult but not by much. For one, no long capture times. Any modern PC can edit mpeg2 (simple cuts and titles) with ease. And that is if they ever edit. I do not think they ever will. Using the handycam is about as much as they want to do.
MiniDV just has no advantages for the type of consumer I am illustrating. If my parents shot miniDV on their trip to Italy they would have to take out the cam and plug it into the TV, rewind the tapes (I will have told them to rewind them befor they put them away, but you know how it goes) Fumble around fast forwarding to the good parts, complaining that they would have liked to take more pictures but ran out of room on the SD cards 1hr after getting off the plane ect.. Or the cam could stay in the closet and they could show me endless hours of video and pictures using their cheap little DVD player while I fight to keep my eyes open.
So for me the SONY DCRDVD403 DVD CAMCORDER is definately the way to go. It has great reviews and suits my parents needs, not my own.

[funky-d-munky]

Yes you do need to finalize the disk. I don't know if it automatically does it or it prompts you to press a button?
As for disk quality I would probably buy Sony or another name brand and hope for the best. It's the world we live in. Everything will be disc soon enough. We will find out in 10 years.
I will probably gather up their disks once in a while and make a "best-of" on a full sized DVD, making me look the role of perfect son, and giving them some back-up peace of mind. How long will an untouched miniDV tape last?

[Brian Ellis]

I still say mini-DV if you are going to do any editing. In both cases, direct viewing will show the botched shots, as well as the good ones and that will spoil the pleasure (you know, where you see your feet walking along, or you're trembling on a hand-held telephoto shot as if you had the ague, or the shot is simply too long to hold your interest). In my travel shots, I edit down to finish in the ratio of 5-15 min/1 h tape, to obtain max pleasure.

My experience, going back to my double-8 mm chemical film days (I started with a Brownie 2 in the 1950s for "home movies"), through Super-8, using a semi-pro Canon 1014 (both cams still in my museum, along with numerous still cams including a brass and mahogany ¼-plate camera) is that an unedited film/video is looked at once or twice, whereas a well edited one will be looked at repeatedly.

DVD MPEG-2 is a hopeless format, once you have to re-render.

As for stills, I always carry a digicam AND a camcorder on expeditions, even though my camcorder can take stills. You can put a jigsaw attachment on an electric drill, but it is never as good as even a cheap purpose-made jigsaw. So it is with cameras. For best results, use the right tool for the job, not a botch-up compromise do-all.

Some camcorders can record the stills on the mini-DV tape, as well. Mine has this feature, saving each still on 7 seconds of tape. I do use this feature, occasionally, when I see a sign or a notice that can act as an aide-mémoire when editing or, rarely, when I see something that I can incorporate usefully into the final edit as a still.

My advice is therefore think very carefully before going the DVD route.

[funky-d-munky]

Editing mpeg2 has taken great steps this last year. All major NLE's offer a proxy or perform a render once type of system. Even Canopus MPEGCraft is a render once solution. I have used AspectHD for almost two years now and at one time it was the only way I would dare edit mpeg2. I am now amazed how fast the other NLE's have adapted and caught up, although most solutions do not offer the RT performance and intelligent upsampling of Aspect. It is almost 2006 and we are now fully in a mpeg world. miniDV is fast becoming the dinosaur as prosumer switches to its use in HDV format, DVD will take over the consumer end. It is just so much more convienient for the Mom & Pop type shooter.

[TnT]

Have been doing more research as us kids have decided to buy the camcorder for the folks as a x-mas gift. Looks like Panasonic's PV-GS35 is the best point-and-shoot camera available at that price range. Decided against DVD cams because of the cost compared to quality. Looks like we'd have to spend at least a hundred more just for the DVD recording but then lose out on picture quality and other features. I think my mom would like to try editing video since she has been scanning in old pictures and photochopping them.

Thanks for all the input guys.