Video Blogging Coming Your Way: Choosing A Camcorder Was Not Easy

In the past I have questioned whether or not a sort of “video blindness” was around the corner, thinking of “banner blindness”, just around the time when some great affiliate video creatives were showing up. I have to admit that I have come a full circle on this one. So few days ago I decided to explore video blogging. However not having a decent camcorder on my own, I had some decisions to make which type of camcorder to purchase. I had to sort out the differences between MiniDV, Mini DVD and hard drive/flash drive camcorders. It proved to be not an easy task.

Mini DVD (aka DVD) Camcorders.

Last few days, I had a chance to toy around with a DVD (Mini DVD to be correct) camcorder, and while I enjoyed the quality of picture and sound, I quickly ran into few problems. First with mini DVD you have only 1.4 GB of space which can translate into 30 minutes of highest quality recording. It probably has sufficient resources for what I need, however with most camcorders you will need to perform “finalization” of the disc before you can play back your movies on any other device besides the camcorder itself. If you need to record additional footage on the disc, you may need to “unfinalize” the disc, and that is when I was faced with a bigger problem. I had about 4 different movies (each about 5 minutes long), after unfinalizing the disc and recording additional footage, things got ugly. It seamed like all of my 5 different movies got combined into one huge 1 GB file- which is useless if you need to upload your movies to YouTube, Google Video or other websites. I am sure there is way to split your footage via editing software, and I would not mind doing it if I did not had an intention of making quick videos for a blog that did not really needed much of editing. I knew right there that Mini DVD camcorder is not what I am looking for.

MiniDV Camcorders.

From reading dozens of reviews, it seams that MiniDV camcorders are capable to produce the highest quality video id DV format. However transferring the the footage from the tape to your computer is a lengthy processes. Being a “drag and drop” kind of guy, I decided not to go with MiniDV camcodred for now. I will however consider it in the future if I need it for some kind of extremely high quality video production, since I do not mind to trade off convenience for quality.

Hard Drive Camcorders.

I have settled with a hard drive camcorder for several reasons. The hard drive camcorders seem to be what I was looking for. They produce decent quality video. You can “drag and drop” videos from your camcorder to your computer which can save you a lot of time. Some camcorders come with 60 GB hard drives which can be used as an additional storage space. While hard drive camcorders are still some what new, I was wondering whether or not they will make other recording media type obsolete in the future.

So if you are looking for a camcorder and are having difficult time deciding which one to purchase I my advise would be:

1. If quality of the video is your concern- then you should go with MiniDV camcorders.
2. If you can trade quality for convenience- hard drive camcorder is what you should be looking at.
3. From my very limited experience with DVD camcorders all I can say is to stay away if you need to edit the footage on your PC.

As from me I have order my camcorder from Amazon, which probably has the best prices. I have chosen Sony DCR-SR82, it comes with 60 GB built in hard drive- which will allow to record up to 40 hours of footage. It’s on the way and you should see me video blogging soon, may not be necessarily be here on this blog though.