I would like to buy my wife a new digital video camera.

Should I get the one that records to DVD or to a memory card?

She wants to be able to play back the video on our TV easily.
She will not be doing any editing.

What are you recommendations?

Thanks

Mark

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VZW, It's 2009! Time to embrace technology, not suppress it. - oops too late I've moved on over to the iPhone w/ AT$T!

If little to no post-processing on the PC is a major concern, then the DVD camcorder makes good sense. Bear in mind that you need to finalize a write-once DVD in order to view it on most (all?) DVD players. Once you finalize a DVD, that's the end of that DVD. If you recorded two minutes of video on it, then you have a two minute DVD in your library.

Rewritable discs make more sense, but you need to check and see what types of rewritable media your current DVD player will read. This is going to affect your camcorder choices. One brand will write to DVD-RAM; the other brand will write to DVD+RW or -RW.

I think the memory card gives you more flexibility, but probably means more time on the PC. You don't necessarily have to edit it, but you would probably want to burn it to a DVD. This can be time consuming. Unless you have a HTPC, then you could just transfer the recorded MPEGs and run them from your PC.

Of course, the simplest and quickest method is just to play the recorded video from the camcorder plugged into the TV. In this case it wouldn't really matter how the camcorder recorded it.

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=402 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD vAlign=top align=left width=100><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=100 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD vAlign=top align=left width=220><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=220 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>

DCR-DVD105 DVD Handycam<SUP>®</SUP> Camcorder
DCR-DVD105 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD vAlign=bottom align=left width=100 rowSpan=2>$ 499.99
<SCRIPT> var initPrice = "$ 499.99"; var quote = getPayments(initPrice); //var index = quote.indexOf("/"); //var quoteprice = quote.substring(0, index); //var period = quote.substring(index + 1, quote.length); if(quote!="NULL") { document.write("as low as $"); document.write(quote); document.write("/ "); document.write("month
"); } else { document.write(" "); document.write("
"); } </SCRIPT>as low as $15.00/ month

</TD></TR><TR><TD></TD><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 15px">

• 1/6" Advanced HAD™ CCD
• DVD format video recording<SUP>1</SUP> with DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW compatibility
• Carl Zeiss® Vario-Tessar® lens
• 2.5" hybrid touch panel LCD screen<SUP>2</SUP>
• SteadyShot® Picture Stabilization System

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Thanks for the reply.

This is the one I will get for her.
Regards,

Mark

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VZW, It's 2009! Time to embrace technology, not suppress it. - oops too late I've moved on over to the iPhone w/ AT$T!

I'm sure she will love it.

I'm definitely out of the loop on camcorders. I bought a Sony Mini-DV back when they were around $1,000 and have been happy with it ever since. You have to use the camcorder to play back the tapes, but they are traditional tapes and our TV has front jacks for AV input... so it is fairly easy for my wife to handle it.

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Mike - Been Converged?

I like the mini-DV too. I had a Canon GL1, which was an awesome camcorder. It had Firewire, and would also convert analog to digital on the fly.

A couple of days ago, I bought a Canon HG21 from Amazon. I paid for next day shipping so I would receive it in time for New Year's Eve. Unfortunately, UPS screwed up big time and did not deliver it yesterday. So, I'm eagerly awaiting delivery sometime tomorrow.

After I've received the camcorder and have used it, I'll let you all know how I like it. It has a 120GB hard drive, SD slot, LCD viewfinder, and optical viewfinder. Amazon has them super cheap, but you have to watch out because the price has fluctuated quite a bit over the past two weeks. In fact, the price was $20 lower this morning ($750) than it was it was when I ordered it on Tuesday, and Tuesday's price was about $9 higher than it was on Monday.

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-Jay
The Fine Print:Nothing in this post (or any of my other posts) is intended to constitute legal advice or the establishment of an attorney-client relationship. For purposes of this forum, I'm just another nerd like you. :-)