Digital camcorders (need help)

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I'm looking to buy a digital camcorder. The thing is I don't know anything at all about digital camcorders. I have no idea what features I should be looking for.

I'd mostly use it to film gymnastics routines. Here are my requirements:

-It needs to have decent framerate; I don't want its videos to look like something taken by a cellphone, where the framerate is so slow you can't tell what's going on half the time. The things I'll be filming will be happenning at pretty high speed.

-It would be nice if I could, while playing back video, pause and go forward frame by frame. Not required, but it would be helpful.

-It needs to have high enough definition that I can clearly see what a person is doing in a video taken from 40 feet away. I don't need to be able to count somebody's eyelashes from a huge distance or anything, but it needs to be clear enough that I can film somebody from 40 feet away and be able to see them clearly in the video.

-I need to be able to connect it to my computer and download/edit videos. I don't already have any video editing software, so it would be nice if the camera came with some. Doesn't need to be anything fancy, I just need to be able to cut video and perhaps add text.

ANy reccomendations? Or if not specific reccomendations, can anybody tell me what sort of things I need to look for as far as product specs?

[big giant circles]

funny you should ask this. the wife and i were at best buy the other day browsing them. we're pretty much in the same boat. i have no idea what qualities to look for.

so i eagerly await the response of someone who knows anything about them also.

[Katsurugi]

I don't think you'll have any trouble with getting someone into frame that's 40 feet away. Camcorders have ridiculous optical zoom nowadays. However, if you're worried about quality, I think that miniDVDs have a slight advantage than miniDVs. Yes, just one letter makes a difference. miniDVs are essentially miniature VHS tapes for camcorders. They are older, but still in the market. miniDVs also have far less capacity than miniDVDs. I think that the only fault of miniDVs is the quality aspect. Rewriting over one miniDV overand over again will cause a degradation of quality. However, with miniDVDs, you have a slightly higher quality sample, but you must finalize the miniDVD before you can transfer it over to your PC. Let's say after some competition you only fill about half of the capacity. You have to finalize it before you can even view it on your PC. (Your camcorder is able to replay what is on the disc before finalizing by the way). In a way, you are trapped in "wasting" the other 50% of the disc. With miniDVs, you are saved from this hassle of finalizing. In this sense, miniDVs have a slight advantage due to convienence factor.

Both formats allow you to transfer over to PC fairly easily. Just put in your miniDVD into your DVD drive and drag and drop. You cna also dump it in your DVD player as well to view uneditted video directly. With miniDVs, you'll need to use a USB or firewire cable that is usually included with the camera. It's pretty easy and not a hassle. As for software, I don't know if any cameras actually come with their own. My friend uses a Sony camcorder and used Windows Movie Maker to edit his before getting Adobe Premiere.

I think that Taucer's main concern would be getting a camcorder with a good sensor for high speeds. When I film some sporting events with my friend's camcorder, sometimes there is a slight hiccup in recording because it's not sensitive enough to pick up the motion at high speeds. Albeit that my friend's camcorder is fairly old, approximately 5-6 years, I think. But this hiccup would probably make you lose important footage during a routine, like where some technical mistakes are made and such. I think that they must have improved camcorders in this aspect by now. The best way is to go to the store and try it out. Move it around from left to right to make sure that it's pretty smooth and seamless. Start slowly and then do it a little bit faster to see how the camera reacts.

The real stress test is only to use it during an actual routine. I'm not too sure what the return policies are, but it would be nice if you could try it out for a couple of days and just return it if doesn't perform as much as you'd like. I'd like to be able to give you a recommendation or something, but I really can't.