If your looking for something that will give you more quality and you want to put your video onto a DVD, then you may want to consider a camcorder that records HD onto mini DV tape.

There are so many great video cameras made today. Any one the the major brands like Canon, Sony, Panasonic, etc. offer outstanding cameras at great prices. Everyone has different needs and wants so choose the best camera that will be right for you.

Camcorders recording directly onto tape will definitely give you outstanding quality if you are putting together DVD projects. Although it requires you to download the video on your tape to the computer, the quality is outstanding especially in the HD mode.

For shooting video of the family etc. A camera that records onto a hard drive or memory card may be a good bet for you.

One drawback of Cameras that record to disk is that they compress the video so it can create compression artifacts which affect the quality of the video. Video recorded to tape is not compressed, so the quality will be much better.

Another consideration may be the availability of an external mic jack and manual settings for focus and color balance adjustments.

My Camera of choice

I was looking for a new camcorder recently. Something I can use in my DVD learning projects. After much research I decided on the Canon HV20. It has what I was looking for in quality and I needed an external mic jack. I also thought that the HDV tape would give me the exceptional quality I was looking for. And yes, it also has image stabilization.

Did it meet my expectations? All I can say is WOW! did it ever. The quality was phenomenal. And for the price I paid for it, I'll say it was an outstanding deal. (The Canon HV20 has been replaced with Canon's HV30 model.) Canon VIXIA HV30 MiniDV High Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and later the Canon Vixia HV40.

All three of these Canon Vixia HV20, HV30 and HV40 models are outstanding prosumer camcorders. I know of many product developers and videographers who are still using these camcorders as of this writing and are achieving tremendous success in making quality videos.

More current and updated is the Canon VIXIA HF S200 which shoots to a memory card. Many product developers are now using the Canon Vixia HFS200, but you will need a state of the art computer with at least a Quad Core or Hex Core processor, Windows 7 64 bit, 6 gig or more of RAM, and a video card with 1024 meg of RAM.

My personal thoughts:

I plan to continue using my Canon HV 20 camcorder well into the future. I like having the mini DV tapes and am well pleased with the quality. For me, having the ability to use an external mike is important as well as manual control settings.

Whichever prosumer video camera you choose, the cameras of today offer spectacular quality at a great price in comparison to what was available several years ago. Go with the camcorder that's going to give you the quality and features that will give you the end product you wish to accomplish.

Watch Video Taken With Canon HV20 Camcorder

Hard to believe you can get this type of quality from this size and price camcorder

A Turtle, A Bird, and A Log On The WATER from rgtaa rgtaa on Vimeo.