I'm looking to buy a camcorder. I want to spend between $300-$450. Maybe a little more if it's a great camcorder that's worth the price. It will mostly be used for snowmobiling. I think I will buy a HDD camcorder that records in MPEG because of the ease of editing. From what I understand, most DVD camcorders record in their own propreitary format and cannot be edited by all programs. This is not acceptable for me. I must be able to store the video on my computer in MPEG or some sort of Windows Media Player supported format. I know alot about computers/electronics in general so a camcorder with complex settings does not bother me. The more in depth options, the better for me, function over form.
It needs to do/have the following as well:
- Image stabilization(I have shaky hands)
- Have AV INPUT(for helmet cam), input and output would be even nicer.
- built in microphone for sound(Dolby digital hopefully)
- I think a 32x optical zoom is plenty(not for sure though), any ideas how much digital zoom I need?
- must have good image quality(in bright and low light conditions).
I will look around some and find some camcorders that interest me and post them. Please add any you have with your opinion of them, pros/cons, would you buy again, mainly used for what, etc.