what camcorder is best?

[julied]

hello! i have been looking in2 getting a camcorder for recording join up etc. but i don't really know much about them! can any1 recommend any good ones pref under £200!
Thanks!!

[tammy68]

I really don't know what's about at the moment or the prices, however, I did buy one last year and one of the things to bear in mind is ease of use - especially when downloading the images onto your PC or do you want to just play though your TV? I had one a few years ago and spent absolutely ages trying to download video to my computer, I even had a top A* student who is going to go to medical school have a go. Neither of us could do it, then, about a year later, I happened to speak to a media student who was working over the hols at Currys and she told me it could only be saved to dvd or video via a tv on this particular camcorder - it had a mini disc inside it! I then had to canooect to and play it through the tv at real time (this means I couldn't do it any quicker than the actual play time of the footage) and record it then onto dvd. In addition the dvds had to be the writable ones rather than just read only plus you have to get the right type as they come in -ve and +ve formats and fortunately we do have a dvd recorder as many are just players.

I then went on to buy the one I have now which actually has a card like the ones you use in cameras. I can now just put the card into the correct slot in the computer and, having installed the software, I can save the files onto the computer with a click of a button. There are also camcorders available that have a hard drive in them; this means that the recordings are stored directly on the camcorder and can be downloaded onto your computer or played through the TV by connecting one to the other with a supplied cable.

I hope this is of help to you as if I had been told all this a few years ago it would have saved me hundreds of pounds!!