Buying a Video Camera

[soxmuscle]

As you may or may not know, I worked for this moving company and just recently received a $400 dollar check in the mail because of it. I fully expect to use this check on a couple of things, one of them being a Video Camera.

Can anybody suggest a good, effective, relatively cheap video camera that will allow me to not only take videos but do some cool video editing to spice them up?

 

[Gordo]

If $400 is your price point AND you want to be able to do quality editing....then DVD camcorders are out (too much compression) as are HD and Hard Drive cams.

I'd suggest getting a quality Sony (DCRHC62) or Canon(ZR950) in MiniDV (the Sony has a better lens on spec) and make sure you have a solid RAID array on you computer (either RAID-5, even better RAID-10 or a RAID-0 scratch drive)

 

[KentDog]

What will you primarily use this for? And have you considered getting a good digital camera with video recording mode instead?

 

[ryan14]

you can use windows movie maker to edit your video clips. it comes with Windows XP.