Please can someone recommend a decent digital camcorder (£800-£1,000) and capturing/video editing software to go with it.
I've seen the Panasonic DS77 for under £1000, although you'd better look at the DS33 (best price £1099) before you buy it...
DV200 and DV300 spring to mind. I have just bought a DV300 and apart from the steep learning curve with these things I am enjoying myself emensely.
Andy
How is your experience so far with the DV300?
I'm thinking of getting one and any advice is appreciated.
Hi, any reason you've opted for the DV300 instead off the 200. Is the software much better? - I know the main difference is the SCSI interface which I don't need with fast ATA IDE disks!
I found the DV300 interesting to get working, but anyone with a reasonable knowledge of PC's will not have a problem.
Once working it has been a joy. I have seen others with horror stories, but I purchased the latest version with Premiere 5.1 and the latest (1.6) drivers, and have not had any problems other than a dodgy batch capture and errors caused by me not knowing what I was doing.
I taught myself by just following the tutorial in the Premiere 5.1 manual and refering to my copies of Computer Video if I wanted to do anything flash that I knew they had done a tutorial on.
So far I have produced a full 1 hour 5 minutes wedding video, and several short videos for fun.
After spending several days with the DV300 since I purchased it a month ago I would recommend it to anyone. I think that the latest drivers, combined with the latest version of Premiere seem to have made a big difference.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Why didn't I buy the DV200..?
Simply that it only costs about £120 less in reality than the DV300. For £120 I got a SCSI interface (you never know it may come in handy one day - I already use all 4 EIDE devices) and got a full version of Premiere 5.1.
To upgrade from Premiere 5.1 LE to the full version will cost £120 on its own. I don't know what the differences are, BUT you can be sure that they will be things you need when running to a tight deadline.
Andy