What Digital Camcorder & Software ??

4 replies [Last post]
Howard Nurse
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Joined: May 3 1999

Please can someone recommend a decent digital camcorder (£800-£1,000) and capturing/video editing software to go with it.


jarroda
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Joined: Mar 31 1999

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

kkchin
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Joined: May 5 1999

How is your experience so far with the DV300?

I'm thinking of getting one and any advice is appreciated.

Jez
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Joined: May 16 1999

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!

Regards,

Jez (London, England)

jarroda
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Joined: Mar 31 1999

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