HD camcorder mac compatible filewise

[Ravenwolf40]

Being still relatively new to the Macrumors forums, I was "living" in the Macbook Air forum and posted this in there. But I am not seeing the error to my ways as it would have probably been a better post in the Mac Peripherals forum . So here it is, any help would be appreciated:

(original post below)
So, I am considering buying a inexpensive hd youtube camcorder from best buy to use with my iMac and my incoming MBA 13. Like the $200 range bloggie types (sony, flip, etc...). Having used my Mac for a lot of things, but never really loaded video into it I had some questions.

1. What file format should I look for that will load right into my Macs?
2. Does anyone currently use a "bloggie" type HD camcorder that works really well with their MBA?
3. Does anyone currently use a "bloggie" type HD camcorder that does NOT work really well with their MBA? LOL (so I know what NOT to buy)
4. What key points regarding compatibility should I be aware of that a newbie may not be thinking about?

I will mainly just be using this to get family events (no kids, we're all old so does not need to be pristine ) and posting things to youtube maybe.

Thanks

 

[Ravenwolf40]

nevermind

Nevermind, I went to Best Buy and just bought the sony bloggie touch ts20. Will have some comments for others once it charges and I have a chance to play with the thing. Nice packaging anyway, kind of felt "applesque" when opening it, simple box, two peal off things and manuals and such hidden underneath. Hope the camcorder is as good as the packaging .

 

[Ravenwolf40]

Bloggie touch 8gb short review

Wow, what can I say but disappointed. I will be returning this tomorrow for sure.

After charging, I installed the bloggie software for Mac. Then after taking a quick video I plugged it back into my iMac. So both Iphoto and sony bloggie opened. I then realized my error. Both companies want control of your media. I've learned in the past that taking control from apple is usually not a wise move. So after seeing that quicktime and iphoto can do 90% of what sony bloggie software can do, I trashed sony bloggie software.

Next the video. I see that the video appears to blur every now and then and upon zooming in it really blurred. So I go to apples compatibility page and learn that the image stabilization in the bloggie touch can cause distortion in the Mac. OK... so I pull out my 14megapixal sony camera that I bought last year and take a video on 720p fine mode. A bit darker, and a little bit grainier, but not all that bad compared to the bloggie.

So basically at this point I realize that I have no real need for sony's bloggie software and for $200 (case and camcorder and tax) I get a slight bump in improvement in my video needs with weird digitizing every time my shaky hands make the thing move. So outside of putting it on a tripod so it doesn't move, it is useless to me currently.

Oh well, live and learn, back to best buy it goes for a refund. Hope this mini review helps someone out.