Help me find a camcorder

[maclover001]

Okay, I used to have a Hitachi DZ-GX3200A. The thing died after 8 months. Took it to the Hitachi repair place, they said it was completely dead. Never again will I buy anything Hitachi.

Now I'm trying to find a good replacement. My price range is no higher than $600 Canadian.

These are what I have looked at:

Panasonic SDRS7R: Looks pretty cool, but is the quality any good?
JVC Everio GZ-MS100U: Also looks pretty cool.
Canon FS-10(0): Can someone tell me the difference between the FS-10 and FS-100? The only difference I can see is internal memory, but who pays $100 more for 4GB of internal memory when a 4GB SD card is near-free?
JVC Everio MG330AU: I think this is the one I will end up with. It has a 30GB hard drive and looks nice. But agin, quality?
JVC GZ-MG467U A bit of a higher price than what I was planning. How does it differ from the MG330AU that is worth the extra $150?

A nice feature I would like is water-proofness. But it seems like all of the sub-$600 waterproof camcorders are either pug-fugly and/or horrible quality. I do not want a camcorder that looks like an 80s Walkman.

And of course, iMovie compatible

Opinions?

 

[Chef55]

Not sure if this is any help but I have a Panasonic HDC-SD5. I could never make it work with my Windows XP but since purchasing my iMac I have been using imovie and the quality is wonderful. I cannot recommend it enough although I don't think it's waterproof

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

For camcorders, Sony is the leader. For cameras (w/ video capture) Canon/Nikon are the leaders. Panasonic and JVC are all crap compared to Sony's offerings. That Canon one is pretty good though.

 

[Chef55]

Would have to disagree with snowleopards comment about Canon v Panasonic. I had a Canon prior to the Panasonic, the quality was good but nowhere near as good as the P. It's horses for courses isn't it? I use a Nikon DSLR so I think I know quality when I see it Would agree about JVC though.

 

[brand]

Canon FS-10(0): Can someone tell me the difference between the FS-10 and FS-100? The only difference I can see is internal memory, but who pays $100 more for 4GB of internal memory when a 4GB SD card is near-free?

The FS100 is silver, has no onboard flash storage and only records to SDHC cards. Can record up to 17Mbps.

The FS10 is black, has 16GB of onboard flash storage and also records to SDHC cards. Can record up to 17Mbps.

The FS11 is black, has 32GB of onboard flash storage and also records to SDHC cards. Can record up to 24Mbps.

 

[maclover001]

The FS100 is silver, has no onboard flash storage and only records to SDHC cards. Can record up to 17Mbps.

The FS10 is black, has 16GB of onboard flash storage and also records to SDHC cards. Can record up to 17Mbps.

The FS11 is black, has 32GB of onboard flash storage and also records to SDHC cards. Can record up to 24Mbps.

What does the 17/24Mbps mean?
I did some Googling, and it looks like the FS10 and 100 are both silver? Maybe they both come in multiple colors.

 

[vermonter16]

I was tinkering with the idead of buying my husband a camcorder now that we have a new imac on the way and he can play with the imovie... Keep the suggestions coming because I frankly have not looked at camcorders before and don't have a clue as to what I'm looking at. Bottom line I want good video....right now we are using a digital camera to do video...needless to say the quality is ok...but not great.

 

[mchalebk]

The best website I've found for camcorder info is:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/

I would suggest checking out their reviews.