Yes, another "camcorder for me" topic...

[marioman38]

My grandma just bought me a Sony DCR-SR62 30GB camcorder... Seeing has how its such an inconvient way to edit this format on a Mac i'm going to return it to costco for $600... I'm pretty set on Mini-DV, and i perfer Sony and Canon... The new cams aren't too great so im wondering a good used cam for ~$600 (Sony or Canon perfered).... Also the new PowerShot TX1 looks pretty cool... Anything wrong with it? I mean $500 for 720p seems pretty hard to resist... Whats the catch?

Thanks for the input

 

[banjomamo]

its not a video camera as much as it is a digital still camera. it shoots to an sd card and in a format thats not as convenient to work with as dv. and you can only capture 4 gigs - that like a minute of footage if theres not much compression.

canon makes a great cam called the hv-20. its the best bang for your buck these days without going pro. it is more than $600 though. you might be able to catch an old canon gl1 used but its probably gonna cost about a grand.

 

[sushi]

The TX1 is a nice PowerShot camera that can do HD video at 720p.

At the highest resolution capture rate (720p, 30fps, best quality) you can get about 28 minutes with an 8GB SDHC card.

Video and sound are decent. It has a 10X optical zoom.

The video format is MJPEG which is easily imported by iMovie HD.

Which for most uses is probably good enough.

The beauty of the TX1 is it's small form factor. You can easily carry it with you all of the time without knowing that it is there. And when you want to take a video, you can easily choose between SD and HD.

 

[seany916]

If you don't need a lot of manual controls, the HV20 really is a great point and shoot camera. Get a decent mic w/ it (you can get adapters for XLR connections) and you'll have a pretty decent run-n-gun portable package.

I agree with Banjomamo

 

[sushi]

If you don't need a lot of manual controls, the HV20 really is a great point and shoot camera. Get a decent mic w/ it (you can get adapters for XLR connections) and you'll have a pretty decent run-n-gun portable package.

Yes, the HV20 is nice. So is the HV10, but the HV20 has more features and options.

However, the OP was looking to spend around $600. Unfortunately, both the HV10 and HV20 are more expensive.

The TX1 comes in around $500 which is within the OP's budget.