Mini Dv or HDD

[Yugoman]

Can anyone help, I currently edit with Ulead and am looking to purchase a HD video camera but am totally confused after reading reviews that say you get better quality with mini dv than with HDD or flash drive and the latter are very expensive. can anyone offer any advice.....my budget is around ¢G400

[Ken Berry]

If that is your budget, then you presumably will not have the money to upgrade your computer. If that is the case, then you have no choice at all but to buy a HDV camera which uses the mini DV tapes. I have no idea what they might cost in the UK but ¢G400 might even be a bit on the low side for one of those.

But the main reason why you simply cannot buy a high def camcorder which uses either a hard disc of SD card/flash drive is that they just about all film in AVCHD. And that is perhaps the most demanding of any video format on computer resources. You have only a Centrino processor, and to be able to play (and edit) AVCHD smoothly, you will need at least a decent Core 2 Duo... No ifs, no buts, I'm afraid...

[sjj1805]

...... reviews that say you get better quality with mini dv than with HDD or flash drive and the latter are very expensive. can anyone offer any advice.....my budget is around ¢G400

It is not the recording medium that is important - Tape, Hard Disc Drive, SD Card, Mini DVD disc, it is the recording format that is important - DV (Digital Video) MPEG2, DivX, MPEG4, AVCHD, MOV etc.