Good High Def Camcorder that imports well into VS Pro X3

[johnrr6]

I have spent two days looking at specs till I am blue in the face....

Kind of narrowed it down to:
Panasonic HDC-SD60 or
Sanyo VPC-SH1BK

I have loved my Pansonic MiniDV Camcorders over the years.....but
I want to make the jump to High Def
I am tired of spending hours to "Capture" from miniDV

I have to have a decent long range Optical Zoom----25-30X
And decent stabalizations at long range (I use a tripod to help)

The Panny looks like the best quality-----with the best image stablization------but the most "Hassle" as you have to use the HD Writer AE 2.0 software to dump the .mts files to a computer where they are labled and renamed .m2ts-----and I have no clue how well they work in VideoStudio Pro X3

The Sanyo is a tad cheaper asnd smaller----but looks like it saves its files and transcodes them in the Camcorder itself----to a more standard h.264 mp4 which looks to be VERY close, if not, the new Apple iFrame standard. It looks as though these type of files would import into VS Pro X3 easily without any fuss----and maybe straight to my new iPad.....

Anybody have any experience with these Camcorders and VS Pro X3? Or could make any recommendations on a good High Def Camcorder with 25-30X Optical Zoom?

Thanks for any advice.

John

[core2avs]

I have the same Panasonic one. The MTS files can be imported to X3 without a problem and you can convert them to a DVD or mp4 etc. I did not like HD writer at all.
The only problem I have with X3 is that MPEG optimizer is not working.

[johnrr6]

How do you keep track of the .mts files after you dump them from the camcorder?----How do you rename them etc????

How do you feel about the Pansonic??

quality of video----zoom---image stablization etc??

I will be filming game films from beyond the fence in Center Field so I will be zoomed in a long ways to get the correct angel of both pitcher and catcher.

Clarity and stabilization of the long range zoom will be critical.

Thanks for any tips/help-----John

[nathan70115]

I would just get a dual memory camera that you can use an SDHC card with, that way you take the card out, plug it into your computer and down load it just like any other card or USB drive. I have a Canon video camera, some of there models are a little pricey, but they make excellent HD cameras. I used to down load straight from my camera, but it was a pain, I had to us the canon software and the camera had to be plugged in? I finally stopped being cheap bought new class 6 SDHC card, it is much less of a hassle. No problems recording AVCHD (MPEG4-AVC / H.264)

[janjatul]

See my post "Happy with X3"

And I bought a Panasonic HDC-TM60.

Now I just like to share my happiness. My first project with video from the new cam went without any problems.

X3 performed like a breeze

I used the Panasonic included softwaree to transfer from cam to computer, then X3 to edit. It worked very well!

And the cam seems excellent. Good picture quality, well working optical image stabilizer and more. On and off by just opening and closing the screen.

Good luck