Prosumer Camcorders?

[moondragon]

Hey all,

Wondering if anyone has experience buying a high end camcorder in Thailand... is it cheaper?

I'm thinking about cameras like the Canon XL1 or XL2 or the Sony VX2000...

any thoughts?

Moon

[spog]

Hey all,

Wondering if anyone has experience buying a high end camcorder in Thailand... is it cheaper?

I'm thinking about cameras like the Canon XL1 or XL2 or the Sony VX2000...

any thoughts?

Moon

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think HK is cheaper, plus you get something that vaguely resembles a warranty - which beats Thailand.

I bought a hi-end prosumer digital camera and the amount I saved by buying water goods in HK compared to official Sony shop in BKK was enough to pay for the ticket. And a spare memory card,

[Firefoxx]

HK may be cheaper, but it's not the place to go unless you're very well informed about the right places to go and buy stuff. If you go with the same information as a typical tourist, chances are you'll be ripped off very badly, and get bad customer service to boot. I'm speaking from first hand experience, and from the experience of many friends.

All major brand electronics sold in Thailand is rigidly price-controlled. If you buy at any major retailer, it will be the exact same price, with very few exceptions. The price will typically be around the MSRP in the US, sometimes more. If you buy at an independent store, you may be able to haggle a bit.

The cheapest place for electronics of this nature is probably Japan. Prices in Japan can be as much as half that of other countries. However, the video system there is NTSC (like the US) and not PAL (like most of the world).

The buzz now is on HDV, which is the HD format which uses miniDV tapes. The video resolution is above and beyond that of even 3CCD prosumer cameras (1440x1080 vs 720 x 576), and the cameras are priced reasonably (as cheap as $1000 in Japan).

[Noodles]

I was thinking of upgrading my canon mv6i as it is so diificult to use.

I've been looking at the sony camcorders that allow you to record

straight to dvd. Anyone have any comments on these kind?

Thanks

[Firefoxx]

DVD camcorders are good for people who take videos and leave them as they are without doing any editing. They're very convenient in this respect, since you can pop it into your dvd player and watch. However, if you intend to do editing (and so far, with hundreds of hours of video shot, I've *always* edited), then it's not the format of choice, since editing the video on a computer is not as easy as miniDV. DVD camcorders also use mpeg2 compression, which is a lot more lossy and has more image artifacts than miniDV (but you'll only notice it in some instances). Consider that 1 hour of miniDV takes 12 gigabytes, while the 8cm DVD disc holds around 1.4 gigabytes... yet it holds the same 1 hour of footage. There's bound to be a compromise somewhere.

DVD camcorders have only recently caught up to miniDV camcorders in terms of image quality (and even now, miniDV is still better). So only recent higher-priced models should be considered.

Oh, and avoid the Sony dvd camcorder that looks like a frisbee... it's horrible. It's being marketed like mad, but it's still horrible. The Samsung miniket camcorder that has a detachable lens is also horrible.

There are also the JVC harddisk-based camcorders. They're fairly expensive and also use mpeg2 compression, so the image quality suffers. Not only that, their harddisk is non-removable, so you'll have to find a computer to transfer the footage once you've filled it up. The same rule applies to these camcorders: only the higher end models should be considered. Many of them also have strange designs, such as having no viewfinder (only an LCD, which washes out in daylight), and being too small for some people.

MiniDV media is actually not that expensive... it's around 120 baht each if you buy at places like Chinatown.

Camcorderinfo.com is a nice place for camcorder review.

[Noodles]

Thanks for the info Firefoxx....appreciated