On Sat, 2 Feb 2002 16:58:48 -0500, "Joshua L. Wein" wrote:

>I was hoping to get some advice on which digital video camera I should buy.
>I have recently found out that our family will be getting bigger sometime in
>the next 9 months and I want to be prepared. I am currently a big medium and
>large format still photography buff and I do all my own black and white and
>color printing in my own darkroom - so I am pretty camera savvy. I've never
>owned a video camera before (not a big fan of the medium, but hey kids -
>gotta tape 'em). My friend is going to soup up my PC (Dual Pentium III's
>with a gig of ram and SCSI RAID harddrives, FireWire) so I can do video
>editing with some reasonal throughput. I don't know where to begin, camera
>size, features, progressive scan, etc... I expect to spend over $1,000 USD
>but I'd like to not go too much higher. I don't need any features that I'd
>get within the computer, like titling and such - just quality video. Thanks
>in advance for any help. OK to respond here or to my email.

Save the money on the computer (anything 500MHZ, single-CPU
or so, with a "C" drive and an additional cheap 30-60gig
UDMA (not SCSI) drive, and 128-256 megs RAM will work fine,
combined with either a Canopus Raptor or Pyro bundled with
Premiere (see www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/premiere.htm for
a more intuitive set-up of the Premiere interface...).
Use the saved money to get a better camcorder, the $1600
Sony TRV900, or better yet, the Sony VX2000. If you are
into high-quality imagery (I am...) and think video can't
do it, try a VX2000. Using the custom controls and things
learned from experience, satisfyingly beautiful video
imagery is quite practical with this camera. See:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm, and:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder--comparison.htm for
more on these cameras... (the frame-grabs [and image
adjustments made in editing] may lead you to think that
the better one-chipper camcorders can about equal the
3-chippers, but with motion, the image is MUCH smoother
with the 3-chippers). BTW, the low-light reach of most
Mini-DV one-chippers is barely adequate, but is quite
good in the two 3-chip Sonys (particularly the VX2000).