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It's time to upgrade my camcorder. Need to know pros and cons of the different media formats.?

Want to upgrade from my old analog camcorder to a digital. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the 3 recording formats: DV Tape vs. Mini DVD vs. Built-in Hard Drive? I plan on doing video editing so ease of upload is a strong consideration. Is the video quality the same (excluding HD)? Also expense is a concern; the cost effectivness of buying tape vs. mini DVD or going Hard Drive. My main subject matter will be indoor sports events under not the best light conditions. Is one format better for recording such events than another. Is there buying criteria for the camcorder such as image stabilization and low light recording that I need to pay attention to. Any other buying tips would be greatly appreciated.

Public Comments

1. Everything I've read says that mini-dv is better quality than mini dvd or hard drive. The other two formats are more convenient. If you don't want to have to process at all, mini dvd is the best. Hard drive writes to an editable digital file. With min dvd you would have to convert to an .avi or .mpg file to edit. With the hard drive you would have to write a dvd (to have one). Hard drive will be the cheapest as far as media goes of course because you never need to replace it. Both mini dvds and mini dv cassetes are both relatively cheap. You can record over mini dv cassetes without losing quality. Most people buy write once mini dvds. As far as filming in low light, you'd have to research the price range you are considering and read the reviews. Spend $6 and buy a one month subsription to consumer reports online, they review the top models without bias.
2. You might like to read this article :- http://www.simplydv.co.uk/infobase/where_to_start.html *
3. I have a hard drive camera. Sony. I bought an external hard drive and download my video straight onto the ex-hard drive. It is simple and fast. It also has a one touch dvd burn so I can plug camera into comp, push the dvd button and a while later a dvd pops out. I had a 2 different camcorders sony and jvc that look the mini dv tapes, THEY BOTH BROKE and both times it was problems with the heads. After a while the heads started having problems and started skipping on the tapes. And the tapes got expensive. Now I have a ton of these little tapes and no camcorder. I plan on renting a video camera, and copying them all over to my external hard drive. But It will be a pain. So I went hard drive. So far I really like it.
4. Go to Hard Drive camera. No worrying about tape. Easy transfer to computer, similar to cut and paste in Window