plain old DVD-R’s are bigger than camcorders these days… but the mini ones are very common and available just about anywhere you can buy dvd-r’s or videotapes.
Some general comments on dvd camcorders… they don’t seem to be as friendly to editing on your PC as miniDV but maybe I’ve just not figured it out. The convenience in theory is that you can pop out the DVD and play it in a DVD player, but in order to do that you have to close the DVD. That is the process that I think was referred to above as what the camcorder needs to be plugged in to do (it also needs to be sitting still, on something like a table). This takes about 3-4 minutes each time you do it, but you only have to do it when you want to take the DVD out and play it in another device.
I enjoyed my miniDV camcorders more as far as editing and functionality, but I have shot with a friend’s DVD one and as far as shooting it performed well. This looks like a good deal if DVD is your thing.
For a standard definition camcorder, I’d go with a MiniDV one. You can get 60 minutes in standard and 90 minutes in long play (I can’t tell the difference) on a MiniDV vs only 30 minutes in standard and 60 minutes in long play on DVD.
Plus you don’t have to worry it skipping when recording to the dvd. If it skips while trying to burn to DVD, you lose the while video.
no this takes mini dvds as a regular DVD is 4.7 gigs and it says in the description that it is only capable of handling 1.4 gig dvds if they are single layer
It’s true unfortunately. dvd-r cameras tend to be great products but uploading the footage to a computer can be painful. From my experience the process of uploading footage to a computer for editing is rather difficult. It’s a pain in the posterior to get the footage off of the dvds if you put the dvd directly into the computer. I suppose if the camera has some sort of port that you can use to connect to a computer via firewire you’d be set.
To bad it doesn’t use flash memory or some type of hard disk drive. Even a review from a year ago admits that disc based recording is in risk of becoming obsolete. Who knows, they might not even sell mini DVD-R’s in a few years, or if they do, it might be expensive because its a legacy format.
Otherwise, this would be a very attractive deal, except for the refurbished part. I already got screwed once by buying a refurbished 32inch Westinghouse LCD from Woot. It came to me broken and I had to pay 80 bucks to ship it back to Westinghouse for replacement. In the end though, it was still a great deal and I love my 32inch TV :).
I would say its great for your 7 year old in the fact that its cheap and easy to use. The kid won’t have to bother with hooking this up to a computer, uploading the video content, and burning it to a playable medium. Instead he can just record the video and pop the disc into your DVD player.
Now there are two downsides to this. Editing the video probably wont be an option, but if he’s 7 then maybe that doesn’t matter. However, one big downside is you will go through a lot of DVD-R’s as they are only record once. That might add up fast.
I got one. Our miniDV camera is broken, and this will be our interim camera until we find “the” camera. If it strongly inhales with the mouth, I’m only out the cost of a nice meal at a restaurant. I’ve been unable to record my two year-old son’s antics since our camera broke, and this price is too good to pass up. If this camera works, I’ll be pretty happy to have it.
Canon DVD Camcorder has completely shipped via FEDEX Ground. All tracking will be emailed tomorrow morning to members who purchased this item. If you would like to find your tracking information sooner, please click the following link and use your ORDER NUMBER as the reference number: