| Okay, I think this is what I'd suggest - but, of course, it's going to involve the buyer in a bit of brainwork themselves by trying to create a bullet list of features that appeal.
I'll give a few for-instances.
The ability to take higher-res still images might be an important consideration but, probably, only if there's no half-decent digital stills camera in the house or if the user wants only to have one camera with them that doubles up for video and decent stills.
Will a working DV and/or analogue input be important? I'd never buy a camcorder that didn't have both, but not everyone will want to put edited stuff back onto the camcorder from the PC, or (using an analogue input) record stuff that can then be transferred to the PC for editing.
Will size be a big issue? There are some amazingly small camcorders about, and these are great if you want to ensure that you've always got the camcorder with you (or know you'll get more use out of it if it's not a hassle to carry around). But, small camcorders tend to be harder to hold steady, can have stupidly small buttons, and can be so small that someone with large hands finds them awkward to use (irrespective of button sizes).
How important is the quality of what's captured? If it's a prime consideration, you'd likely want a three-CCD model. That said, a single-CCD MiniDV camcorder will give better results than analogue alternatives (Hi8 being one of the few) and way better results than from most older analogue camcorders that the buyer might have seen.
Optical or electronic image stabliser? A huge amount of footage shot is unusable because people don't bother to learn even basic camera handling techniques - but, slightly less of the footage will be unusable if the camcorder has an optical image stabiliser, rather than electronic. And, if the user does take care, then having an optical image stabiliser will mean a whole lot of their footage is likely to be good.
Is the recording format a major consideration? My view is that MiniDV offers the best quality and the greatest flexibility - and certainly does on a bangs-per-bucks basis. But as Funkstar has said, there are DVD-based models available and, in theory, they give a fast-and-dirty way of getting footage onto a DVD that can be played in a set-top player or PC.
Trouble is, the 8cm disc are still priced way too high; the editing of DVD is still clunky; and the quality can be an issue, both in terms of what's recorded and after the DVD footage has been edited - you can't get frame-accurate edits with MPEG-2 footage.
Sorry, but, really, there is no substitute for a little bit of self-help, and I think that the would-be buyer needs to indulge in some of that.
Know, of course, that our sister site DVdoctor.net is a great place to find out what people think of particular models of camcorder - just go to the forums and search by model number. But, the bottom line is - it is going to be necessary for the would-be buyer to do a little bit of thinking (or for you to do it on their behalf).
Bob |