Hey my Axiomite buddies, my old JVC VHS-C camcorder is not cutting it anymore. Not that it does not work, it still works great, but it is a hassle to playback the tapes in their entirety, just to get them onto a DVD+R disc in my cheap Cyberhome DVD Recorder/Player. So I'm looking for suggestions. I don't want to spend much more than 600-700 smackers US. Do I want to go Mini DV or look at some of these units from Sony or Panasonic that have the built in DVD-R disc ability, so I just pull the disc out and enjoy. I really don't do much additional editing. My Cyberhome lets me change the title menus and add thumbnails to chapters, that is fine. I do have a 2x burner in my computer, yuck, but no firewire, just USB. The recent addition to our family is now almost 6 months, and we have not taken as much footage of him than our first son, the wife is not happy.

thanks in advance,

Randy

Hi Randy,
I went through the same dilemma a few months ago. My son was approaching the six month mark and my wife suggested that we invest in a camcorder. I won't go into too much detail however I spent many hours on cnet.com and epinions.com. It was driving me crazy! I was close to purchasing a Sony Mini DV unit however a sales person talked me out of it. The Sony models are a little over priced for what you get. To make a long story short, I walked into a local store one day with the wife and kid in tow, saw a Canon Optura 300 on sale for $700 cdn.(regular $1400)and bought it. I wouldn't have spent $1400 for this camcorder but the 50% discount was too good to pass up. I was planning on spending $750 for a Sony so this was twice the unit for about the same price. In summary, this model is very user friendly. As a side note, many sales people had told me to stay away from the DVD-R disc models as the manufacturers haven't quite perfected this format yet. Good luck in your search.
Cheers,
Shaun

Check this site below.

www.camcorderinfo.com

thanks guys, I'll just have to do some research, just like I did when I bought my Axioms. I have had better luck with DVD+R formats, but with most of the newer players, they should play both with no problems.

thanks again, Randy