Help with buying a camcorder please?

Professional use? Not normally found in consumer stores... Fry's Electronics has a couple on display...

What is your budget? What will you be capturing to video? What are the planned audio sources? What are you planning to edit with?

MiniDV tape based camcorders record best available video quality because they capture the digital video stream and write that to the digital tape with the least amount of compression. Most professionals use miniDV tape. HDV is great. ALL miniDV tape based camcorders require connecting a firewire cable to the camcorder's DV port and the computer's firewire port. The new MacBooks and MacBook Air laptops do not have a firewire port - and there is no way to add one. ALL other Macs made in the last ten years or so have a firewire port.

Entry level: Canon ZR900, ZR930 (consumer grade)

Low: Canon HV30, Sony HDR-HC9 (consumer grade)

Med: Canon XHA1, Sony HDR-FX1000 (prosumer grade)

High: Canon XL series, Sony HVR series (professional grade)

Flash memory and hard disc drive (HDD) camcorders record high definition to the same file formats - AVCHD. HDD camcorders fall off the list because of known vibration and high altitude issues that prevent them from recording video. Video data files from flash memory camcorders can be copied directly from the camcorder or a card reader can be used. In either case, USB connection is employed.

Low: Canon HF10, HF11, HF100, Sony HDR-CX11, HDR-CX12 (consumer grade)

Med: There are none.

High: Panasonic HVX200 (uses P2 cards - professional grade)

There are other decent camcorders - this is merely a short list to get you started.

The main differences between consumer grade and professional grade camcorders:

Consumer camcorders have small lenses and imaging chips. They will not do well in low light situations. Pro-grade have large lenses and imaging chips.

Consumer camcorders' manual controls can be a challenge to get to through the menuing program in the camcorder. Pro-grade camcorder manual controls - audio, zoom, aperture, focus, among several others are all easily accessible on the outside of the camcorder - generally not through a menu system.

Consumer camcorders mostly do not have an audio in-jack... but if they do, it is a single 1/8" stereo audio jack - and there is no manual audio control at all. Camcorders with a 1/8" audio jack can use an XLR adapter like those from BeachTek or juicedLink. XLR connectors are used for pro-grade mics. Pro-grade camcorders use XLR audio-in connectors - typically two of them (one for each channel: left/right audio).

There are a lot more differences, but these are the main ones...

There are some broad areas where various camcorders are categorized.

Toys: up to $250

entry level consumer: up to $500

mid range consumer: up to $800

high end consumer: up to $1,300

prosumer: up to $2,200

pro: $3,000 and up...

A Red Scarlet (or if you can wait, Red One) will provide "ultra high definition"... but likely outside your budget.