Video Camera Suggestions

I love my sony handycam. It takes great pics and video and stores everything on the built in hard drive and there is a memory card with it too. I love it, it is small and light and really fun to use as the screen has a touch screen.

We have a "Sony Handycam Hybrid HDD (Hard Disk Drive)". We got it at Costco for $500. Everyone I have talked to says that Sony is the way to go for video cameras. They have the best lenses (Carl Zeiss) and the great thing about this camera is NO TAPES! Video is recorded on the hard drive and you can also insert a memory card. The hard drive holds up to 27 hours of video and the battery charges FAST and holds power for a long time. With the Costco pack you get a 2nd battery. Worth every penny and have not regretted it once in any way.

We have a Kodak Easy Share digital cameral that also takes movies. We've had it for 3 or 4 years, so I bet they have even better stuff now. Just get a good sized memory card. Then you can download it all to your computer and share as much as you want!! (Just remember to back up important stuff on CD, too. We lost a whole year's worth of photos - especially vacationing with kids - when our motherboard fried).

I found out it costs a fortune to transfer tapes to DVD for safe keeping. I would get one that automatically records to DVD so you have them, can store them and enjoy watching them.
VHS isn't even available anymore since they are so outdated.
You can get digital cameras now that convert to a camcorder and they are smaller, which I think is awesome.
Ours is an older Sony and I love it, just big, bulky and the battery needs replaced and the battery costs $25! I am looking for a new one too so let me know what you choose! Good luck.

Our $500 video camera just stopped working and so we just bought The Flip Ultra video camera for a trip to Disneyland. It was only $129 at Costco. The pros are that it's very small, easy to use, records to an internal hard drive so you don't need to buy DVDs or memory cards/sticks, runs on AA batteries, uploading to a blog/YouTube/AOL is SO EASY: just flip open the built in USB and the built in software lets you download without cords or anything else; editing and movie making is also very easy. The cons are that it only records two hours, you have to download the videos onto your computer or a website to be able to record more videos and it doesn't have a pause button. The video quality is pretty good but not fantastic and you have to be fairly close to people to get audio, especially if you are somewhere crowded. But for something so cheap, easy to use and just to take videos of your kid, I think it's an excellent buy. But if you want to spend a little more, the JVC Everio video camera got excellent reviews all over the place and is inexpensive ($400 - $500)for such a great camcorder. It would've been my first choice, but for $130 the Flip Ultra is great!

hey we bought a great video camera its a sony handycam hdd (hard disk drive) I love everything about it we bought it at sears but basically you dont have the extra expense of the vhs or the dvds because it stores it all on an internal harddrive and then when you are ready you can just move it over to your computer it comes with this great software you can make your home movies into actual movies and put them onto a disc from your computer if that is what you wish to do with them it has night mode touch screen it takes still pictures but we dont use that becuase we use our other camera I love it I completely recommend it I have a friend who liked ours so much she went and bought just like but with lots more accessories if you have anymore questions feel free to email me ____@____.com

We have a Canon HG10 and LOVE IT! It is Mac-compatible and uses a large hard drive, so no need to worry about pesky disks, etc.

The one I use is a Flip video camera. It is small, it can fit in your purse, it is easy to use, has good software, is easy to e-mail videos or post to a blog. I didn't buy mine so I don't know what they cost but they are sold at Wal-Mart. It has internal memory that hold one hour of recording and then you can transfer to a computer and burn to dvd. You can also view them on your tv. It has a LCD screen to watch what you are recording. The sound and picture is really good. It doesn't have a viewfinder but I find myself not needing one with video. It is small and fun to use! Good luck finding a good one!

We just got a Sony HD camera and we are so happy with it. Only thing is you need a HD TV, but since that is the way the world is going it may be a good idea.

Good luck,
R.

Hi K.,

My in-laws bought us a really nice, compact digital video camera a couple years ago and we never used it. It was hard to remember to get it out and then manipulating the video into a watchable format was a pain.

This last summer, my old digital camera pooped out on me, so I bought a Samsung S860 for $99 and it includes a video recorder. We use it all the time. It's small, compact and I don't have to do anything to the clip except download it with my pictures to my computer. Not to mention the 8 megapixel camera is fantastic.

As a busy mom, I appreciate the dual-purpose and easy to use camera. And I can catch those spontaneous, unplanned moments away from home too since I frequently carry my camera in my purse.

I recently got a sony handycam and I love it! I wish it would've come with the case and the usb cord, but otherwise has been really great for us. My husband is on deployment for 6 months and left when our second son was only a month old so he has missed a lot of milestones. It's helped the distance not feel like so much for all of us, including our 4 year old.