Hey guys,

I'm starting out making videos and I was wondering what should look for in investing in a new camcorder?

I have a very old Sony 8mm camcorder that I can use. All I need to do is invest in a video capture device for my computer in order to tranfer videos from that. That would probably be my cheapest option.

However, is it worth it to invest in a new camera? And what things should I be looking for if that's the case?

To start with, ANY camera is better than just NO camera. You can get a capture card (or USB capture device) to get video from that old camera into the computer.
But in this age of 'digital, pristine quality' 8mm might not be enough anymore.
So MiniDV is probably the way to go. However you don't need anything fancy (for the time being), just a 1-chip 800 kpx camcorder should suit your needs. You can check for nice extra features such as microphone input, headphones output, AV-in, DV-in etc. and it will still be in the $300 - $500 bracket.

What is your budget right now?
And more important, what will you need the eqpt for?

i'm leaning more towards the video capture device for my laptop (I have nice gaming laptop that I use for editting). But if I do need a suitable newer camera, I'm thinking my budget would be around $500

But a camera is around the $300-$500 bracket would be nice.

In other words, cheap is good Don't really want to spend too much money into this yet.

Does your laptop have a firewire socket? The only way to go is MiniDV as it gives the best picture quality over all the other types of camera (DVD, Hard disk, memory card). What spec is your laptop as video needs a lot of 'muscle' to shift video and audio around and allow you to make smooth running films.

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Does your laptop have a firewire socket? The only way to go is MiniDV as it gives the best picture quality over all the other types of camera (DVD, Hard disk, memory card). What spec is your laptop?, as video editing and creation needs a lot of 'muscle' to shift video and audio around and allow you to make smooth running films. You will also need a very large hard disk to store all the files on and as far as I'm aware laptops have tiny harddisks.

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Better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick any day...