The Ultimate Guide for buying a VHS-C Camcorder!
Jun 28 '01 (Updated Jul 06 '01)
The Bottom Line You should go for a Super-VHS-Compact camcorder (S-VHC-C) since it is best value per $, playbacks on normal VCRs, and records at a high quality equivalent to entry digital camcorders.
VHS-Compact (VHS-C) camcorders are the best value per $ paid since their prices are being pushed down due to the new digital camcorders. They are also the best in terms of compatibility since the VHS-C tapes can be viewed on a normal VCR with an adapter which is very convenient. If you do not use your camcorder more than 20 hours/year (which is true for the average person), and if you do not plan to do video editing (download video to your computer and play around with scenes), then a VHS-C camcorder is the best for you, otherwise you might want to consider paying a couple hundred more bucks to get a digital camcorder.
Now that I convinced you that VHS-C camcorders are the best in terms of value/$ and viewing convenience, let me tell you what to look for when buying one.
1. S-VHS-C: You should definitely go for a Super-VHS-Compact camcorder (aka S-VHS-C) since they offer a much more superior picture quality and they almost stand on par with entry level digital camcorders.
2. Recording Speed: The camcorder should support SP (Standard Play), LP (Long Play: double recording time) and EP (Extended Play: Triples recording time)
3. View-finder: This is the eye piece you look through when recording. You should go for a color viewfinder, but if the camera has a color flip-out LCD display then a black and white view finder is good enough.
4. Flip-Out LCD display: This is a small display that flips out of the camera and makes it much more easier for you to see what you are recording and to view playback with others. I recommend that you do get this feature, it makes a huge difference. Most new flip-out displays have a 270 degree rotation allowing you to film from lots of angles which you can not do with the eye-piece. The size of the display should be at least 2.5 inches, but I recommend you go for 3 inches.
5. Battery Life: I recommend that the battery life be at least an hour, but if you have $30 more bucks it is definitely worth it to get a larger 3 hour battery, saves you a lot of frustration if you are on a long vacation and forget to recharge.
6. Image Stabilizer: This is a must have, it makes a lot of difference in the quality of your recording since your hands usually shakes when you are recording and this feature automatically compensates for hand shaking to get a much more stable picture, very cool.
7. Auto Focus: Another must have, the camera on its own adjusts the lens focus to get you a very crisp picture with high detail. Would be nice if the camera also supports a manual focus option since this is very useful if you are doing close-up shots (auto-focus seems to keep going in and out of focus when you are shooting something very close)
8. Zoom: You need to get a minimum 300x digital zoom and 16x lens zoom, but I recommend a 400x digital zoom if you can find it. This lets you shoot right where the action is if you are sitting far up during a football game.
9. Built in light: The camera should have a built in light that turns on automatically when things get dark.
10. Light Sensitivity: The camera should be able to record good pictures in low lighting environments. I recommend getting a camera that can record at below 1 Lux conditions (lux is unit representing amount of light). This is very useful for camp out night filming
11. Shutter Speed: This is how quick the camera takes a picture, so for example a 1/1000 shutter speeds means that the camera takes the picture in 1/1000th of a second, this is very important when recording fast moving objects, like a basketball game, otherwise things will appear blurred. I recommend a shutter speed of 1/2000.
12. S-Video Output: Do not confuse this with the S in Super-VHS. S-Video output is a connector from your camcorder to TV/VCR same as the standard audio-video (AV) output, but S-Video output carrys the color information in two signals instead of one, hence the color representation is much more superior (e.g. try shooting a sheet of paper half red and half blue, then view it on your TV using the normal AV cable, you will see a flicker at the border between the two colors, while if you use S-Video cable the flicker goes away)
13. Other nice to have things: Remote Control, Built-in Digital Camera (very convenient if you forget to take your photo camera with you, allows you to upload pictures to your PC), External Microphone jack, Special Effects (for funny faces, wiping scenes in or fading scenes out), Title Generation (for putting your event title on recorded scene), Animation Time Lapse mode (if you want to make your own Chicken Run movie :) ).
That all said, I did a lot of research to find a camcorder that fits all the above criteria and it came out to be this model, the JVC GR-SXM930U, which costs around $460. The older model of this camera, JVC GR-SX850U, was rated best overall S-VHS-C camcorder by Consumer Reports, and rated the 2nd most reliable camcorder brand after Panasonic. You can read the Consumer Reports review for $2.95 at:
http://shopping.yahoo.com/domain?d=premium/consumerreports&cf=welcomeback
and you can buy this camera at:
http://all.search.shopping.yahoo.com/search/all?P=all&is=1&p=JVC+GR-SXM930U
Good luck with your new camcorder,
-- Amr
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Epinions.com ID:
Awadallah
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Member: Amr Awadallah
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 5 members
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