Digital8 Camcorders- Any Good?

[Max Quinn]

Hi, i'm getting myself a camcorder as my old camera (that did both pictures and video) broke and i replaced it with a DSLR so now need something to do videos with.

I've been looking around and the main requirements i have are (other than the obvious things) 16:9 widescreen and a manual focus ring. And i want the body to be long and not very tall rather than high and not long if you get me.

I've been told to look for MiniDV but it seems impossible to get these features in a MiniDV camera without shelling out alot. They all either have one or the other and manual focus rings are generally hard to come by.

But i recently started looking at Digital8 camcorders and i can get everything i wat there for not too much. I was wondering if Digital8 is a positive nono or if it's ok to use? I'm not so worried about size which i'm told is the main downside to them so is it ok to get one?

In particular i've been looking at this one and was thinking of bidding on it tomorow. What do you lot reckon?

Cheers, Max.

Edited November 29, 2006 by rad2themax

[Monkey]

I have a TRV-310E - I think - which is very similar. You learn to love the zoom because modern camcorders seem to top out about 10x.

My only problem is that I have to keep the thing now if I ever want to view what is on the tapes unless I find them all and move them onto DVD or DV tape. I wasn't a "shoot it, transfer it immediately and record over" user.

The main thing I'm wondering is: are you sure it does 16:9 widescreen?

Also, it may be one fromt he time when a camcorder with digital in AND digital out was taxed more than a camcorder with just digital out, so a lot of camcorders just had digital out. Mine does. This is only important if you want to export it, edit it and put the edited result back on your tape.

When you're buying tapes, if you buy Hi8 the 60 minute ones only last 45 minutes in a D8 camcorder. Get Digital8 ones unless you're OK with that.

The ten hour battery is excellent. You'd be using the eyepiece for that length of time. If you used the screen it'd be 2-3 hours

So, just a few things to think about

Edited November 29, 2006 by Monkey

[Max Quinn]

Ok thanks for that, yer the zoom sounds great. And the battery i hadn't really looked into yet but thats amazing! I've tried modern camcorders that barely last 30 minutes with the screen out!

And yer i' more of a transfer it to PC straight away person as it's mainly for intenet videos. I'm not bothered atall about the DV in to be honest but thanks for that . Also our riding footage gets old so quickly that im not too worried about being able to play it on a camcorder in years to come.

Thanks for the info about tapes aswell, i'll see which option works out cheaper for the ammount of time.

The guy on ebay assures me that it does widescreen and i read somewhere else that it does aswell so thats a major plus although for the manual focus and all the other stuff i could bare without that i guess.

Thanks very much for your help, one other question...what's it like to transfer digital 8 to computer? I'm not too knowledgable on how it works with real digital camcorders. :$

Thanks again, Max.

[loffa]

I use a Sony DCR-TRV120E Digi8 cam and I love it. It's not as small as the mini dv cameras, but the battery life is great and it has all the functions you asked for plus many more. For capturing it to the computer I use a firewire, but it also has S-video output and a weird output thing that I don't know the name of but it looks like a 3,5mm stereo output and is used for analog capture or playing it straight to your TV/VCR. The cable that fits in there has RCA connectors on the other end but I'm pretty sure you can get a cable for it that has an usb connector on the other end.

I'd say go for it.

Edited November 29, 2006 by loffa