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DV Camera

pudge on 2003-02-05T01:55:17

I am in the market for a DV camera. I don't really need any extra features, just a very good quality picture, nice interface. And it needs to work well with iMovie. It needs to be less than $2,000, and being small and having a nice long battery life is good. Anyone have recommendations?

My favs

gizmo_mathboy on 2003-02-05T05:29:39

Haven't bought one yet but for around $2k I've like what I've read about:

1) Canon GL-2
    Brother-in-law has a GL-1 and it works much as I expected it would. The GL-2 looks to be an improvement over it. Besides, it a 3 CCD camcorder. It's small without being too small. Haven't used it enough to get a feel for battery life.

2) JVC GR series
    Nice and small and seemed good for the price. Might be on the smallish side.

3) Sony DCR series
    Read enough to pique my interest. They're Sony so that means good but pricey in my book.

I would really like to get a DV camcorder but it's not quite in the budget yet. I have always wanted to see if I was a better writer/director than Tarantino.

Opture 200

ask on 2003-02-06T13:41:49


I bought my girlfriend an Optura 200. I like it, but haven't tried much else. I'd look at the GL-2 too. I choose the Optura because of the smaller size. (I have plenty of camera that I don't carry around because it's too heavy already).

  - ask

Re:Opture 200

pudge on 2003-02-06T14:09:18

Thanks, I've had a few people recommend the Canon Optura 200MC. Currently, it is between that and the Sony PC120BT. I don't need the extra Bluetooth cost, but there are older versions of it that don't have Bluetooth (I don't need to upload images to the web from the camera, or browse the web on the 2.5" screen ...).

Size is important for us too, since we will have one hand on our daughter with the other on the camera ... but most important is good quality video. The Sony costs a bit more, but also has more pixels (1.33 vs. 1.55), more lines (525 vs. 530), etc. So it looks like it might have slightly better (?) quality, but I don't really know. Also, Sony usually has a nicer/easier to use interface. I am going to have to find a place that has both so I can try them out, then go to PriceGrabber and find a cheap place to buy the one we choose. :-)