Minidv camcorder/camera

[thewolfe]

Minidv camcorder/camera

I'm looking for a minidv camcorder that I can use w/ golfswing analysis software. http://www.cswing.com/ and http://www.jcvideo.com/ are a couple software companies I'm looking at.

I would also like it to take digital pics if possible and still stay in my price range which is $400 to $500.

Any ideas, comments or suggestions?

[jcnoernberg]

Check out http://www.cswing.com/equipment.html#video
that page tells you the cameras they recommend. A camera and a 4to6pin firewire cable should be easily obtainable on your budget... check online for a deal on last years models...

[thewolfe]

On the two sites I posted they are talking about the minidv. Is there a reason I have to buy a minidv rather than some other digital camcorder?

[jcnoernberg]

You can use any digital camera that has a firewire port. They were stressing the need for an adjustable shutter speed, which is going to be hard to find on a consumer grade camera. I mean, any camera you buy at circuit city or best buy would work, but if you have a larger budget, you may want to goto a camera store and bring a print out from the above site. That will give you better quality stills when you want to pause the video and analyze a single frame. Ever pause your old VCR? Yeah, the individual frame looks lousy.

The new trend now is flash/mini hard drive based storage. They have compact flash cards that aren't even flash memory, but rather mini multiple GB hard drives, pretty cool stuff. With these, you don't have to "stream" video to your computer, you can just copy it over. They're starting out at like $700usd.

[thewolfe]

Thanks for the info.