Hi All,

I work in an educational establishment and am looking to buy some HD camcorders for student use. I own a Canon XH-A1 and Sony HDR-HC3 but am a bit out of touch with the latest consumer camcorder models. Would prefer a tape based system (though not essential) as it's easiest for students to keep their footage and ideally would like a mic inputs as sound is very important - the courses are more music / sound based than video in fact so another priority is ease of use. As is robustness as they are likely to take a bit of abuse! Editing is no problem as we have the latest macs.

So if anyone could name their favourite bit of kit I'd be grateful (budget needs to be around the £300-500 range).

Geoff

In that price range, and assuming you're happy with your HC3s, I'd look at a bunch of HC7s or 9s, both of which come with mic inputs are are simple to use.... almost foolproof, but still with a degree of manual control.