whats the main difference between a dvd camera, that uses dvd's and a camera that uses tapes? is there a big difference in quality? And if you are a person looking to buy a camera with a $400 budge would u get a dvd or or regular?

DVDs are compressed with MPEG2, which is very lossy. MiniDV camcorders use a much better form of compression. This MPEG compression also means that most editing systems will need to convert the footage into another format before being able to edit. This results in more quality loss and more time editing. I would recommend if you want to edit your footage that you get a MiniDV camcorder.

Apart from the quality covered by Edward there is the convenience to think about. If your only goal is to take family video of a holiday etc then the DVD cams have some advantages. My daughter has a Sony 505 and loves it. IT is easy to edit out the takes you don't want, even delete from disk in camera( use RW discs) and finally make a full size DVD to watch. Put the original by. If you want to get fancy then Ulead Moviefactory or Premiere Elements will do a good job editing from the disc. The nice things are that data and time etc are on a Subtitle track so can be called up at any time on a DVD player. Not too easy if you've edited a DV tape and then made a DVD!!!! For a family cam with these feature the newer AVCHD DVD cams may be really good for this purpose. IF your into editing a lot and doing multicam events they are not for you.

Ron Evans

james,

ron and edward hit the nail right on the head... except for the AVCHD DVD cams they wont be within your budget of 400 bucks.

but one thing is record time: mini DVD the most i have seen is 2.8GB (1.4gb per side) you get 30 mins best recording perside on a dub side mini dvd. thats a max of 60mins. also if you go AVCHD thats like 45 mins on a dub sided disk.

Mini DV you can always reuse.

price point: DVD-R 1.4 GB $2.99 (Sony),, DVD-RW 1.4GB $4.99,, DVD-R 2.8GB $11.99 all sony of course...

Mini DV 3 pack 60 min tape $18.99

Hope the helps... i'm not sure if there is anything else that need be talked about.

O just my choice i only use tape..

Good luck on your hunt if you have any more questions just ask i have subscribed and will be happy to help in any way i can, thats why most of us are here.

~Mike

Thank you for the replies I appreciate it. I knew Dvd cameras where more consumer driven, but I wanted to know the specifics regarding quality. I myself use dvcam tapes, and they are far more useful and conveniant then dvd.