Hey guys,
I'm looking at getting a camcorder for my birthday at end of this month and am looking for some recomendations.

My budget is around £450

What is best - digital or DVD, Etc.

Thanks for your help.

Ells,

I went through this issue not long ago myself. The unit I chose was the Sony HD-SR7. It's a Hi-Def Camcorder on a very lightweight chassis and records everything on an internal 60 GB HDD instead of using any kind of external DV media.

If I were buying right now, this is the unit I would look at, the Sony HDR-SR12 with 120 GB of recording space.

Check it out here - Sony HDR-SR12

Thanks very much bud, greatly appreciated.

I've looked at so many models now, it's best to get a view from someone who has one.

NP man. I'm a fan of the Sony gear. I'm sure other people have different opinions. I can tell you that it's nice to go to an airshow and not have to worry about running out of recording media. There are a ton of nice accessories for the handycam product line also.

The only downside to the Sony HD camcorders is that they record in a proprietary format, AVCHD. When I bought mine last year there weren't many video editing programs that worked with that format besides Vegas. The software bundled with the camera is somewhat of a joke.

Look around some of the camcorder forums to see what others are saying about the HDR-SR series cameras and how they compare to other units. If you have a good camera shop in your area go take a look at them and ask a ton of questions.

My favorite camera features are it's size, no need for media, excellent recording quality, optical steadycam and ability to take nice still shots and save to a memory stick.

This is the model I use.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/sto ... d=11039255

I do not think recording in HD is a must with a 1000$ camera. When I play back the movie that I recorded on a HD television, there is no pixelation and everything looks clear.

Thanks again guys, very much appreciated.

Ok this weekend I bought the Sony DCR-SR75E for just under 500 pounds (spec below).

I'll have to wait until my brithday on April 28th to play with it but the demo in store was good.

I couldn't afford to get a High Def one, maybe with some more funds saved up later in the year I'll grab one.

http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct. ... Disk+Drive

Up to 41 hours of high quality Standard Definition recording on 60GB hard drive
HYBRID recording on optional Memory Stick for easy sharing
1 megapixel CCD sensor
Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens with 25x optical zoom / 2000x digital zoom
Super SteadyShot for improved still image and video stability, especially in low light
1 megapixel still image recording onto removable Memory Stick
2.7” Wide Hybrid LCD touchscreen
Quick ON button for fast start-up from sleep mode
Face Index and Film Roll Index for quick, easy searches
Zoom microphone for clearer dialogue and sound of foreground subjects
Up to 9 hours STAMINA continuous shooting time (with optional battery)
One Touch Disc Burn and Easy PC back up via USB 2.0 High speed connection (output only) with supplied Handycam Station