Hdd, Dvd, Dv and what?

[zorander]

I want to buy a vidio recording device. Camcorder, hand held video thingy, whatever. I'm looking to spend about £400, but I have no idea what is good and what is not so good when it comes to value for money and so on. When it comes to editing the movie, it'll most likely be done on Fedora Core 6 (Linux) although I do also have Windows XP Home.
Do any of you fabulous people have any advice or expertice in this area? Any information you think might be of some help to me in this purchase?

Ta.

[41-Inches-Wide]

Well I use a Sony DCR-TRV30 NTSC (carl zeiss vario sonnar). I bought it for ￥ 141,000 ah i don't know how to convert into dollars but I think it's pretty cheap.
It's amazing for outdoors and just okay for indoors. 1.5 Megapxls, Night vision and 120x digital zoom is pretty much all you need. SONY DCR-VX2100 IS YOUR TICKET TO BADASS VIDEO CAPTURING

I use Final Cut Pro HD when editing films. That's the only software available on the Mac. I think.

[Shoeberto]

A Linux person interested in video? I sense a kindred spirit.

You'll want a firewire card, for sure, if you want your capture to be any good. It's the most widely supported transfer format in DV.

As for programs, Kino is great for capture and Cinelerra for editing. Cinelerra is pretty close to what you'd see in a professional editing program; of course, being open source, it has its shortcomings, but it's surprisingly well-developed for being as free as it is.

I can't give much advice on what kind of camera to get, as I don't really keep up with the market. If you want to really seriously film, though, I'd recommend researching the different specs that are important in cameras (depth of field, zoom type, exposure controls, type of media, etc.) and take some time looking for a good prosumer rig.

I've been doing a fair share of editing on Linux though and I can say it's quite inviting if you're willing to learn (just like anything else on Linux )

[Baloki]

They bought a supurb camera at work for about £200-300, I'll try and have a look at the make and model when I get there, but a trick i would recommend is go into Jessops and try out all the cameras till you find one you like and get them to recommend a few then go find them elsewhere for lots cheaper

[zorander]

!! But that's cheating !!
t into the store to look at their stuff, go the staff involved and what-not, and then left without buying anything, they'd think i'm rude!

[zorander]

Please Excuse the double post.
I went to Jessops and got a nice one for about £400.
I spent the afternoon playing with it and it's editing software and just for fun, came out with the following Video:

The Trio

Thanks for the help/advice ppl!

[dance of the infinity]

Get an HHDDVVDDBVD player. It can also play your MP3s (also known as MP48s) on it. It's from the future, but totally worth obtaining.

(I apologize, I had to. I love Red vs. Blue =D)