What is the best digital camcorder?What is the differance between 8mm,minidv,tapeless,dvd?Help pleas

I need a camera that I can easily put my videos onto the computer.I don't know anything about the digital camcorders.I have a mini cassette tape camcorder,its time for an upgrade.

The easiest would be to get a camcorder with a hard drive. There are no tapes to worry about, and all you have to do is hook up your camcorder to your computer using a firewire cable. You might want to check if the cable comes with the camcorder because not all of them do. Of course, this way is also the most expensive.

They barely make 8MM, VHS-C, or Hi-8 anymore, so don't even consider those. That leaves you with mini-dv, mini-dvd, and hard drive.

Mini-dv are small tapes that you record on. They are digital quality, so you can download them to your PC, but, you are limited by the length of the tape, which is usually about 60-90 minutes at the best quality.

Mini-DVD is just what it sounds like. It is a mini-DVD that you can just slide into your DVD....in theory. There are compatibily issues with some DVD players, and they don't record as long as mini-dv. They also aren't reusable. Once you record on them, you are done. You would have to get DVD-RAM or DVD-RW to use over and over again. But, to play them in a DVD player you have to finalize the disc. Once you do that, you can't reuse them.

Go with the hard drive camcorders. They are more expensive, but they are easier to use, and you don't have to worry about tapes. And, there are some portable DVD writers that don't need a computer, so you would be able to burn DVDs anywhere. Here's a helpful guide on the different types of recording media.

http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/basics/c...