Thinking about a cheapish small HD camcorder for filming the kids etc.

Sanyo VPC-CA9 looks nice, plus its waterproof (http://www.camerabox.co.uk/product.asp?ProductID=8471)

This Toshiba looks reasonable (http://www.probsolvexpress.com/products.asp?partno=PX1488K-1CAM)

Looking to spend less than £250, must be easy to use, reasonable battery lif, small and rugged ish.

Any recommendations?

Ta
Geoff

I just bought the Sanyo VPC-CA9 the other day.
Cost me around £200 including shipping from http://digitalrev.com

No idea if it is any good or not, cos it hasn't arrived yet, but the vids shot with it on YouTube seem decent quality.
Have you read the review of it at:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/camcorders/review/2009/08/22/Sanyo-Xacti-VPC-CA9—Waterproof-Camcorder/p1

Battery life is supposed to be pap though. Less than one hour!
But I just bought two extra batteries for a tenner.

There is a FullHD version available now too, not waterproof though.

This also looked okay:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/camcorders/review/2009/03/14/Panasonic-SDR-SW21-Rugged-Camcorder/p1

More rugged, but no HD filming.

i don't understand why people get HD camcorders. the lenses are plastic rubbish and you just won't benefit from having HD
We're moving over to HD in about 18 months, the cameras are about 25,000 and the equivalent lenses to our SD ones are 15,000ish
For that money you'll notice HD, for £250 get the best SD you can find.

i don't understand why people get HD camcorders. the lenses are plastic rubbish and you just won't benefit from having HD

It's about more pixels, not necessarily the quality of the ones you have.

GrahamS – has it arrived and what do you think of it?

i don't understand why people get HD camcorders. the lenses are plastic rubbish and you just won't benefit from having HD
We're moving over to HD in about 18 months, the cameras are about 25,000 and the equivalent lenses to our SD ones are 15,000ish
For that money you'll notice HD, for £250 get the best SD you can find.

pish, my HD panasonic digi cam takes much better movies than any previous SD digi cams i've had, there is a difference. It might not be equivalent to 25k worth of HD gear that you are upgrading to but its still better than SD on similarly priced consumer camcorders.

Yep. It arrived eventually but not in time for my holiday, so I ended up buying one from Dixons at the airport!

The first one is on sale right now in the classifieds if you're interested (completely unused):
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-waterproof-hd-video-camera-sanyo-xacti-ca9

Seems like a good little camera. It was ideal for me as it was small enough to film with as I boarded along. The waterproofing meant I wasn't worried about it getting covered in snow and the solid-state meant I didn't mind it getting bounced around.

Footage seems good. The 720P stuff is lovely and clear, and I used the lower res fast-framerate mode for filming jumps, tree runs etc

Only real criticism is that the buttons are a little bit fiddly if you have gloves on and you're trying to change mode while boarding. 🙂

I've not edited any of the stuff I shot yet, but I could send you some sample films if it would help.

Sounds good. I'm considering the non waterproof Sanyo VPC-CG10EBK which can be had for £99 from Amazon. Some of the sample videos look incredible.

If you were selling yours for nearer £150 I might be interested, but I realise you'd probably get more for that on eBay.

Get some footage up on vimeo though.

If you were selling yours for nearer £150 I might be interested, but I realise you'd probably get more for that on eBay.

Yeah that's what someone else said, but it's brand new, boxed and unused. You won't find it for less than £205 in the even the cheapest of dodgy looking web shops and even eBay has them for £230. I could drop to £190 but no further.

Don't really want to put vids up publicly on vimeo but I'll send you a rapidshare link if you like (is that email in your profile right?)

geoffj: just emailed you a RapidShare link to a couple of unedited clips from my very dull "what we did on our holidays" vid.