It looks like I am going to be in the market for a new digital camcorder sooner rather than later. Last night at Kyle’s Orchestra Concert, my digital camcorder started doing funky things. I am not entirely sure what is wrong with it to be perfectly honest with you. I believe that it is the LCD panel on it, but I am not entirely sure if the entire thing is going out behind it. I hope that it will hold out for me to use up the last two mini-DV tapes I just bought. Is that too much to ask?
I would admit to being sad about this if I was sad, but I am not. I knew this day was approaching. The thing is old. I cannot remember exactly when Ben bought it for me, but I vaguely remember it being when Kyle was little. I want to say it was right after we moved into this house actually. It might have been right after we had Lance, I cannot remember exactly. Either way it is old. It is anywhere from 9-12 years old. It has lived a good life and the technology is old and frankly there is new and better out there. For that I am not sad to see it going out. The fact that it is forcing me into a new purchase sooner than I wanted, that I am sad about.
The thing is I do not know what kind of camcorder I want to go with.
I know I want a widescreen one. The one I have does widescreen – sort of. It was pre-widescreen days. It was probably cutting edge technology for its days, but now it is not.
I want something that has a wider angle lens on it. It is nice, but when I sit down to record the kids’ concerts, I want to be able to get the entire stage, not just the narrow portion of that. I have found that rather frustrating.
I want something that will use multiple storage methods. I have liked that with this camcorder, however, the limitation on the secondary storage method maxed out at 128MB or something like that. Yes, we are talking old here! Digital video chews that up really fast!
I would like something that is easier to get off the camera than with the methods it uses. It requires me to use a certain type of Firewire cable. That is fine, but what happens when I can no longer use that type of Firewire cable with my computer? We might be there with my current computer already. I did not think about that. Oh boy. I guess I better go looking for conversion cables. Not cool. Fortunately, those are usually fairly cheap.
A nice amount of optical zoom would be nice, but I am not into all that fancy stuff. I just want to be able to see my kid and see him clearly. I do not need to pan fast or anything like that. Just give me my kid!
So I suppose I need to go shopping around and see what is out there because this camcorder appears to be on its last leg…not sure how much longer it is going to last. I wonder if they make a mini-DV player that will read the tapes? Hmmm.
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