Best digital movie cam under $200.00? New or used

targa911S · 01-01-2009, 07:29 AM

Anybody have any experience with the new digital movie cams? What is best, direct to disc, mini dvd, DV tape? I want to get one but I want to stay on the cheap, so used or refurb is ok. I really don't want to spend over $200.00.

gassy · 01-01-2009, 07:49 AM

get a flip--no frills and they're great.

http://www.theflip.com/

TerryH · TerryH's Garage

CR considers the Canon ZR900 a best buy. It's a mini DV and about $225 new. The better cameras are HD and are closer to $1000.

jtfreels · 01-01-2009, 06:25 PM

get a flip. Easy to use, looks good on TV. You can edit on PC/Mac. You can get the 30 minute version for about $100.

porsche4life · porsche4life's Garage

I looked at the flip but did not like the short vid length. I picked a sanyo CG9 for about 240 and it is one heck of a camera. Here are my vids from several concerts. Obvioulst a little grainy due to compression by youtube.

Here is the page about the camera.

Only issue I have is that it saves the vids as an MPEG4 file and windows movie maker wont edit them. It does use SDHC cards so the memory is almost endless. Battery life not so much. But extra batteries aren't that much and they last about an hour shooting continuously.