LaxTV Forums | A Forum About The MCLA

What is a good video camera these days for taping games? One that will have enough memory and enough battery to catch the whole game? I am looking to buy one and need some help. Would greatly appreciate. Who does everyone use?

Mini dv camcorders are the best way to go these days for both $ and quality. Both Sony and Canon have a couple for around $349 to $400. You really don't need to spend more than that.

They use a digital tape that can hold an hours worth of film. So if you start stop with the whistle you can pretty much get a whole game, but it is better to have two tapes. The batteries that come with them last around an hour, so you will want to get a bigger battery. The batteries cost about $60 to $70 for a 2 and a half hour battery.

With the Mini dv you can plug it into a t.v. to view your tape, into a vcr to copy it to vhs, or the best thing is to hook it up to your computer via firewire cable and copy it to hard drive. From there you can edit and burn to DVD.

I work at Best Buy in the Digital Camera/Camcorder department, so if you have any other questions just post them up.

Thanks a lot. I was actually looking at the mini dv. I didn't know what the quality was like. I saw they had 90min tapes. That helps alot. Thanks.

I picked up a used one on ebay with a WA lens for about $150. Now i just need to get a better computer to burn dvds.

We use a Canon ZR series, and it is a mini-dv. The 60 minute tape is perfect for the game, just put the camera into LP, and you get about 80 minutes. Not that Sony makes a bad camera, but comparable Canon products will typically have a better lense.

I just bought a Sony DCR-HC42 Digital Video Camera Recorder that has a Carl Zeiss 12 x Optical, 480 x Digital lens. With the optical zoom midway, it captures the area from the end line to about the 40, so you can record a play as it is setting up and still see the players numbers (on playback). With it zoomed (optical) all the way in, I can pick up the ball and sticks on the face-off to see a players face-off technique (I am recording from the booth). It uses the Mini Digital Video Cassette which, on Long Play, records an hour and a half. You can record on wide screen (16:9) or regular (4:3) depending on whether you have a wide screen TV or regular. It really looks great on a 6’ hidef TV. It records great under a verity of field lights. I use a tripod but it has stabilization for hand held recording. It comes with cables so you can hook it to your TV through 3 RCA plugs, AC adapter and a USB cable for hooking it up to your computer. You can see all about it n-line through Circuit City. Don’t get the mini DVD because it only records 25 minutes of play.

^ that camera should run around $499 and your forgot to mention the touch screen LCD.

Yes, the touch screen, for menu items and record and playback, is much better than the old wheel that you have to scroll through everything to find. I have fat fingers and can still manipulate the touch screen buttons.