CompuServe Messages

David: >One last thing. Several people have told me that when you buy consumer-level equipment, you always end up "paying for it" at some point. Is this true? Are there things about the pro (or prosumer) equipment that make it worth sticking with somehow?< Well, yes & no. The biggest advantage of "pro" equipment is greater flexibility (usually, manual override of your iris, manual control of your white balance, better control of your audio, manual zoom/focus–although that doesn't apply in the case of the 455), although I think the lines are beginning to blur w/better consumer equipment. Of course, that's also the limitation, since greater flexibility means more things you can screw up…<g> The AG-455 is actually from Panasonic's "Pro Line", which isn't professional as much as "prosumer". The Canon L2 and the Sony VX3 are also considered "prosumer" camcorders–none are exactly suitable for over-the-air broadcast, but all are good enough for wedding videos, public access, or low-end industrial & training tapes… My *personal* preference would be for the VX3, since three chips give you a *much* better picture than one does. OTOH, since it has three chips, it's not very good in low light situations–I *think* its minimum lux rating is 21 lux, as opposed to three lux or less for the other two. One question you need to ask yourself when deciding what camcorder to get is is "How often am I gonna haul this *furshlugginger* thing around?". My original camcorder was an RCA CC-360 S-VHS camcorder and, after the initial attraction was over, I found myself VERY reluctant to take it w/me anywhere since it was so large and unwieldy. OTOH, when I had access to Sony's TR-200 Hi8 camcorder a few years back (I was reviewing it around Christmas time for the now-defunct VIDEO SHOPPER), I fell in love w/the small size (despite the only fair picture) and did a *great* deal of shooting w/it (some of which I still use as stock footage). I can't say I was that enamored of the L2, though–I found the design unwieldy and the ability to swap lenses to be a deuced inconvenience, frankly… As for your editing concerns, I've always had reasonably good luck editing Hi8 to S-VHS. Up to a point, you can always use your camcorder as your playback deck (I wouldn't recommend it if you do a *lot* of editing, though), and I believe both the VX3 and the L2 come w/LANC edit controller protocol (Sony makes an S-VHS VCR that also uses LANC–don't know the number, offhand). If you want to use Panasonic's AG-1970, be advised it uses a different protocol from LANC–but since most third-party edit controllers can read and translate both protocols, you'll still be able to edit using them… BTW, I'm w/Zeddock–I'd *hate* to be in your shoes right now! The thing is, it all depends on what fits you best… Best, Tim Liebe