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Recommendations

Recommendations:

• After doing a lot of research and testing, I came to the conclusion that Sony and Panasonic are two of the best choices in camcorders.  Sony has a wide variety of camcorders and one should be good for your use.  Sony camcorders are particularly good in low light conditions, which is the condition most of your home movies will be recorded in.  Here are the ones I recommend:
• The Sony TRV33 is a good all around camcorder at a good price. It is a MiniDV camcorder with 690k actual video resolution that also takes 1152x864 resolution still photos.  It also has true 16:9 mode for widescreen video footage.  The Sony TRV22 is also a good option for about $100 less, but it has lower resolution video (nearly 1/2), only 640x480 stills, and an inferior 16:9 mode. On the other hand, it also has a larger lens, which is a good thing.
• If you have some extra money to burn, the Sony TRV70 is an excellent camcorder with 1 MegaPixel video resoltuion (1,080k) and 1600x1200 still photo resolution (about 2 MegaPixels). It also adds a flash for taking still photos.  It also has a larger 1/3.6" CCD.  Despite all these great features, the video recorded by the TRV70 was difficult to distinguish from that recorded by the much cheaper TRV33.  That's why I think the TRV33 is such a great choice!
• Panasonic also makes a great 3 CCD camera at a reasonable price  The Panasonic GS70 is the first 3 CCD camcorder under $1,000.  Sure enough, in my testing it had more accurate color than the Sonys. However, overall detail was on par with the cheaper Sony TRV33.  The still photos from this camcorder are 1280x960, but interpolated to that resolution (the actual pixel data is less than this).  They also have a better, but more expensive 3 CCD camcorder - the PV-DV953.

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