We bought a new >Sony DCR-SR62 camcorder today. It’s a really nice, easy-to-use video camera, which uses a 30GB hard disk drive instead of mini-dv tape or mini dvd-r discs to store the captured video. We decided on this model because it is small, can mount as an external HDD on our computers, and has 16:9 widescreen mode, even though we don’t own a widescreen tv yet. It also comes with a little docking station, which charges the camera as well as has a/v hookups to the tv and a USB 2.0 connector. We have an old mini-dv camcorder, but don’t use it so often because of the tapes, and rewinding and messing up the time code. Plus, we never watched any of those tapes, and converting them all to dvd was problematic. The MPEG-2 format movies that the new camera produces will be better for us, because we can just view them on the computer, which is where we do most of our tv viewing (not the kids, tho).

The downside to the HDD-based cameras are that the MPEG-2 quality is not as good as mini-dv. Also, with mini-dv, the tape itself is a solid backup of the source file, which can be stored as-is in a cabinet or box. We thought about this for a bit, but figured the digital files fit in better with the way we handle our photos, so we just went with that. Plus, we can view the digital files on our Philips DVD player if we wanted to.

Anyways, it’s a nice little camera that we are planning on using a lot, as our kids grow up. Our mini-dv cam stayed in the camera cabinet for a while, but this new camera is gonna sit in it’s dock by the tv, fully charged and ready to go!