Opinions On Dvd Camcorders Please!

[brute33]

I'm getting married in oct and expecting my first child in jan so i'd like to purchase a camcorder to record all these upcoming important events in my life.

I'm looking to purchase this model from costco:
http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=10301069&whse=BCCA&Ne=4000000&eCat=BCCA|79&N=4008713&Mo=3&No=2&Nr=P_CatalogName:BCCA&cat=4708&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-CA&Sp=C&topnav=

i've read the reviews and most of them are positive. i can buy it at costco for 460$ tax incl. i will also double my warrenty by paying with my costco amex plat. I could also go on ebay and buy an older model for less than half price...

My question is does the dvd burner last a long time? All the reviews were from recent owners that only had it a few days. do dvd camcorders last shorter or longer than other type formats? Thanks in advance.

[gary12]

I hear the service on Samsung camcorders is really terrible. Someone I know bought one Samsung DVD camcorder for his child's birth and was absolutely dissatisfied. At some point, the DVD would not come out of the camcorder, and it was impossible to fix (Samsung customer service agents wre no help at all).

May I suggest a Sony DVD camcorder (http://www.pixideal.ca/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=2666&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=75) instead, I think they will be more reliable.

[Outsider]

I would stay away from DVD camcorders.
We have one at work, and I dread having to use it. It feels so cumbersome to swap disks for every 20 min of video.
Also, (at least on ours) it takes like 10 minutes to "finalize" a disk which essentially closes the session, and writes a Table of contents, so that it's playable in a dvd player.

I also have a personal MiniDV camcorder, which I'm MUCH happier with.

And depending on how much video editing you want to do, the video stream from a MiniDV is of much higher quality then a DVD.

just my $0.02 worth.

[brute33]

[QUOTE=Outsider;5549553]I would stay away from DVD camcorders.
We have one at work, and I dread having to use it. It feels so cumbersome to swap disks for every 20 min of video.
Also, (at least on ours) it takes like 10 minutes to "finalize" a disk which essentially closes the session, and writes a Table of contents, so that it's playable in a dvd player.

how recent is the model? do you remember what brand it is?

I also have a personal MiniDV camcorder, which I'm MUCH happier with.

that is the small cassettes right?

And depending on how much video editing you want to do, the video stream from a MiniDV is of much higher quality then a DVD.

thanks