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Who makes better camcorders, Sony or Canon?

Also which brand are more compatible with mac but in particular FINAL CUT PRO?
Thankyou everyone for your answers, my budget is between £1000 and £1600, and i am probably looking at dv tape, with HD capability. The "top handle" style camera not the handycam.

Public Comments

1. sony of course.

2. you may want to look at the "panasonic" range
for value for money and compatibility

3. SONY! Always use sony, never had problems.

4. Both companies' camcorders are equally "compatible". The difference is the storage media and the related file formats.

ALL miniDV tape based camcorders will connect to a computer (including your Mac) using Firewire (also known as i.LINK, IEEE1394a and DV). You will need a 4-pin to 6-pin firewire cable. All Macs made in the last 10 years or so have a Firewire 400 port. The only exception is the MacBook Air. Standard definition (DV) will transfer to iMovie or FinalCut - any version. High Definition (HDV) may require you to do a custom install of the "Apple Intermediate Codec" - it is a QuickTime component and is not reulerly a standard part of the system installation when the Mac comes from the factory.

Internal hard drive hard disc drive (HDD) and flash memory consumer camcorders save files - generally - in the same format. DV is a highly compressed MPEG2 which you need to convert using StreamClip. AVCHD is a highly compressed high definition video file (MTS - MT2S) that only the most current version of iMovie08 or FinalCut Express 4 or FinalCut Pro2 - running on an Intel Mac - can deal with.

DVD based camcorders barely make good doorstops, so don't even bother. HDD camcorders have problems with vibration (crown noise, engines, loud bands - amplified or not) and high altitude (over ~9,800 feet) and data recovery on a broken camcorder before video data file transfer can be a challenge.

Since you did not tell us your budget or what you think you might be captuing to video, it is tough to make a recommendation, but here's a short list to get started:

Low: Canon ZR900, ZR930
Medium: Canon HV20, Sony HDR-HC9
High: Sony HVR-A1
Really High: Canon XHA1, Sony HDR-FX1000

And it gets more expensive from here... bigger lenses, bigger imaging chips, XLR mic connectors, easy to access manual controls... more features.

5. I think Sony's Camcorders are better. They are simple but have good quality to them. Also they arn't very expensive at a mid level price range.