Camcorders forum: help buying camcorder to tape disabled daughter

You will probably want to keep this very simple for them so they will be more likely to tape your daughter more often. I would recommend just having them tape your daughter and then sending you the tape. This can be done rather cheaply by getting an older format camcorder, VHS-C for example. Then all you need is an adaptor (Amazon still sells them) so when you get the tape in the mail you place it in the adaptor and watch it on your VCR. If you go with the two newer formats it gets a lot more expensive. You could buy a DVD camcorder but that is an expensive camcorder and so are the DVD's. If you buy a Mini DV the camcorder would be expensive and no adaptor is available or ever will be available because the format is not compatible (digital vs. analog).
You might want to try E-bay because people are upgrading to newer format camcorders and lots of good deals can be found. Just buy lots of tapes because the format is being discontinued. FYI the tapes are rerecordable.
Hope this helps.

Look here. John

http://www.jvc.com/product.jsp?productId=PRD1202000&pathId=25

Mini DV can be played from the camcorder or it can be downloaded onto a computer. Once on the computer you can burn a DVD. With a DVD camcorder all you need to do is own a DVD player that can play the format of the DVD's. DVD camcorders have two different formats; DVD-R/RW and DVD RAM. DVD-R/RW is the most compatible with today's DVD players. So all you would need to purchase are the DVD's (check prices) and make sure that they are compatible with your new DVD player. It is also important to note that the DVD's can only hold about 35 minuets of video while mini DV can hold an hour (or more).
So, if you want to go cheap, easy to do (but going out of production) the old VHS-C would do it. If you want to play on your DVD player (which is digital), and easy to do (but more expensive) DVD-R/RW is the way to go. I really doubt they would be willing to burn a mini DV to DVD for you so you would need to buy a camera just to play the tape or download it to your computer, then you would need to have the software and a DVD burner to burn it to a DVD to view on your DVD player.