hi, I'm new. I been wanting to make films for as long as I can remember but never had anyone to make them with. I've found some people to wrok with the only probelm is the camcorder. We have a really old one so it doesn't connect to the computer for editing. I really don't know anything about camcorders. could anyone give me some info, like, should I buy a new one or another option to edit? If I should buy a new one, what kind should I get, etc? is there any webiste that could give me info on camcorders? thanks!

camcorderinfo.com

Some great stuff there.

excellent! thanks! what camcorder do you recommend?

There's a few options for you. Since your camera is highly unlikely to be minidv, then it's analog. In that case to capture from your camera to computer you need something such as dazzle or a video capture card. ($50 on up, about $200 for something decent). You'll need a fairly good computer to capture the video from your capture device, because if your comp is slow, it'll drop frames which = crappy video. Also editing takes a fairly good computer, unless you want to spend an hour editing like a 20 second clip. Or if you are looking to buy a new camera, get a minidv camera. It allows you to hook it up directly to your computer through firewire (some have usb support also). The camera is digital, it transfers it digitally, and the it's on your computer digitally, which means it's always the same quality as the original, until you put it on your computer and compress it. So with minidv you don't lose quality like you do with analog video. No lost frames, no crappy video look. Minidv cams are more expensive, but you get what you pay for. I don't know how much more I can help you, and hope someone else comes along to tell you more.