Hi there from Brazil.

I'm starting film production school this fall in the LA area, and I'm looking into buying a camera.
I'm a newbie, but I've read these here forums extensively, and a question remains.

I'm sure I'll be able to use a good camera from my school for major projects, but I'd like to have my own for minor class projects, and to fiddle around shooting stuff.

Budget: under $1500, better under $1000.

So the question is: is it better to go with a cheap 3CCD like the Panasonic PV-GS400, or with something like a Sony HDR-HC7, that has a large CMOS sensor?

Would you recomend any other camera besides those 2 for this budget?

I wanna have some good manual control and the best picture quality I can with this money.

Thanks!

If you can spend a few extra hundred and wait a few months for THIS , you'll have better manual control than either or those, three 1/5" CCDs and real 1080i with actual square pixels (which seems almost overkill in a cam like this).

If you're on a tighter budget and tighter time frame, I'd say go with the Sony. The HC5 and HC7 are reportedly great steps up in the Sony HD handicam line. That is, provided you have a means to edit 1080i.

hey Harris

I'm waiting till july to buy, so time isn't an issue.
This camera looks amazing.

However
It seems mini-dv is the format used most commonly at undergrad film school.. won't I have a problem (editing, compression) with a camera that records straight to a hard disk?

thanks

Well... I didn't go to film school, but I imagine they use a lot of miniDV tapedecks for capturing footage. But since the JVC uses a standard firewire, it probably shouldn't be an issue. Perhaps someone else can better answer this for you...

According to DV Magazine, Panasonic has one coming out in March, three 1/4" ccd's, 1080i, and it uses SD cards. It's going to come with a 4 GB SD card, which holds about 88 minutes, and it also comes with a portable 40 GB to store footage. All in all it's only going to be $2100! It uses a H.264 based codec that is supposed to be better compression wise than HDV.

Thanks for the heads-up, Heliotrope. Sounds similar to the JVC coming out next month that Harris pointed out.

Only question is, how usable will hard disk or SD cards be at film school, compared to mini-dv? (I'm a complete newb, especially in regards to transfering recordings, editing, software, etc)

And that question depends on the film school. I'm still waiting to hear from Chapman (and hoping like crazy.. getting accepted there would be a life-changing event).
If I don't get in there, I'll decide on LACC, SMC, or Orange Coast, and take it from there.