I am in the market to buy a new camcorder any suggestions.whats the difference in all types + the best.?

Answer 1

There are three major types. consumer, prosumer and professional. Consumer is up to $1000 Prosumer is $1000 to $5000 and Profesional can cost - well, I've seen a $50,000 camera.
If you want serious quality but don't need things like sync locks or bnc outputs I'd go with a prosumer camera.
The basic difference on the the first two levels is the amount of CCD chips (CCD chips are what actually capture the image and put it onto tape.) You see, all light is separated into Red Green and Blue, or RGB the cheaper cameras <$1000 only have one CCD chip for all of the colors, so every third pixel is used. red pixel, green pixel, blue pixel. the prosumer and professional cameras have a prism the seperates the colors into the three RGB colors and then have a chip for each one. This sesults in a clearer picture.

More expensive cameras also have bigger and better lenses as well. This means more of an optical zoom (using ground glass) instead of a digital zoom, which also means a clearer picture.

Canon makes some great lower end prosumer stuff, like the GL line as well as upper end prosumer like the XL line. Sony also makes some good cameras, like the DCR-VX2100. But just look for anything that says 3 CCD and you'll be good. I'd rather have a 3CCD hi-8 than a 1 CCD Mini DV.