Best camcorder for Mac

[sushilharish]

Hi All,

Helping a friend to post this in the forum.

My friend is interested in buying a camcorder and the most important feature he is looking at is the compatibility with his Mac Book Pro 13'.
His budget is around 500 SGD.

He was thinking either Sony Bloggie HD CM5 or Xacti CG20.

Can anyone kindly advise which is a better camcorder or any others which is within this budget and mac compatible?

Seriously appreciate all your feedback. Thank you all.

 

[Headshotzx]

All cameras are mac compatible :sweat:

 

[azman]

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Hi Sushilharish,

Just to add on a bit.

If the camcorder records on cards, then you can transfer the footage to the Mac using USB or via a card-reader.

However, if the camcorder records on tapes, most likely you will have to stream the footage into the Mac using a FireWire cable. Therefore, you need to find out whether the FireWire port on your friend's Mac is compatible to the FireWire port on the camcorder.

But if I'm not mistaken, both the camcorders you listed use cards to record footages.
Therefore, no problem
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[sushilharish]

Ok. Thanks for the advise.
Not too sure what format these camcorder records the clips. I mean in mpeg2 or 4 or any other.

Does that MAC necessarily need any software to convert the recorded files or can he straight away transfer them on imovie and compile the clips?

 

[azman]

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Good point.

I think this link can help you with the info you seek. It lists down all the camcorders that are compatible with iMovie'09, some with limitations.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3290
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[sushilharish]

Thanks for this link.
I think my friend had this link from apple some time ago when he called for help.

But both the modes he listed aren't listed on the list under PAL. Have u known anyone who has user these models with the MAC?

 

[azman]

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Unfortunately I do not know anyone who uses those 2 models you mentioned.

However, I have 2 cameras that are also not on the list but iMovie'09 was able to recognise them. One is the Nikon D90 which records in AVI format and the other is the Panasonic AG-HMC152 which records in AVCHD.

While writing this, I did a check on Sanyo and Sony website. Both the models records in MP4

Perhaps both models are supported by iMovie'09 but they are not yet added to the list ?

It would be good if you or your friend can call up Sony and Sanyo service support. I think they may be able to give you a more concrete answer.
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[sushilharish]

Mate, really appreciate for going that extra mile to find the details.

I use a 60d Canon and it had a similar story like ur NIKON. I think my friend is concerned abt the format these camcorder record the clips. He had difficulty in converting his earlier clips which were mpeg2 format. The imovie used to read the clips, but had problems in compiling all the clips and then burn it on a cd or dvd which would be played on a Windows OS or tv.