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New to iMovie - need Camcorder advice

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Just bought our 2nd Mac - I use a Macbook and the family uses an iMac. We used to take alot of family, event and trip videos and want to start again with a camcorder that is compatible with the iMac and iMovie.

The kids want to incorporate movies into school projects and we want to record some family and sporting events.

Need something that is rugged and easy to use for the camera and with the iMovie software. Looking to spend $500 - $800. Any recommendations?

Thanks.
 
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Where the old Baker farm used to be.
Your Mac's Specs
Apple Black MacBook 2 GB RAM, 2.0 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo Proecessor, 120 GB HD. 30 GB Black iPod Video
If you go to Apple.com, you can see all of the different camcorders they offer and they're all compatible with Mac.
 
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Standard Black MacBook
Any 3CCD MiniDV with a FireWire output would work great. Panasonic, Canon, Sony, JVC, and whoever else you can think of make one.
 
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Mac Pro quad 2.66, 5gb Ram, ATI 512mb X1900 XT, 4x500gb
Go for a Hard Drive camcorder. They are easier to edit with as you don't need to capture the footage. Any HDD camcorder will do if it's just for home movies but as with mini DV try and get 3ccd's or High Def for better image quality and less noise. for $800 you should beable to get a good HDD with 30gb of storage.
 
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Macbook Pro, 2.4Ghz, 15.4", lovin it
You should be a little bit careful with HDD. These cameras save the footage in MPEG2 format, as a .MOD file. Imovie won't recognise this format. You would have to convert it using a program like streamclip (free), but slow.

Having said that I just bought an HDD camera, but it has a firewire DV out on its docking station, which works with imovie. The camera is a JVC GZ-MG155U. I got if off ebay for £270, that's about $535. It's a good piece of kit.

My 2p..... that's about 4c ;)
 

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