I have a client who wants to become the YouTube of his industry, which I think is a fine idea. The question is how to get people who are accustomed to submitting whitepapers and articles in their various areas of expertise to submit vodcasts instead. One idea we’re considering is buying a bunch of low-cost camcorders or webcams that record directly to a digital format and place those in the hands of frequent contributors. Then we simply need to persuade them to video their thinking instead of writing it.

So in an effort to come up with some recommendations, I’ve just done a search on PriceGrabber for “camcorder” under $200 and recording to digital media. I get 34 matches. If I stick with vendors I recognize, the list gets a bit smaller. Then if I do a comparison by reviewer ranking, I get three models:

RCA EZ201 Digital Hard Drive Camcorder
Panasonic SDRS10P1 SD Card Camcorder
Sanyo CG6 Digital Camcorder

Here are my notes from doing a comparison check:

Two, the RCA and Sanyo, can capture at a resolution of VGA quality — 640-x480. The Panasonic is limited to 320×240. Not exactly a resolution to bowl anybody over.

The Panasonic and Sanyo models offer an optical zoom feature. All three offer digital zoom, but that’s always less preferable.

The RCA captures in AVI format, the Panasonic in MPEG-2, and the Sanyo in MPEG-4. Newer — as in MPEG-4 — is almost always better in these matters.

The built-in memory is heftiest with the Panasonic — two gigabytes. The Panasonic and Sanyo also offer the longest warranty, a year vs. 90 days for the RCA model. Also, those same models come with rechargeable batteries and a recharger.

Hmm. The customer reviews are all uniformly positive, though the RCA has more of them — four vs. one for Panasonic and Sanyo. Easy to carry, easy to use, easy to transfer the files onto the PC and inexpensive.

Nothing emerges as a final choice here. In my next entry, I’m going to look at webcam eyeballs to see if there’s a clear winner there.

Posted on March 27th, 2008 by dian