One thing I have been learning, is that some of the cameras out there have proprietary software that makes using them with a Mac/iMovie a right, royal PITA. (Seen some nasty words from windows users about some as well).

Any experiences by Mac users, and vid cam recommendations?

 

What sort of camera are you looking for?

I got myself a compact camcorder. I'd expect any camcorder from a major manufacturer would be Mac Compatible. Anything with a media card you should be able to pull out the card put it in a card reader and drag the files off it. Once you've got the files off, its just a question of translating the file into something iMovie can understand, you can find a codec for a lot of formats, or VLC will understand just about any format.

In other words, I'd be surprised if there were many cameras around which didn't work if you just ignored the crappy proprietary software.

I've got a Panasonic HDC-SD5 camcorder, its pretty small and records HD. It uses SD (or SDHC) cards, its easy to get the files off with a card reader. I use Toast with the BlueRay* extensions to convert the files to Apple Intermediate Codec which iMovie uses for HD editing. iMovie will do the conversion itself, but its quicker to use Toast.

* The AVCHD format the camcorder records in is compatible with the BlueRay format.

 

I don't do BlueRay. Nothing in our house has it. I was looking at a Cannon FS100.

 

I found this useful list:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1014#2

 

Nor do any of my relatives have blueray players who I send home DVDs to.

Gromit, I use my FS100 with my mac quite successfully, but please note that you must use iMovie 08 in order to read the files created by the FS100. iMovie 06 will not recognize the video files. iMovie 09 looks to be a big improvement, but I'll save that rant for another thread.

Using a SD card reader and a cheap from Frys class 6 SD card makes it very quick to get started editing, infinitely faster that my old wait forever mini DV camcorder. You'll be very happy with this setup.

 

Nor do I, but I thought I'd get an HD camera, and that's the format it uses. Its got plenty of resolution so you can downrez it and it still looks great.