My buying experience and first impressions
We bought a new digital camcorder for Christmas. It was a spur of the moment purchase, although we had been wanting one for several months. Due to the fact that we were going to be in a hotel on Christmas morning, we moved Christmas morning present festival to Christmas Eve morning. Thus on the afternoon of the 23rd we were reflecting on how this Christmas is the first that our 3 year old daughter really understands what is going to happen as far as Santa, presents, etc. So we thought we should break down and get the camcorder to record the moment.
So I hit the web to search out some buying tips and some reviews since I really know nothing about camcorders or digital photography (since most camcorders have built in still-shot capability) and after an hour headed out to the stores. I was stopping at Wal-Mart for something else and decided to see what they have. Well I think they had 3 units which I don't even think had any labels. Ok, off to Best Buy.....on second thought, they have a small, crowded parking lot and today is going to be mayhem with the amount of people out and about. So I decide to go to Circuit City. Good call - as I pass Best Buy I can see police lights because there was an accident at the entrance to Best Buy's parking lot.
At Circuit City they had a good selection. The problem was that each unit only had about 3 small blurbs as to its features. Not enough to make any kind of informed decision. An example would be "10x zoom". Well, they could have put something more useful in that space considering that same information is emblazoned on the camcorder. So I asked the sales guy if they had something that listed more info on each model. His reply was "our website". Well, that doesn't really help me considering I am standing in the store! As he starts walking away he stops and asks me if I am just shopping or if I wanted to buy something tonight. As my intent was to buy something that night, he led me to one of their computer stations and loaded up their website for me. I browsed that for awhile. It had a decent amount of information on it, but not some of the basic info I was looking for based on the buying guides I reviewed prior to going to the store. For example, very few of the listings specified the CCD size and quantity. This is a major factor in the quality of image you get. Plus I was getting confused because many camcorders on the site stated "web special". Did that mean the price or availability? Anyway, I didn't really feel I had enough info to make a good decision yet. So I called my wife to say I was heading over to Best Buy. She also pointed me to a regional store called American TV & Electronics. I always forget about them. I decided to go there.
American had a larger selection than Circuit City. Their displays had more info on the models, but still not enough for my taste. I spent less than 5 minutes when a salesmen approached to ask if I needed help. So I asked if there was more info on the models. His response: what do you want to know? So I peppered him with questions and he actually knew the answers off the top of his head! Imagine that. And not just for some of the camcorders, but all of them (at least all the ones I asked him about, which was quite a few).
So I ended up with a JVC GR-D94U digital camcorder with 1.33 megapixal still shot. I bought a package deal so I also got a case, extra battery, tapes, a 64MB memory card, tripod, UV lens filter, and probably something else I can't remember right now. The camcorder is very easy to use (being that I have never used one before). Before using it for our "Christmas morning", I only referred to the manual for the setup phase (attaching and charging battery, setting the date and time). It has a full auto mode that takes care of all the details for you, or you can set it to manual and fine-tune all those details to get the best picture. I have since taken some video and still shots, replayed it on tv, recorded it to VHS, recorded video to my computer, and transferred the still shots to my computer. All of this was very simple. At this point I am very satisfied with the camcorder. The only 2 things I wish were a little better are the still shot picture quality (leads me to want a better quality digital camera 
) and the video editing software. The software is probably adequate, but I found the interface a bit unintuitive and I couldn't get the scene transitions to work. Also, there don't seem to be any tools to edit the video; I wanted to attach a frame capture from the video, but I don't think the software is capable of this. So it looks like I need to research some good video software.