Expert: Jim Boyd - 5/14/2009

Question
I've been operating an amateur website and clips4sale studio for a couple of years now (everything produced in CA). I've been shooting with a Canon HV20 and have gotten satisfactory results for web content. I wanna start producing DVD's and was wondering if you had any suggestions on what camcorder to get? I'm on a relatively tight budget, but really wanna shoot in HD. I assume getting a prosumer camcorder is a must? Thanks.

Answer
I am quite fond of the Panasonic AJ-HPX2000 HD cameras. I bought 5 of these when they first hit the market. They sell for around about $30,000 retail...

Unfortunately, because of the cost of equipment, shooting DVD quality HD video is not really something that can be done on a small budget.