DV Camcorders, CCD's, and Head Cams

[TheDuk]

I'm a whitewater kayaker and I plan on picking up a head cam soon (most likely from bulletcam.com).

My main question is, if I have an external video input (in this case, the head cam), does the quality of the CCD on the DV camcorder itself really matter?

I figured I'd pick up the cheapest Mini DV camcorder that I can find that has AV input, and just use that in the waterproof case along with the head cam, that way if I end up breaking the camcorder, I won't feel so bad.

Thanks for the help!

[Gary Sheynkman]

CCD (Charged Couple Device) is the actuall circuitry that captures the image. I think your concern should be with the quality of the input and writing head of the camcorder itself. Although I am not the most knowledgeble person here but I would say that you do not need an expensive camera. I reccomend the canon ZR series...they are compact and have pretty good quality video for the price you are paying

So in short: no you dont need a good quality camera

Best of luck.
G-Unit :roll:

[Suhit Gupta]

AFAICT from bulletcam.com's website, their "How It Works (http://www.bulletcam.com/how-it-works.htm)" says that the output from the helmet mounted camera goes to your camera over the analog input. So, if I understand this correctly, the CCD of your DV camera (or analog camera for that matter) will have no effect on the image quality. The image is being camptured by your helmet mounted camera. So you are right in basically buying a camera that is cheap and won't cause you much heart ache if it breaks. Just my $0.02.

Suhit