Camcorders?!

<p>I've been thinking long and hard about this. Of course, next year I'll (hopefully) be pursuing a BFA in Musical Theater and I thought that a camcorder would be a handy and convenient thing to have to record recitals and just to screw around with. However I don't know which camera, or even type of camera, would be best fit for my needs. </p>

<p>I need something rather cheap. I don't want to go much, if any, over $200.</p>

<p>I need something with good sound so that you can distictly hear the singers/musicians</p>

<p>I need something that quickly and easily puts the video + audio on the computer</p>

<p>And I need something that will take the beating that a college kid will let out.</p>

<p>My family has a MiniDV camcorder that takes really good video and audio, but I HATE that you have to play the video back in real time to put it on the computer. Whenever they record a play or anything of the sort, it takes 3 hours to put it on the computer and another hour and a half to edit and export it. So if there was something that you can just plug in or something like you do with a digital camera, then just copy and paste them onto the computer, that would be ideal.</p>

<p>Thanks so much for the help!
Robert</p>

<p>It's not a camcorder, but I have a digital camera that is pretty good. It's a Kodak Easyshare M753, and it was 130 dollars. It's 7.1 megapixels, and the picture quality is great. It comes in great colors too (mine is purple). The video is not the best, but it gets the job done, and it uploads video and audio quickly, and comes with it's own program to view pictures and video.</p>