Re: Camcorder?

Hi Sara D

I have a several year old Sony Handicam TRV-33. I could not see paying more
for a housing than for the camera, so I copied the plans from Paul's
homemade housing here:

http://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/personal/pdh/housing/

Took the plans to a plastics fabricator and he built it for about $100. You
can contact Paul in Great Britain, though the site, and he can make you one
for $300, USA, or so, plus shipping. I have made four dives with it and
even took it down to 85 feet. I am actually glad that I did this, as I will
be getting a consumer HD camcorder and it will fit in my housing, too, so I
don't have to buy a another specialized housing and it is not obsolete.
There is risk involved, your housing could leak and there was no guarantee
from my plastics fabricator as he just built what was on the plans. After
the housing was finished, I put it empty into the tub in my basement to
check for water tightness. It held, so I took it to our park's swimming
pool deep end and tested it empty first. As it held, I put the camcorder in
and tried it. Here I discovered that it was way too boyant, so I bought a
few weight pouches, slid them under the tray, and everything was fine.
There is no external controls so I get everything ready, wait until it's
time to get in the water, and turn the camera on. I can get one hour's
worth of video on the DV tape and that is okay as my dives last less than
that. I see that JVC has camcorders that have hard drives, some with big
ones, and you can get a couple hours of video on there. Problem with that
though, if you make a couple of dives, you use up the hard drive space and
that's all there is. I made two dives in one afternoon in Nassau with
Stewart Cove's and just swapped the DV tape as we went from location to
location. I put the tapes into an otterbox to keep them dry and protect
them as you do not want to take a chance on ruining your valuable footage.
Also, if you are really worried about leaking and ruining your camcorder, I
have seen camcorders as low at $300 at Sams Club. I am sure that they have
no bells and whistles, but I do all my editing on the computer with Pinnacle
software anyway.

An even cheaper way to go, but I have only thought about this and not done
it, is to get the CVS $30 one time use videocamera and a clear Otterbox.
The only problem is, there is only 20 minutes of film time, so turn the
camera on and put it in the Otterbox just before you get into the water. I
think an advantage to this is less bulky. For that matter, my digital still
camera, Sony P-100 can take video to the 1 gig memory card, which is about
40 minutes of video and the custom Sony case was $200. However, the video
quality from the CVS and the P-100 is just not up to the digitial video
camcorder.

Also, I bought a $ 100 Mustek PVR-A1, an MP3 and personal video recorder, as
it fits inside the back of my housing and I found a cable to go from the
camcorder video out to the Mustek PVR-A1 video in. The reason I did his as
I could not see what I was shooting and some shots came out okay, but others
are way off with my point and shoot. With the Mustek, I have a monitor in
the back so I can see what the camera sees and improve my videos.

You can see two of the videos that I somewhat edited at
http://video.google.com and search for James Bond Nassau and Nassau Rock
Wall Dive. Hope this helps, keep in touch and let me know.

"sara D" <dnurse1@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:6285-43A568DE-1196@storefull-3231.bay.webtv.net...
> Hi, Iam thinking of buying a camcorder and then a housing- -Any
> suggestions?
> I know the housing will cost more than the camcorder so a mid -range
> for camecorder 400-800$.
> Thanks
>