First Time Buyer Help!!

I have been researching camcorders for a month now and can't seem to make a decision. My wife and I are getting ready to have a kid and I want to people to record lots of footage and have it look nice.
I have noticed two cameras always coming up in my search the Panasonic HDC-TM700 and the Canon Vixia HF S21. Are these cameras too much for me for my first time. I have a new computer Intel I5 Processor and have read some things that a lot of computers can't handle the TM700 60p footage. This worries me. I also want to burn DVD's of our footage to play on my PS3 with the best quality I can.
Basically I am looking for some guidance. Any suggestions are these two the best or should I go with something else? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

camera81 wrote:
I have been researching camcorders for a month now and can't seem to make a decision. My wife and I are getting ready to have a kid and I want to people to record lots of footage and have it look nice.
I have noticed two cameras always coming up in my search the Panasonic HDC-TM700 and the Canon Vixia HF S21. Are these cameras too much for me for my first time. I have a new computer Intel I5 Processor and have read some things that a lot of computers can't handle the TM700 60p footage. This worries me. I also want to burn DVD's of our footage to play on my PS3 with the best quality I can.
Basically I am looking for some guidance. Any suggestions are these two the best or should I go with something else? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
It's hard to go wrong with the Canon Vixias - I have an HF100 and it's great.
I can't remember why I chose it over Panny back then - I THINK (but am not sure) that the Pannys in that price range didn't have an external microphone input, but am not sure about that.  You WANT an external mic input!
Also make sure to check to make sure that the price difference between an S200 and S21 isn't more than the cost of the same amount of memory in SDHC cards.  At the time I bought my HF100, the HF10 was a BAD choice - it was $50-100 more, when it would cost <$20 to buy an SDHC with the same capacity.
AVCHD is in general pretty difficult to play back, but an i5 should have enough CPU oomph and a new enough GPU to play it back.  Editing AVCHD footage is going to be unpleasant for a long time since that can't be GPU accelerated easily.
The PS3 is an amazing playback machine.  You can put AVCHD memory cards into a USB SDHC reader and the PS3 will play it back directly!  You will be very limited as to how much footage you can burn to a DVD - A DVD containing a Blu-Ray file structure (needed for HD quality) will only hold 30 minutes or so of video.  To put more on a disc you'll need a BD-R drive.
(As a reference, a 16GB SDHC card in my HF100 holds about 2 hours of video.  The HF200/S200 record at a slightly higher bitrate so will be less time in the same space.  A DVD can only hold 4.7 GB.)
*disclaimer* I am not now, nor have I ever been, an employee of Best Buy, Geek Squad, nor of any of their affiliate, parent, or subsidiary companies.

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