Back online, sort of.

My motherboard went tits up a week-plus ago so I had a difficult decision to make. Pay about $200-$300 for a new mobo/powersupply and/or RAM.. or just bite the bullet and get mostly all-new guts for a new machine. So, knowing that I *should* be able to sell my Rambus on newegg or pricewatch or whatever at a decent price (as the damned things are rediculously expensive anyway).. the $400-$600 I'll get from the sale of my old RAM will hopefully offset the $850 I just spent on new components. But, for my trouble, I'm now the proud owner of a brand new AMD 3800 dual core, 2gig Corsair RAM monster machine. Yay, me.


Regarding cameras/camcorders: The major difference you'll find is that the digital camcorder provides a LOT more recording time, at a much better quality/resolution/sound-capture than a digital camera.. BUT they usually are fairly crappy for taking photos. Whereas.. digital cameras (the right ones, anyway) are great for photos, and vary greatly in their ability to capture video. I finally settled on our Fujifilm S7000 camera because it provided the best mix of amateur/pro camera abilities along with 30 frames per second motion capture. If you get a digital camera, beware their ability to capture motion but only at a reduced frame rate. You'll be very unhappy with the motion capture at anything below 24fps. The plus to using our digital camera (mini-SLR) for motion capture is that it automatically stores video as AVI, and it's as simple as plugging in the USB cord to transfer it over to our computer. The minus is that the sound capture is a little bit limited (microphone is an "area" mic, on the side of the camera).. and you can't change the zoom while it is recording, and it has no on-board lighting for video.

Oh, the other thing to make sure of is the resolution at which the camera records motion-capture. Some cameras will allow 24+ fps but only if you select the smallest available capture size.. (meh)

So, I guess it depends on what you need it to do for you, and how much you want to spend, and how much you care about the ability to take quality still photos as well.