Where to buy a secondhand camcorder?

[RobM77]

I've just bought myself a nice looking bullet cam from www.fastfilms.co.uk to record my racing and track day exploits. The guy there said that the best quality in my price range for the recording unit (no more than £200) was to buy a secondhand Sony camcorder with a video input on it (the bullet cam is Sony so there may be compatibility issues and apparently they're the sturdiest make anyway). Easier said than done... Unknown to me, camcorders with inputs are really expensive. Does anyone know where I could buy one second hand? I don't have access to E-Bay as my only web access is at work and E-Bay is blocked here. Friends with web access at home have looked for me on E-Bay but drawn a blank. I was hoping to get something sorted in the next week or so as I've got plenty of stuff booked on track in the coming month or two and wanted to start filming.

Any ideas gratefully received.

[cw42]

E-bay camcorders are running at around £400 for the discontinued SONY HC96e, so that's beyond your budget anyway.
Amazon do some stuff at secondhand prices, but again, over your budget:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-...

One thing to do is this:
Look at fast films page listing all camcorders with digital inputs here: http://www.fastfilms.co.uk/Av%20in%20list.htm
Then do a search on the net from work to see if you can find one from a seller that's not on ebay, or get your mate to search from home for ebay items.
I did that for ages, and when I looked at the cameras I was going to buy, ended up biting the bullet (no pun intended ) and buying the HC96e anyway. It's worth phoning around Jessops and the like, and actually going in Sony shops, as they have a lot of ex display stock at discount prices.
Good luck with your hunt, it's well worth it in the end, and DV tapes are still the best medium for this sort of filming
http://www.scoobysmacs.co.uk/video.asp

[dougc]

Might be worth heading to your local Jessops. A lot of the stores are closing down and they are knocking big chunks off prices to clear stock...

[RobM77]

Thanks for the advice. I've been in my local Jessops, but I'll broaden the search. I think I might have to fork out for that HC96e model, as it seems to be the most common one. The alternative is spending £500+ on a solid state recorder which won't offer any greater quality.