RE: Charging NI-MH and Ni-Cd
You need to make sure that your charger has specific charge settings designed for Nicads and Nimh.
If it doesn't, then do NOT use that charger for that battery.
And balancing has nothing to do with either Nicads nor NimH batteries. Balancing is for Lipos and related chemistries that are designed for super-fast charging. For Nicads and NimH, you're just going to use a pos. and neg. wire to the battery. That's it (unless you want to get into temp. sensing, then there's more to hook up, but not really needed if charging at safe rates).
I wouldn't charge Nicad nor NimH batteries at 1C. Charge Nicads at 10% to 20% of their capacity, and charge NimH batteries at 20% to 40% of their capacity if you want them to last a really long time (like years).
If the application you're using those Nicad and Nimh batteries for requires fast charging to keep the plane (or whatever) going, you should probably stay with Lipos for their ability to fast charge at really high rates.