HD Camcorders?

[AndyJ]

Originally Posted by tazman

Personally i would say go with a MINI DV Hi Def camera as asposed to a HDD one. The reason i say this is that when you have recorded your tape you take it out and put another in. What is recorded onto the tape is HIDEF and will always stay HIDEF.

But when you record onto say HDD it is recorded in HIDEF but you hve to transfere it off the camera at some stage. What is transfered off is not HIDEF, thus you loose the quality, so in reality there is no point in buying a HIDEF HDD camera.

Just my view and opinion.

Gary

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Forgive me for saying this Gary, but this simply isn't the case.

I have recorded 1080i footage on my Sony HD-HDD camera, and pulled the footage off in full HD quality as-is onto both my Mac and PC using iMovie or Sony Vegas.

I have posted said video's on the Dibb.

Perhaps it's some settings you need to tweak sir?
Cheers, AndyJ.

[Andre]

I'm guessing that Gary is saying that, at present, it's not easy to keep archive copies of your hard-drive recorded material in full high-def quality in the same way that you just put your recorded mini-DV tape straight in a cupboard and forget about it until you want it again. With the drive-based systems, you just start filling up more and more hard drive space but have nothing physical to keep - without dropping to down to DVD quality, anyway. Of course, reasonably priced Blu-Ray recorders and discs can't be too far away now, which is the real answer.

Andre

[AndyJ]

Originally Posted by Andre

I'm guessing that Gary is saying that, at present, it's not easy to keep archive copies of your hard-drive recorded material in full high-def quality in the same way that you just put your recorded mini-DV tape straight in a cupboard and forget about it until you want it again. With the drive-based systems, you just start filling up more and more hard drive space but have nothing physical to keep - without dropping to down to DVD quality, anyway. Of course, reasonably priced Blu-Ray recorders and discs can't be too far away now, which is the real answer.

Andre

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That is certainly true mate

I just wanted to ensure that readers know you can get full HiDef footage off if so desired, and therefore it is worth buying a HiDef camcorder.

A.

[susanita]

i'm looking at getting a new camcorder. I'm looking at the sony hdr-sr10e hd hdd camcorder.

Now I was wandering if this is a good camcorder?

Also hopefully someone can answer these questions as I am getting very confused after reading some reviews online.


I would be taking it to florida with me. Now I would transfer any footage filmed each day over to my sony vaio laptop and possibly burn a disc from that. My question is would I be able to transfer the videos from the camcorder - laptop - disc - imac - imovie08.

Would all that be compatible?



Also if i record in hd would i be able to view the footage on a sdtv?

Thanks for any replies!

[tazman]

Hi patrick, No you not got it wrong in that sense. by copying it to your PC with the right bit of software then it is still HIDEF.

I proberbly didnt explain myself very well.

Most people, not all, but most people, when they copy off the HD fotage from their HDD camera will go and put it straight to standard dvd. Oncwe this has been done then you have lost the HIDEF quality. yes it will still be good but not as good as it should be.

The only way to get true HIDEF footage when you copy off your camera is to put it onto a blueray disc (or onto your pc with the right bit of software), but they are still expencive to buy the burner and the blanks are very dear.

By videoing onto HD Mini DV then all the video you have shot is kept in the original HD format and will always be HIDEF. If you want to watch it back then pop the tape in the camera and hook it up to the TV. Easy.

Now going back to the begining here (sorry) and copying your HD footage to a PC is all well and good, but HD footage eats HDD space like there is no tomorrow. And as some people on here were saying that they will copy 8 hours of HD footage off onto their laptop is all well and good but i dont think that a laptop would have that sort of space to store it all and unless you have spent a right ol fortune on the laptop in the first place that it would be upto copying off in HIDEF. it would drop frames left right and centre.

I think that is it.

But I have proberbly forgotten something, so please ask.

Gary

[tazman]

Hi All

Andre has hit my nail on the head. Thank you for that, If I had a brain i would be very very dangerous hehehehehe.

God dont i go round the houses when trying to say something.

And yes, AndyJ. HI Def camcorders are the way to go, the quality is outstanding and the prices have dropped alot over the last year.

Lastly, Sorry if i got anyones backs up, it was not my intention, I thought i was adding a good argument to the chat. BUT, I still stand by my opinion of BUY HD Mini DV.

Cheers
Gary

[Andre]

The only issue I have with mini-DV HD formats is that it's still MPEG2, which should never really have even been considered for HD usage as to get anywhere near decent image quality you need far too much bandwidth. Now if they could save MPEG4 stream data onto a physical media like mini-DV, that would have been a great idea.

Medium term, I think the market will go hard-drive MPEG4 (AVCHD), and longer term will go solid-state MPEG4. I'd like to see the top-end bit available rates raised a bit though to allow for true 1920x1080 50p/60p recording, and would want to see at least 100GB of onboard storage (ideally quite a bit more). BluRay will probably become the archive medium for the time being, but the shocking price of blank discs needs to be addressed first.

Anyway, I think may be is getting a bit techie for a "should I buy camcorder?" thread.

Andre

[Andre]

Originally Posted by tazman

... And as some people on here were saying that they will copy 8 hours of HD footage off onto their laptop is all well and good but i dont think that a laptop would have that sort of space to store it all and unless you have spent a right ol fortune on the laptop in the first place that it would be upto copying off in HIDEF. it would drop frames left right and centre.

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While I agree that most laptops won't have enough spare drive space (I'd want to have a good 100+ GB spare for HD material from a Florida holiday) I don't think you'll see dropped frames. The AVCHD files should be copied faithfully via USB or firewire as long as you've got enough disk space - and once you do run out, they won't be copied at all.

Andre

[Mike_Swannick]

I think Gary has unearthed the real issue for debate here in the HiDef - Hard Disk - Mini DV debate.

Some tech issues that Andre and AndyJ raise are absolute fact like resolution and picture quality of HiDef over Standard Def but the main point of contention (in my opinion) is archiving. Although this wasn't mentioned in the OP it is a significant factor. All these systems will archive their footage in it's true recorded state if done correctly BUT - AT THE MOMENT archiving HDD footage of a HiDef source is likely to require a technical drop in quality (whether you can see that drop on your AV equipment with an upscaler is another thread entirely). Until archiving systems and media (Blu Ray) that can handle this volume of data become as common place as the dual layer DVD re-writer is today - then the camcorder user who would like to retain their footage is limited to the bulk data storage medium that is cost effective now. At ~14Gb per tape at a little over £1.00 each, that is Mini DV. For the future solid state is likely to be the way to go. 16Gb HDSD cards are readily available at about £45 each. These will replace tape and HDD without a doubt. There are a number of low end pro camcorders using this system already. IF you are happy to discarded forever your HDD footage once a finished edited copy is made, then HDD is the way to go. Footage from a finished DVD can be recaptured to be reused in another project but it's not straight forward and you will lose your HiDef quality that is central to this discussion. In your camcorder format decision making process, let me leave you with this question; If in 10 or 15 years time you want to make a compilation clip of your child/children/family/pet dog for a significant event and you've deleted all your unused footage from your HDD camcorder and you didn't make HiDef back ups on BluRay or external HDD because you couldn't afford to, where will you get your footage from?

I will be taking a labelled Mini DV tape of a shelf and reviewing ALL the footage I recorded. For me this is likely to remain the same until BluRay or HDSD becomes the cost effective norm.

Mike.

[Guest]

mike

thats the main reason i will be sticking to mini dv, until the camera packs up and cant get replacements, is i ried easily and quickly to get dvdcam footage,just the disc, onto my pc software and failed, but with the tapes easily done from my library, to make all different types of videos the way i want them..im happy with the clarity of video that i get, i think its brilliantly clear. the one thing i dont like with hdd format is once its off the medium its lost forever