Which camcorder?

I Simonius

is tis the right thread to ask this?

As SM now takes video I assume it's ok to ask about video cameras ( called digicams now?)

I need to get one for an event and the only ones that were any good on the market last time I looked were the very expensive Canon ones. But that was like 15 yrs ago!

any suggestiions - no idea of budget yet I need to get some idea of what you get for your money nowadays - experiences anyone?

darkdragon

There are a lot of options and it all depends on these decisions:

1. budget
2. media (hard drive, miniDV tape, solid state/flash, other)
3. size (helmet cam, handycam/palm, small semi-pro, pro, shoulder mount)

once you decide on those 3 things you can narrow down the field. there are thousands of options if you don't narrow down what you need.

also check here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=74766

ziggy53

I Simonius wrote:

is tis the right thread to ask this?

As SM now takes video I assume it's ok to ask about video cameras ( called digicams now?)

I need to get one for an event and the only ones that were any good on the market last time I looked were the very expensive Canon ones. But that was like 15 yrs ago!

any suggestiions - no idea of budget yet I need to get some idea of what you get for your money nowadays - experiences anyone?

I moved this to our "Video" forum.

To answer the question, a "digicam", as far as I know, is still a contraction of the words "digital camera" and still mostly applies to still digital cameras, and usually the smaller simpler cameras at that.

Digital camcorders are available in the following broad formats:

SDV, including DV-mini. This is standard definition digital and is usually recorded onto videotape.

HDV, High Definition Video can be recorded onto videotape, recorded onto hard-drives or recorded to memory cards. All sorts of formats and sub-formats and codecs and "format wrappers" are available.

Some of these systems are easier to convert to the standard used by SmugMug and some are very difficult to edit and convert.

Please tell us how you intend to use the system and we can probably offer more directed responses.

I Simonius

Thanks for the replies - sorry for posting in the wrong place - i looked but somehow completely missed it- DOH!

Just been reading up - looks like miniDV is the only format that is easily editable and editability is something I want, ideally somethig n I can edit in iMovie or iDVD ( never used either yet but theyre free )

I'll be using it to record various local events but might get creative in time.. ( I hope )

ooops just been reading the linked thread- I see miniDV might be very relliable but sloooow to access and edit

darkdragon

I Simonius wrote:

Thanks for the replies - sorry for posting in the wrong place - i looked but somehow completely missed it- DOH!

Just been reading up - looks like miniDV is the only format that is easily editable and editability is something I want, ideally somethig n I can edit in iMovie or iDVD ( never used either yet but theyre free )

I'll be using it to record various local events but might get creative in time.. ( I hope )

ooops just been reading the linked thread- I see miniDV might be very relliable but sloooow to access and edit

i use miniDV and so do a lot of pro video folks. it is still the standard. it is slow to load onto your machine 1:1 (meaning if it is 1 hour of video, will take 1 hour to load it to your mac). Once it is on the hard drive, it is just as quick/slow as anything else.

I have edited video from miniDV in iMovie and it works wonderfully easy. After you edit your movie in iMovie you will import it into iDVD to make DVDs. You can even use GarageBand to make the soundtrack if you want to.


Now you just have to decide how much you are willing to spend and what size camera you want. I'm thinking for what you are using it for you might want to check out the Canon GL2. It is a small but not "consumer small" camera and is 3-chip so you will get better color rendering and overall a better image than the consumer "palmcorder" style. The chip is 1/3" rather than the 1/6" that is standard in most consumer camcorders.

I Simonius

darkdragon wrote:

i use miniDV and so do a lot of pro video folks. it is still the standard. it is slow to load onto your machine 1:1 (meaning if it is 1 hour of video, will take 1 hour to load it to your mac). Once it is on the hard drive, it is just as quick/slow as anything else.

I have edited video from miniDV in iMovie and it works wonderfully easy. After you edit your movie in iMovie you will import it into iDVD to make DVDs. You can even use GarageBand to make the soundtrack if you want to.


Now you just have to decide how much you are willing to spend and what size camera you want. I'm thinking for what you are using it for you might want to check out the Canon GL2. It is a small but not "consumer small" camera and is 3-chip so you will get better color rendering and overall a better image than the consumer "palmcorder" style. The chip is 1/3" rather than the 1/6" that is standard in most consumer camcorders.

thanks fir that DG, I was at college 5 yrs ago using mini DV and they had a suite that could fast forward it but cant remember if it loaded (imported it ) faster or not.
If im going to spend some money though I am concerned about buying old technology but it looks likeMiniDV is still the gold standard.

For convenience though is it much harder to edit off an HD in the camcorder? I just wonder whether theres a HD camcorder that also has 3 chips at a reasonable price, I googled but wee talking hundreds of options!

+ Does iMovie edit of the HD?

darkdragon

I Simonius wrote:

thanks fir that DG, I was at college 5 yrs ago using mini DV and they had a suite that could fast forward it but cant remember if it loaded (imported it ) faster or not.
If im going to spend some money though I am concerned about buying old technology but it looks likeMiniDV is still the gold standard.

For convenience though is it much harder to edit off an HD in the camcorder? I just wonder whether theres a HD camcorder that also has 3 chips at a reasonable price, I googled but wee talking hundreds of options!

+ Does iMovie edit of the HD?

iMovie HD will edit HD, as far as I know. I have not personally edited HD yet though as all my cameras are SD still.

Your machine will need to be more powerful to edit HD versus SD footage, so that is something to keep in mind. I don't know how new your mac is, you will need to make sure it meets the minimum requirements of the software for any HD camera you purchase. From what I have heard there are some incompatibility problems with the hard drive and solid state HD camcorders and it usually requires the software that comes with the camera to get the footage downloaded.

However, like I said - I only use SD miniDV cameras, so I am no expert on the HD side. miniDV is not going away any time soon (no matter what some people say), it will go away eventually just like everything else does in technology. Most likely, at some point, all video gear will move to solid-state memory such as the Panasonic P2 system - that is not affordable yet though for consumers and even hobbiests. Most indie filmmakers can't even afford a P2 system yet.

ziggy53

Hard drive and solid state based camcorders are using much higher compression than standard SD-DV.

SD-DV frames are discrete and that means editing cuts occur at specific frames.

With many of the newer camcorders they use dialects of MPEG compression which are no longer discrete frames but only the changes between frames are saved. In times of rapid motion these formats can exhibit motion compression artifacts where the sound continues but the video pixelates and breaks apart.

Worse, because the frames are no longer discrete, frames have to be synthesized in order to create new frames so that more accurate cuts can be performed. Unfortunately, that requires later recompression leading to data/image loss.

SD-DV, recorded onto DV-mini videotape, keeps each frame discrete and cut edits do not incur any loss whatsoever.

You can get external DV (and HDV) recorders that are hard drive based that allow the recording of SD-DV onto the external drive, effectively using the camcorder and the videotapes as backup. Later, the hard drive can be attached to a computer as external storage and the video can be sourced directly without the need for transfer from tape to computer.

This external drive based technology represents what I think is the very best of all worlds and allows immediate editing with the host computer, as well as providing redundancy for the recorded video which is always a concern.

Note that this technology isn't cheap, but compared to loss of video it's not horrible either:

http://www.videoguys.com/FireStore.html

i_worship_the_King

We use a pair of the drives Ziggy mentioned (FS-4HD) and have great results with them. It should be noted, however, they're far from perfect. For one the battery on the drive will last (at best) 60-90 minutes of clip recording, much less if you're constantly recording (20-30 min.) Additionally, having a firewire cable constantly leading from your camera to the drive can wear out the ports. In fact 2 of the 3 cameras right now are out getting their firewire ports replaced... again. They just simply can't take the strain of movement (we do a lot of hand held work.)

If I could find a solid state solution that didn't compress so much I would be a happy man...