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Question of the Day: Did you buy your last car with cash or on a finance plan?
Sony HDD HD camcorders.
- Thread starter duderoo
- Start date
JohnnyQ
Senior Member
What can you get them for?
i need to upgrade my trusty panasonic gs400 to a hd cam, looked at the sony's, cant make up my mind? pana vs cnon vs sony
been using my gs400 for the past 3 years - 100K% happy
i'm not sure i i'd trust a hdd cam - after 2 odd years usage, do they record sequentially? or what
thats the question i have about the new pana sd cams? has anyone tested them? or the sd cams. gonna have to google the results in a year or so!
maybe its best to stick with hd on dv tapes?
like you, i'm also wondering??
myadsl members - let us know your thoughts, please...
been using my gs400 for the past 3 years - 100K% happy
i'm not sure i i'd trust a hdd cam - after 2 odd years usage, do they record sequentially? or what
thats the question i have about the new pana sd cams? has anyone tested them? or the sd cams. gonna have to google the results in a year or so!
maybe its best to stick with hd on dv tapes?
like you, i'm also wondering??
myadsl members - let us know your thoughts, please...
The SR5 is quite a nice little camera ... so nice features ... but if you want something a bit more advanced such as with a Mic input ... go for the SR7. IMO ... I would personally go for SR5 as its smaller ... cheaper and more than my needs.
Are you planning to edit video ... if you are ... go for a DV Tape ... if not, the HDD will be fine for most people.
What our fellow forumites don't understand
... is that some people just want a simple HD camera with the easiest method of storing and are not too worried about the editing aspect of it.
Unless you really wanna do some big time editing ... the HDD cameras are great ... and you can still add your things like funny transitions, simple effects, etc to make a home movie.
In terms of how long the camera will last ... it has a drop sensor ... so if you drop it ... the camera will automatically lift the pin of the discs, and move the hard drive into the center for maximum protection ... chances are you'll crack the screen, board or lens first.
In any case ... in 4 years time the will probably have 1080P cameras on the market.
Are you planning to edit video ... if you are ... go for a DV Tape ... if not, the HDD will be fine for most people.
What our fellow forumites don't understand
... is that some people just want a simple HD camera with the easiest method of storing and are not too worried about the editing aspect of it.Unless you really wanna do some big time editing ... the HDD cameras are great ... and you can still add your things like funny transitions, simple effects, etc to make a home movie.
In terms of how long the camera will last ... it has a drop sensor ... so if you drop it ... the camera will automatically lift the pin of the discs, and move the hard drive into the center for maximum protection ... chances are you'll crack the screen, board or lens first.
In any case ... in 4 years time the will probably have 1080P cameras on the market.
Not sure why you think it sucks ... it works great ... is easy and quick to transfer to PC ... and if you're not doing some hectic editing ... it is already compressed so you don't have to sit there and wait for it to be compressed to a format suitable for DVD ... all that will happen when you put it on DVD is that is will seperate the video and sound to the two files.
Thanks for the input, so you recon the SR5 is the best option, as I just want something to record to HDD, and I have premiere if I wish to edit the video. Is the 40GB HDD sufficient and what length of movie can you record on it?
marine1
Honorary Master
I agree
arf9999
MyBroadband Member
If you are going to do any serious editing, HDV is a better option atm. HDD cams use AVC compression and it needs serious processing power to edit (also, not many software packages available atm).
However, there is no reason that the footage can't be archived to DVD, so I wouldn't make that the reason for skipping HDD.
However, there is no reason that the footage can't be archived to DVD, so I wouldn't make that the reason for skipping HDD.
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It's already compressed which means it's already crappy. MiniDV tape holds UNCOMPRESSED video footage which means you have a perfect master,
you also have an archival copy you can lock away and recapture if you ever need to.
If you're talking about HDV - MPEG2 compressed video and you want to burn that to a HD-DVD or BD you will need to recompress it to AVC MPEG4 anyway. If you're talking about SD MPEG2, upon editing you will have to re-encode the video for DVD anyway. Both of these processes mean quality loss.
Yes HD camcorders are crappy. Rather record in a uncompressed/semi compressed format, edit, render and re-encode. That's the way its done
with productivity apps.
K
kingrob
Guest
There's a very good review of the latest camcorders in the T3 magazine (one of my favourite mags), get it at CNA for R19.95 .... 
arf9999
MyBroadband Member
Nonsense. MiniDV tape carries two types of info. 1. SD (standard DV) with DV compression (around 5:1 compression ratio, but with separate frame info, despite inter frame compression)
2. HD (HDV) with MPEG2 compression. HDV has much more agressive compression with larger GOP, making editing a bit more complex.
There is no consumer digital format that uses "UNCOMPRESSED" video.
Well no, because HD-DVD and Blu-ray can both contain MPEG2. You'll need to change the container only, not the data.
Yes and no. It largely depends on the quality of your encoder. In any case, you can always archive the data in it's native format after editing.
There are no "uncompressed/semicompressed" formats in the HD space, until you get to HDCAM... and I don't think that budgets will go there...
HDD cameras are not better or worse than HDV cameras in themselves... the difference is mainly the codec used. AVC is much more efficient than MPEG2, but more difficult to decode and with a longer GOP, making editing difficult without fully decompressing.
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For editing I agree with you 100% ... you definately need to go for a HD tape ... unless the only editing you want to do is transitions and text over and cutting out scenes.
The average consumer will not notice the quality difference as they never need the uncompressed master.
Most people are NOT professional video editors, nor do they aspire to be. I work in a camera shop ... and every time I explain to the customer tape is much better as it is uncompressed ... and most people don't want to edit, and want the quickest option. Sure you will still have to change the compression for BD or HD-DVD ... but it will be quicker with the HDD to transfer the file to your HDD then downloading the movie to your PC in real time with your tape.
Also ... most people will not notice any quality difference unless they have a trained eye.
And either way ... when upgrading from SD to HD ... it all looks much better in any case.
You must think of other peoples needs and not just what you need.
If you like to edit your video deeply, go for a tape ... if you are just gonna snip parts you don't want and add transitions ... HDD is more than enough for you.
The average consumer will not notice the quality difference as they never need the uncompressed master.
Most people are NOT professional video editors, nor do they aspire to be. I work in a camera shop ... and every time I explain to the customer tape is much better as it is uncompressed ... and most people don't want to edit, and want the quickest option. Sure you will still have to change the compression for BD or HD-DVD ... but it will be quicker with the HDD to transfer the file to your HDD then downloading the movie to your PC in real time with your tape.
Also ... most people will not notice any quality difference unless they have a trained eye.
And either way ... when upgrading from SD to HD ... it all looks much better in any case.
You must think of other peoples needs and not just what you need.
If you like to edit your video deeply, go for a tape ... if you are just gonna snip parts you don't want and add transitions ... HDD is more than enough for you.
Nonsense eh?
DVCPRO HD, also known as DVCPRO100, which is the format Pansonic uses on it's P2 cards. The Prosumer camcorder HVX200 from Panasonic uses this scheme for full 1920by1080i or p video not 1440by1080 HDV. This format does not use MPEG2. The data rate is 100Mbit/sec. Outside of South Africa, the HVX200 is a pretty common camera used by both ENG and event videographers. You don't need to dish out $25.000 for an HDCAM camcorder.
Obviously this format will become cheaper with successive generations of Panasonic prosumer cameras.
Having native tape backup beats the 'convenience' of recording to a harddrive. The PATA harddrive on the camcorder can achieve a faster rate than capturing from MiniDV tape (3.6MB/sec)? You still need to copy the data from the harddrive to your PC's/Mac's harddisk to edit it.
I must admit that until I get my HVX200 I haven't done any editing in HD.
However, capturing MPEG2 SD with its motion artefacts from high bitrate
DVDs makes the video look bad. The SD DV MiniDV format - even if compressed offers far superior visual quality. Encoder quality has little to do with this. You're loosing far more video with MPEG2 than with DV.
Encoding SD Pal recorded with my AGDVX100 into MPEG2 using Premiere
Pro's or Final Cut Pro's highest quality encoders and then re-editing the
video makes the video look bad, vs doing it natively in DV.
I still think going harddrive based is not ideal. With tape you have a storage format left over for archival. Otherwise you must burn your 14GB worth of
data (60min worth of MiniDV tape) onto a BluRay disk which will set you back a small fortune.
As for MPEG2 on BluRay, I believe that the key format on both HD-DVDs and BD's is h264 AVC MPEG4. MPEG2 was added as sort of a legacy support
as it requires far less processing power to decode.
To each their own. However people who spend $$$ on semi-prosumer
cameras should know that there are industrial ways of doing things.
Tape is an excellent backup format. Unedited video looks like cr@p.
Yes it does. From the perspective of someone, who like you no doubt,
has had to endure the agony of watching unedited peoples' (friends and family) video, I can say that editing your video, ie getting rid of 98%
of what you recorded plus nice music/transitions/colour correction/a few effects make for a far more tolerable experience. Sadly people
on the street fail to realise this. Everyone hates watching others'
home video but if you can spice it up, with relatively cheap tools
(Sony Vegas costs R1000, standard PC) you can really get to
share the love of your home video with your friends and with posterity.
True ... but to cut out scenes and add nice music, transitions etc does not need a raw format ... once you want to start adding effects like motion blur, etc, etc and play with colour correction then yes I agree with you ... but the average consumer never ever does that ... and even so ... for simple effects that the likes of most consumer editing suites give you ... you do not need the raw format. And a lot of people do not really care to store masters ... and if they do ... they generally back it up on their hard drive ... HD Tapes are expensive and most people would reuse them rather than store them.
From what he is saying he needs ... I doubt he will be doing any advanced editing.
I have used a HDD camera to record someone's 21st (They gave me the camera to use) and it wasn't even HD ... was very easy to edit and it still looked great.
For yourself on the other hand, seeing as you like advanced editing, you would be better off with a HD DV Tape.
From what he is saying he needs ... I doubt he will be doing any advanced editing.
I have used a HDD camera to record someone's 21st (They gave me the camera to use) and it wasn't even HD ... was very easy to edit and it still looked great.
For yourself on the other hand, seeing as you like advanced editing, you would be better off with a HD DV Tape.
arf9999
MyBroadband Member
er no.
source: wikipedia
true. but horses for courses - having footage on sd card kinda suffers from the same issue - not to mention that HDD space is cheaper than solid state. Also I don't think you should compare a R12000 camera with one that costs over R40,000 (? I haven't checked on the local price.. might be a bit more.. or slightly less), it is a bit disingenuous. Real comparison should be between P2 and prosumer HDV, or the new PC Express format announced recently. (http://ibc.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=189618)
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arf9999
MyBroadband Member
Make sure that Premiere has the required AVC plug-in... else you're screwed. Or look at purchasing Vegas 10, it has AVC editing capability.