Community Newsletter: Q&A forum: Need help with camcorder buying decisions

Hi Carol,

Although I'm sorry that your tape camcorder broke, the models available today are so much more portable.

I bought myself a mini-DV tape model for Christmas. As you may have heard, these are being phased out. But, you can still buy ten-packs of the tapes online for under $3.00 per tape. I've bought myself enough to last as long as I'll own the camera. The quality of the movies is great, and these models are more compact than either the hard drive or mini-DVD models.

Whatever you end up buying, have fun.

Regards,
Joe

USB sticks can be pluged in into PC or Camera, and so on. Also printing is very easy.

Sorry for the question but although I am familiar with USB connections on computers, I am not familiar with which camcorders have them. I would be interested in hearing more on this if you don't mind replying.

Thank you for the links but the first link leads to Panasonic's new SD1 HD recorder, which takes SD Flash memory cards, not USB flash drives/cards.
If there is a DV recorder out there that can record to a USB drive, I would really like to hear about it.

That's still not quite what I had in mind when I asked my original question but if the DV camcorders can record to the flash card, then it is probably the next best thing now that you can get 4-8 GB flash cards. My only concern now is how good/poor is the compression used by the cameras (compared to MPEG2/4)

Carol: You are correct that the video recorded on digital tape is the highest quality and the best therefore for editing. In contrast, the video recorded on camcorders with DVD discs is highly compressed - though it is adequate for some home video. New technologies are changing things. For example Blue-ray technology allows much more data to be recorded on a disc and has great potential for HDV camcorders. Also, discs are much more reliable and robust than tape. Many of us have suffered from tape drop out right in the middle of a valuable recording session. As I see it right now, miniDV tape in high density video format is the only choice - but I expect things to change in a year or two.

Personally, I think you're right to skip the hard drive based kind of cams. The biggest drawback to those is space. Very expensive stuff. DVD based cams are cool, but to really make the disc go the distance, the quality would have to be set to sub-optimal, and in my opinon, sucks. Also, DVD based cams automatically convert recordings to MPeg-2, leaving you in the dust as far as editing goes. I think tape is the best way to go. Mini-DV is popular, lasts longer, and should be less expensive than competing HD formats. Most min-DV cams include firewire and/or USB2 ports for outputting the recordings to your PC. A feature on most tape cams that I like is a neat time-stamp feature that helps to cut out unwanted parts during editing, or for re-arranging sequences.

Don`t quite understand your statement that you only get 10 minutes of recording time on one mini DVD. I have a Sony DVD camcorder and I get 30 minutes on one disc. Of course that isn`t the highest resolution, but is certainly acceptable.

Hi, I'd appreciate your input on how you accomplish combining multiple miniDVDs to one standard DVD. Do you combine them, then render them with editing software and burn the DVD, or do you use a different method?

Thanks,

Nancy

The best thing for you to do is to buy an external DVD Writer. I would suggest an HP DVD940e 18X (+/-)R/RW, Double Layer, DVD-RAM with LightScribe USB 2.0 External Super Muti DVD Drive. The best price I found so far for this $66.99 plus $7.64 S&H at Newegg.com. You can also get an internal one which is HP DVD940i 18X Super Multi DVD with LightScribe for $45.99 plus $6.13 S&H also at Newegg.com. Both Writers come with Nero Software. I have an HP Media Center 2005 Desktop that came with the DVD Writer 840b. It works great for me. I like the LightScribe because I don't have to put a Label or handwrite my DVD titles on my discs. I am using Roxio EMC 7.5. I didn't have a problem with this version till I installed Internet Explorer 7 which I fixed by uninstalling it and rolling back to Internet Explorer 6.

There is a program called the Vault which does this nicely and which you can easily find with an internet search.

I use RW discs that I unfinalize and add to.

We got our Sony Hi8 around 1993 and it worked okay until 2002 when a screw in the drive system loosened or broke, and we didn't know the footage we were shooting of my grandson's graduation and some very precious vacation shots were being messed up. No one has been able to salvage the footage for us, and the camera and tape were in service for over 15 months last year as a tech told us he was trying little by little to save things. In the meantime I bought our DVD505. Yes, in some ways the Hi8 is best, but that darned wind/rewind time when reviewing and editing is a pain compared to the instantaneous ease of the DVD camera.

Carol,

First, good luck with making a decision as it isn't easy. As you have already dismissed the idea of going to hard-drive based camcorder I won't bore you with any reasons why you should or shouldn't consider it as option. Instead I'll simply focus on the two formats in which you appear interested.

From what I know from personal experience as well as from what I have read online from a great variety of sources (you can Google/Yahoo a search for comparisons between these two types of camcorders) I would recommend MiniDV over DVD any day of the week. Typically I'm not one to say that older technology is better, but in this instance the more recent technology simply doesn't meet with the same high quality standards that come with MiniDV. You are correct in that MiniDV offers superior quality video due to the use of lower compression than is found with DVD camcorders. In addition, for less compression you also get longer recording times with MiniDV tapes. Factor in the fact that MiniDV tapes are very inexpensive when compared directly to the DVD options (+R, -R, RAM, etc.) it's a win-win situation.

There is also the issue of editing and again it is simpler and easier to edit MiniDV images than those from a DVD. In fact it is my understanding that not all video editing software can work with video recorded directly to DVD media. The true drawback to working with MiniDV tapes is that to transfer them to your computer (where you can capture, edit and burn to DVD a 'produced' product) you must capture the video to the computer at the same rate of speed as the tape was recorded. In other words, 60-minutes of recording takes 60-minutes to transfer to your computer. The good news is that you can walk away from your video capture duties for this time period.

Also, I believe I can state with no small amount of certainty that MiniDV tapes are a far better solution to long-term storage than camcorder-burned DVD media. There is much in the way of information on the internet regarding this matter so please feel free to search for yourself.

However, with the deck stacked against DVD (in my opinion) one must also be cognizant of your intentions with a new camcorder. If you are looking for simply taking video of special occasions and aren't concerned with the notion of making more stylized (i.e. produced [creating credits, titles, adding soundtrack of music, etc.]) movies and aren't concerned with the loss of quality of video, then DVD may be just fine for you. But if you care about how good the video looks and already enjoy making more of your home movies (or think you will in the future) then MiniDV is a better media for you.

In short, the only drawback I know of regarding the use of MiniDV is the time required to transfer video from the tape to your computer. The drawbacks for DVD are higher-than-MiniDV compression (and the artifacts that come with it), the higher cost associated with the DVD media, less recording time even at that lowest settings (lowest compression) and long-term storage/archiving issues.

Best of luck.

Her is my question... since the main drawback to MiniDV is the time, wear-and-tear, and effort it takes to transfer from MiniDV to PC, why hasn't anyone come up with an affordable piece of hardware to make this easier?!?!?

Setting up the camcorder to transfer to PC is a nuisance. You have to attach to AC power because the camcorder's battery probably will not last the 60 minutes it takes to transfer a whole tape. Then hook up the firewire or usb cable. Then find a place to sit the camera with cables coming out of every orifice so that it will remain undisturbed by passing kids or wives on a cleaning binge.

I know I can buy a MiniDV deck but the cheapest will cost more than most MiniDV Camcorders. Or I can buy a cheap camcorder and simply use it for transferring but this is big, bulky, and looks like ... well... you know!

I want to shoot, pull the tape out of the camera, insert it into a piece of hardware (that is permanently integrated with my PC), and simply walk away!

All of that said, am I just missing something? Does such an integrated device exist? And if not, why???