Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

We are looking at getting a new video camera & they have DV, HDV, Mini-DV, Flash!!!
So many choices.
Anybody have thier favourites or advice?

Re: Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

You're going to buy a video camera?... But then what will you watch the videos on brother? :lol

-Bro. Alex

Re: Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

Re: Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

Depends on your needs. If it's for home use with basic editing needs, then hard drive or flash are very convenient. They automatically create mpeg files which are highly compressed and ready for distribution right away.

If you plan to use it for higher-end productions, I'd still recommend DV tape which records in a more lossless format - but requires capturing through Firewire to a computer.

What I don't like are dvd cameras. Highly compressed and small capacity.

Re: Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

Also - regarding HD or SD. Depends on how you plan to use it. It's always good to start with a higher resolution no matter what you plan to do, so HD is always my preference. But, it may not be worth the extra cost to you.

Re: Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

Fritz, actually manufacturers are making better AVCHD camcorders that record to SD or CF cards. If the MBPS is high enough then the more efficicient encoding of MPEG4 in these cameras vs. the MPEG2 coding for HDV makes up the difference in quality.

Ron are you wanting to go standard definition or high definition? Once you see High Def you won't want to go back but that will only benefit you if you have a high def Tv...er....monitor.

I have about a two year old Canon HV30 HDV camera that records high def to DV tape in the MPEG2 format and then two Sony V1U professional cameras of the same format for Wedding & Event videography. I bought the V1's just over a year ago and if I were going to buy today I would probably buy the new Pansonic HMC-150 that records MPEG4 to secure digital cards. That is the prosumer version of the AVCHD format but there are consumer versions just out that are also very good quality and incredibly convenient for editing since you just pop the SD card into your computer's card reader and transfer the files at a high speed rather than having to play a tape back at real speed to transfer to a computer editing system.

Re: Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

The Canon VIXIA HF20 would be a good choice of a High Def AVCHD camcorder that has both a 32 gig built in hard drive and records to SDHC cards.

I think Panasonic also recently came out with some very good AVCHD consumer camcorders. The key in AVCHD HD is to look for MBPS around 24. The older cameras were only 13-17 MBPS max and had some artifacting because they were not fast enough.

Re: Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

Re: Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

On our 48" big screen in the living room!:D

Re: Considering Buying A Video Camera
 

I don't think I have anything that is HI DEF, I am hard of hearing at times!:D