Anyone Have a Hard Drive Camcorder?

[ColoradoMom!!]

We need to buy a new camcorder. Anyone have a Hard Drive camcorder? The mini-DV's look good too, but like the idea of not having tapes/disks.
We are looking at the Sony DCRSR40. I've researched reviews/ consumer reports, but want to hear from REAL people. Any other new camcorder advcie would be great.
Thanks!!

 

[bcvprincesses]

We just bought the Sony DCRSR80 on Sat and used it yesterday at my dd's gymnastics meet and I love it. It is so nice not having to mess with dvd'd or tapes. We have a friend that has had it for about one month and loves it too. I wish I could help you more.

 

[DisneyDmbNut]

I waas all set to buy a HD camcorder when my very good friend who is an expert at video told me not to get the HD..the mini DV was they way to go..easier to edit...and such..yes the tapes are a hassle, but they are easier to cut than the HD or the mini DVD

 

[AshAlytwins]

Oh my...I strongly disagree with the post above....we love our hard drive cancorder....we can record up 75 hours before downloading. It is so simple to download and edit and very small and easy to handle. i love not worrying about tapes either. Go for it...you will love it!!!!!

 

[jrose529]

Oh my...I strongly disagree with the post above....we love our hard drive cancorder....we can record up 75 hours before downloading. It is so simple to download and edit and very small and easy to handle. i love not worrying about tapes either. Go for it...you will love it!!!!!

I agree. I bought a mini DV and returned it a few days later for a JVC HD back in May. I love not having tapes. It also downloads so quickly. It's been great. I would say go for it!

 

[donaldduck1967]

I don't have a hd Camcorder but i would like to make a comment. Hard drives can AND will go bad. Let's just say you are on the last day of a 10 day trip to WDW and the HD goes bad. You run the risk of losing all your vacation video. Now if you use MiniDV and a tape goes bad you only lose those 60 or 90 mins. Thats the main reason I stayed away from HD camcorders and also the same reason I buy many 1gb CF cards for my Digital Camera instead of 1 big card. Remembet this is only my opinion you need to decide whats best for you.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

The mini-DV's look good too, but like the idea of not having tapes/disks.

Mini-DV is tape. A mini-DV is one of those little tapes used in most new camcorders.

Let's just say you are on the last day of a 10 day trip to WDW and the HD goes bad. You run the risk of losing all your vacation video.

That's true, but I've had very few drives fail on me. I've had lots of problems with tape based camcorders because drop outs, mis-aligned recording heads, chewed up tapes, or tape mechanisms that refuse to load. I guess you are more likely to have a catastrophic loss of an entire trips worth of video on a hard drive based recorder and but will lose more total recording opportunities because of tapes.

You could go with the CF based recorders as a compromise.

the mini DV was they way to go..easier to edit

As far as I understand it, the main difference in editing is the difference in recording format. DV, mini-DV, and Digital8 all record in the DV format, which lightly compresses each frame individually. DVD, CF, and hard disk recorders use MPEG2 (and occasionally MPEG4), which heavily compresses the video using compression techniques that span across multiple frames. Because of this, the computer has to do more work to decode and encode the video, so editing takes longer. It's not really harder in that the same software generally works with all of these formats. It's just slower.

There may also be more generational loss using a MPEG2 or MPEG4, but I guess that would depend on how agressive the compression was. Like JPG, MPEG2 and MPEG4 have variable quality settings.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Interesting topic. I am looking too.

 

[DisneyDmbNut]

Thank you Mark..I was hoping the expert would make it over here to explain what the exact reason was for recommending miniDV tapes..

Dan!! Are you lost?? Never have seen you over here!! LOL

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Don't confuse me with being an expert. I'm just a schmoe that spent a couple of nights on camcorderinfo.com trying to figure out what high-def camcorder to get.

I've hated using tape and I'm not thrilled with my CF camcorder either. In the process of my research, I learned a bit about physical media, recording formats, and editing. In the end I decided to stay richer and unhappy for now and just stick with what I have for a while longer.

 

[rosiejo]

Oh dear - I'm hoping to buy a camcorder next month and I was going to buy a sony handycam that takes the mini discs. I'd love to have a hard drive one as it can store so much but heard they weren't as good quality... now I'm even more confused

 

[Groucho]

I deal with computers for a living and hard drives - ESPECIALLY laptop hard drives and smaller, like you'd find in a camcorder - DO go bad, and they go bad a lot. It is far from uncommon and hard drives rarely fail at a convenient time.

The convenience of a HD camcorder is great but when the hard drive fails, you're facing losing a lot of irreplacable video.

Hard drives generally fail in one of two ways. Sometimes, they drop dead completely - sometimes you'll hear a click-click or clunking noise as the head attemps to move around. In that case, the drive is almost certainly toast and you won't get anything off without sending it to an (extremely expensive) data recovery company. Or, they start developing bad sectors - many drives that seem to be fine actually have a few bad sectors here or there. (It's a good idea to test your drives shortly before the warranty expires, as bad sectors will allow you to have it replaced under warranty.) On a camcorder, bad sectors would probably show up as glitches in the video.

The other thing to keep in mind is the repair cost - a tape-based camcorder has a decent chance of not needing repair for 10, 15, whatever years. The HD camcorder will need the HD replaced in probably less than five (quite possibly after only a few months, even), and if it's out of warranty, you'll obviously need to buy a new HD out of pocket. You may be able to buy a bigger one at that point, but the camcorder may only work with a certain size (or at least a range.)