Camcorder - mini dv's or mini DVD's

[cjstarr]

Looking at the thread Convert mini dv's to DVD, recommendations?
Is Mini DV still the best format to buy when you get a camcorder.
There seems to be a lot of people that have trouble converting the mini DV's to CD or DVD's.
Does anyone think that buying a HD or mini DVD camcorder would be a better option?
Doesn't the HD camcorder record in MPEG?
With the DVD camcorder all you have to do is take the disk from the unit and play it on your DVD player.
Also is it that much harder to edit a DVD disk from a mini DVD camcorder?

 

[photo_chick]

IMO solid state flash memory is the best option if you're shopping for a camcorder. It is fast becoming the industry standard.

Mini DV- it's tape and archaic by today's standards and although you're using a digital camcorder, tape is still analog. Tapes can get eaten, and if you do enough recording you'll have it happen to you. You have to grab the clips when you edit which is really a pain. You take a hit in image quality when you convert from analog to digital. You can't just drop the files on a flash drive and plug it into a TV or other player.

DVD- there are things that can go wonky when they write from problems with the hardware to bad media. The files are not always directly editable so you often end up grabbing the clips like you would with tape. If you have to grab the video you will take a hit in quality. You can't really reuse them easily.

Solid state flash memory (memory cards or built in) - Things can still go wrong, but it's not as likely because there's no moving parts. Video is in clips already and there is no image quality loss. Sometimes because of the codecs you have to convert, but that's usually a one step action and a lot easier than grabbing the video. Digital files do not degrade, though you need to make a backup like you would of your photos.

In this day and age I'd go HD. AVCHD is becoming the standard and you can usually take the clips and play them back on a blu-ray player or on some TV's from a flash drive, disc or over a network. The H.264 compression is also what iPods use.

 

[loveysbydesign]

We have a JVC mini-dv camcorder that we bought in May 2006 and we have had no issues with it whatsoever and it gets used a lot!
That being said I would like to get a camcorder that is a bit smaller and lighter than the one we currently have. I want one that I can still attach a strap to and wear across my body for easy access, but that is not so delicate as to get broken if it gets bumped. I also like that I can just hook the camcorder up to the tv to play the videos for my kids to watch. Can you do that with a flash memory type one?

I did buy my kids Creative Labs Vado camcorder for Christmas(got them for $20 refurbished) and they are great but they don't take a memory card and are pretty thin and delicate.

If anyone could recommend a make and model preferable under $200 that would be great!

 

[photo_chick]

Yes, you can plug most flash memory camcorders right into the TV.

 

[LordAthens]

Mini DV- it's tape and archaic by today's standards and although you're using a digital camcorder, tape is still analog. Tapes can get eaten, and if you do enough recording you'll have it happen to you. You have to grab the clips when you edit which is really a pain. You take a hit in image quality when you convert from analog to digital. You can't just drop the files on a flash drive and plug it into a TV or other playe

Not to be overly pedantic, but tape isn't analog. Tape is a storage medium. The data on the tape is stored as either analog (hasn't been produced in consumer form for years) or digital (such as MiniDV). A camcorder that records in DV format is digital, regardless if it records to tape, flash or DVD directly.

While it's true that converting from A>D or D>A will typically suffer image degradation, this isn't true of MiniDV, since at no point does it ever go analog. It goes from digital tape, over firewire to your harddrive. And I wouldn't say tape is archaic. If you want to go on vacation and not bring a laptop to download your video to every night or spend a fortune on memory cards, tape is a great way to go. MiniDV tapes are incredibly inexpensive. Comparatively, 1.5hrs of FHD video is ~16GB. 16GB memory cards are *way* more expensive than MiniDV tapes.

Otherwise, I absolutely agree with everything else. If you're buying a camcorder today, it's silly not to go with a FullHD camcorder with the way prices are. Get a model that has a memory card slot. It's fine if it has a built in harddrive or onboard flash memory, but get something with an external memory option. It's a real pain when you fill up the harddrive and don't have any options for buying more memory, the only thing you can do is get to a computer and download what you have to free up more memory.

I would highly recommend picking up a model that has optical image stabilization, it makes a world of difference, especially when zoomed in. H264 /AVCHD is the newest technology when it comes to compression, definitely look for that if you're buying a HD model.

There are numerous models of the "same" camera out there, the only difference from one model to another is the amount of memory it comes with, IE the base model comes with no onboard memory, for $100 more you get 16gb, $250 more you get 32gb, etc. Don't buy the most expensive one, memory is a commodity and will come down in price as time goes by. Buy how much memory you need now, a year down the line, buy more if you feel the need. The memory will be half the cost then.

Otherwise, if you like to shoot lots of video, just keep in mind that you will need to drag a laptop along to download your video to when you fill it up, unless you have the income to be able to afford a few hundred dollars worth of memory cards.

 

[LordAthens]

Oh, an look at the lux spec. The lower the number, the better it will do in low light.

 

[DisneyChristmas]

I record a LOT of HD video when we're at WDW. With mim-DV I can record onto as many tapes as necessary. If I recorded to the machine itself, I'd need to transfer to a laptop to clear space foe more recording. Right?

 

[LordAthens]

Yes, either that or buy additional memory cards if the camcorder supports external memory.

Good quality Sandisk / Lexar 16gb Class 6 cards run ~$35 or so online right now. For every 16gb of memory you can shoot ~1.5 hours (on most cams in "fine" quality in Full HD). As mentioned, you need a class 6 or class 10 card to keep up with the data rate. Some class 4 cards will keep up, though they're not officially spec'ed to do so.

The problem now going tape based, there are a very small handful of HD MiniDV cams out there, 2 that I can think of off the top of my head. Everything else tape based is going to be SD. It's still digital, but it's low resolution digital.

The new solid state cam's are great. They record amazing movies, get better battery life than tape or DVD based (no moving parts) are lighter and smaller. I would definitely go that route, but like I said to keep in mind, you really need to take a laptop along. Since I do this already for photos, this isn't a big deal.

HTH

 

[cjstarr]

LordAthens if you where to recommend a camcorder which would you choose?
I have the Sony DCR-HC36 and would like to step up to something a little better. This camcorder does not have that good of low light capabilities, (LUX) for shooting at night. I'm not to interested in using the night shot for the obvious reasons.