HD Camcorder info??

[Disneyfun1]

Been thinking of getting a HD camcorder. If you have one, can you tell me about yours and help answer some questions i have.

What kind do you have? To play in HD on the tv, do you have to directly plug it into the tv? Do you have 5.1 surround sound as well on it and does that come across when playing it on the tv through the stereo?

How is battery life?

An important question now, if it records in HD, When you transfer it to a dvd through the computer, does it retain HD quality, or only that of what the regular dvd puts out? I know blu-ray is HD, but i dont have a blu-ray burner on my computer as they are too pricey for me still, though i can play that on my PS3. How does the dvd looked after put onto that media? Does the 5.1 sound (if you have it) carry over to the dvd as well?

thanks for all the info.

 

[Disneyfun1]

any info??

 

[gokenin]

I do not have an hd camcorder but as is the case with all things HD I would guess that unless your computer display is a HD display you will not get the true benifit of the recording the same would go for your TV at home. The material will be recorded in High Definition but unless you have an HD display you will not be able to truely enjoy that image .

 

[webshark3]

If you move it to a dvd, you'll get standard dvd resolution. It will not be HD. I'm in the same boat as you, as HD editing and buring requires some serious hardware costs, and is keeping me from jumping on. The good news is, it you don't need to edit much, you can just hook your camera up to your HDTV via the camcorder's HDMI or Component cables, and enjoy HD now.

 

[Groucho]

I haven't been keeping up with the latest... but I do know this:

You're unlikely to get anything like true 5.1 sound without at least five microphones pointing in different directions, which I'm pretty sure they don't have...

...and you certainly can burn HD content to a DVD, after all, it's just ones and zeros like all other digital media. However, it all depends on the format. If you burn a "DVD Video" format that'll play in a standard DVD player, then you will be downsampling the original video to standard definition.

I think BluRay/HD-DVD players can play back certain formats straight off a DVD, like transport stream, etc, but I'm not sure what format most of the HD camcorders are recording in, and if they'll play back that if you just burn the video file itself to a disc. I am pretty sure that the PS3 is fairly flexible about playing back formats, but again, I'm not positive of the details. (I expect to pick one up some day but it needs another price drop or two. )

 

[AustinTed]

If you have a Sony Playstation 3 you are in for a real treat!

I have the Sony HDR-HC3 High Def camcorder. The video quality blew me away. It is stunning - like watching the Discovery Channel in HD. The quality of the video will only degrade under the poorest lighting conditions. In that case it dials up the gain and generates some noise, but that is typical of consumer/prosumer camcorders. You can minimize this by reducing the gain a little bit yourself. The HDR-HC3 was last years model and I think the HC7 is more recent. I strongly favor the cams that use the DV tapes rather than the hard drives. The tapes are a good archival format.

You can connect the camera to your TV directly and watch in full quality 1080i HD. But who wants to do that. You have a PS3 and you have options.

You would first need to capture the video into your computer. I use a free program called HDVSplit to do this. You'll end up with an 11GB file or so. From there you can us your Windows MediaPlayer to share your media files. You have to turn this on and add the directory with your videos. Then go to your PS3 - you should see a Windows Media Center icon showing up on the cross bar menu. You can navigate to your video and play it. The video will stream to the PS3 and play on your TV in full glorious HD. In fact, we use this setup as a video jukebox. I have all of my videos since 1995 on a 500GB hard drive.

A second option would be to copy your video file to a USB hard drive. This is a little trickier. The drive must be formatted as FAT32 for the PS3 to read it. Due to the limitations of FAT32 you'll need to break up your 11GB file into chucks smaller than 4GB. I've used the TMPGenc MPEG editor to do this. It goes quite fast and really sounds worse than it is. Once you have this, copy the files to the USB drive. Move the drive over to the PS3 and plug it in. The PS3 will recognize the drive and you can navigate it (triangle button) and play you video. Same end result. Ever since Sony added the streaming media support I don't do it this way anymore.

In all of these cases the audio will be stereo. The HD camcorders don't do surround sound. (perhaps there are *some* that do with the right accessory microphone.)

Battery life is a non-issue.

Enjoy

 

[webshark3]

Austin Ted:

Thanks for an incredible tutorial I wouldn't have thought of. Unfortunately, I'll never own a PS3. LOL

It's still great info, and a great workaround until we get some affordable HD burning options.

 

[AZ JazzyJ]

5.1 channel audio requires audio mixing. Most of the HD cameras on the market will record stereo but that is about it. You would need to remix that to separate out the channels (painfully difficult). I usually use a separate audio feed for surround and then use a wireless mic set-up for center channel. Left and right can be picked up with a shotgun mic or with additional mics strategically placed.

HD comes in several formats: 720p, 1080i, 1080p and each has their place. A 1080p stream will have the best detail but will also be the largest data meaning you will get less storage time. Speaking of storage you can either get tape or disk (this can be hard disk or might be memory card and in some cases can be optical). Disk is the easiest to deal with post production but it is limited to around 60 min at most so you will need to move the data or have multiple disks. Most DVD players are 480i which is what is normally referred to as SD. There are some DVD players that will attempt to upconvert a 480i signal to 720i but that is not always successful. The next generation of high-def optical is HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. If you thought the VHS vs. Betamax was painful that was nothing compared to HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray. It will be a while (if ever) that a single standard will emerge. Consumer NLE (non-linear editor) software is starting to come out to deal with HD content but it is still pretty new. Burning options for HD content by consumers is currently limited to Blu-Ray. I am not aware of any HD-DVD burners being available for computers or for personal use. Blu-Ray burners are available but are still pretty pricing (I think they just came down to around $600). Blank media is also pretty expensive compared to DVD. The majority of people shooting HD format with consumer cameras are connecting the camera directly to an HD television or monitor to watch it. It's one of those things where the camera has outpaced the software and content delivery.

Personally I and settling on the Sony HVR-V1U camera with the HVR-DR60 hard drive unit. That seems to give the most flexibility and includes manual controls as well as the automated. Canon has some great cameras as well such as the XH A1 and the XH G1 but I like the Sony's ability to manage low light levels.


Jeff