Yet another question for Pierces...or anyone who has camcorder knowledge.....plz

[wernew2cruising]

In your opinion, would you get an HD camcorder when the only way you can view the HD video you shot is to hook the camcorder directly to the tv or laptop, or would you get a regular camcorder and wait for a couple of years and see how the technology pans out?

 

I am so confused.

 

Better yet...I want a sony product...i think :confused: , want good, but not terribly expensive, what should i get? Will be used for our vacation memories (no grandkids yet and no young ones at home/in school).

 

Please, please, please HELP!!!

[randy98mtu]

My reasoning was to get the HD camcorder and start filming in HD. In a few years when things pan out, everything I've filmed is already in HD. In the meantime, I have more flexibility in what to do with my footage. Also, I believe the quality of standard video will be better when it was filmed in HD than if you filmed it directly in standard resolutions. That's my take. I ended up with the Canon HV20.

[randy98mtu]

Sorry, didn't look like it posted.

[wernew2cruising]

My reasoning was to get the HD camcorder and start filming in HD. In a few years when things pan out, everything I've filmed is already in HD. In the meantime, I have more flexibility in what to do with my footage. Also, I believe the quality of standard video will be better when it was filmed in HD than if you filmed it directly in standard resolutions. That's my take. I ended up with the Canon HV20.

What made you decide on the Canon? Did you do a lot of research?

[pierces]

In your opinion, would you get an HD camcorder when the only way you can view the HD video you shot is to hook the camcorder directly to the tv or laptop, or would you get a regular camcorder and wait for a couple of years and see how the technology pans out?

 

I am so confused.

 

Better yet...I want a sony product...i think :confused: , want good, but not terribly expensive, what should i get? Will be used for our vacation memories (no grandkids yet and no young ones at home/in school).

 

Please, please, please HELP!!!

 

One of the advantages of an HD camcorder with a hard drive is that you can transfer and store/edit the files directly to your computer. A downside of the Sonys are that the new AVCHD format is not yet widely supported. Back to the plus side, Sony's Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition editing software is only $120, Ulead's DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus is $80. Both support AVCHD and it looks like support by others is on the horizon, if not already available. Both of the packages mentioned will produce professional-looking DVDs on you computer and support burning to DVD and even Blu-Ray burners if you have one.

 

I've used the camcorders that write to the little DVDs and they are ok, but the recording can skip if you are filming in bumpy conditions. Mini-DV is good too, but you are still limited to downloading from the camcorder since dedicated mini-DV players start at well over $1000. Back to "disadvantages" of hard drive-based cameras...without a laptop, you are limited to what will fit on the hard drive. 4 to 11 hours of video (depending on recording quality) would be more than enough for me! I put the "disadvantages" in quotes because I feel that subjecting relatives to 11 hours of vacation video could be considered abuse!:D

 

I browsed the brands and it looks like $800 - $1000 is the entry point for HD video. It also looks like there are very few clunkers in the group.

 

The Sonys are nice, so are the Canons. You may want to go to Amazon's bestseller's list for HD camcorders and read the user reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/110770011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_e_1_3_last/104-4320514-7764762

Read them carefully since many people writing them will highlight problems and skip the positives (one reviewer gave the #3 seller one star because it only had PC software and he had a MAC).

 

BTW, randy98mtu's choice of the Canon HV-20 seems to be a good one. It uses Mini-DV, but the HDV format is more mature and is considered to be of better quality for now. Editing video on your PC and burning DVDs there is no different than the hard-drive models.

 

Good luck.

 

Dave

[randy98mtu]

BTW, randy98mtu's choice of the Canon HV-20 seems to be a good one. It uses Mini-DV, but the HDV format is more mature and is considered to be of better quality for now. Editing video on your PC and burning DVDs there is no different than the hard-drive models.

 

That was pretty much what made me decide on the Canon. It was a more mature format and it seemed pretty much unanimous that the Canon had the better optics. The hard drive option was really attractive, but I decided to go with what has already been proven. That and I've had great luck with Canon in the past and I already own a few Canon cameras.

[wernew2cruising]

One of the advantages of an HD camcorder with a hard drive is that you can transfer and store/edit the files directly to your computer. A downside of the Sonys are that the new AVCHD format is not yet widely supported. Back to the plus side, Sony's Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition editing software is only $120, Ulead's DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus is $80. Both support AVCHD and it looks like support by others is on the horizon, if not already available. Both of the packages mentioned will produce professional-looking DVDs on you computer and support burning to DVD and even Blu-Ray burners if you have one.

 

I've used the camcorders that write to the little DVDs and they are ok, but the recording can skip if you are filming in bumpy conditions. Mini-DV is good too, but you are still limited to downloading from the camcorder since dedicated mini-DV players start at well over $1000. Back to "disadvantages" of hard drive-based cameras...without a laptop, you are limited to what will fit on the hard drive. 4 to 11 hours of video (depending on recording quality) would be more than enough for me! I put the "disadvantages" in quotes because I feel that subjecting relatives to 11 hours of vacation video could be considered abuse!:D

 

I browsed the brands and it looks like $800 - $1000 is the entry point for HD video. It also looks like there are very few clunkers in the group.

 

The Sonys are nice, so are the Canons. You may want to go to Amazon's bestseller's list for HD camcorders and read the user reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/110770011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_e_1_3_last/104-4320514-7764762

Read them carefully since many people writing them will highlight problems and skip the positives (one reviewer gave the #3 seller one star because it only had PC software and he had a MAC).

 

BTW, randy98mtu's choice of the Canon HV-20 seems to be a good one. It uses Mini-DV, but the HDV format is more mature and is considered to be of better quality for now. Editing video on your PC and burning DVDs there is no different than the hard-drive models.

 

Good luck.

 

Dave

Thanks Dave. I know you are probably getting tired of my silly questions. I really appreciate your help.

[pierces]

Thanks Dave. I know you are probably getting tired of my silly questions. I really appreciate your help.

 

Not at all. I haven't looked at camcorder tech in a while and your question gave me a good reason to catch up!

 

I should thank you!

 

Dave

[cruise junky joan]

Dave: I take it you are the camer a guru. I too would like to purchase an Hd camcorder for a variety of events occuring next year. If I understand this correctly I need to hook the camera directly to my hd tv for viewing. Is there any way to transfer this material to a disc for playing on blue ray or hd dvd player? I don't really understand how all this works ie: what type of media does the camera record onto? I know this is probabley agravating for you but I am truly in the dark with nowhere to go that someone won't be trying to sell me something that may not suit my needs. Thanks Joan

[pierces]

Dave: I take it you are the camer a guru. I too would like to purchase an Hd camcorder for a variety of events occuring next year. If I understand this correctly I need to hook the camera directly to my hd tv for viewing. Is there any way to transfer this material to a disc for playing on blue ray or hd dvd player? I don't really understand how all this works ie: what type of media does the camera record onto? I know this is probabley agravating for you but I am truly in the dark with nowhere to go that someone won't be trying to sell me something that may not suit my needs. Thanks Joan

 

 

HD is a format. The standard is a screen with a ratio of 16:9 (if the screen were 48" wide it would be 27" tall). It is 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels tall. An HD camcorder is one that is capable of recording to that specification.

 

All HD camcorders will play directly to TV. What differentiates them is how they record the video. Codecs (HDV or AVCHD) are the software/hardware coding that allows the camcorder to record hours of video onto various media by compressing the individual image frames (usually 24 or 30 1920x1080 images per second) onto a mini-DVD, tape or built-in hard drive. Compression allows it to write 30 min of HD video to a Mini-DVD instead of 3-4 minutes if it was uncompressed.

 

Whatever the media, you can transfer it to a computer and use the editing programs mentioned a few posts back to assemble video clips into home movies and burn them onto a DVD to play on a regular home DVD player. You have to have a DVD burner installed on you computer to do this. This isn't as expensive as it sounds. Decent editing software is available starting at about $75 and a DVD burner can be had for about $40 ($80 -$90 for an external one that plugs in via a USB cable). Regular DVD can't display true HD, but you can make widescreen video from HD and still keep the original HD recording for later when Blu-Ray drop below it's current $500 level for a burner or player.

 

Kinda general. Hope that made it clearer. If not, please feel free to ask for specifics!

 

Dave

[cruise junky joan]

Dave this pretty much confirms what I already thought. Is there a service available that will burn my hd discs onto a blue ray or other hd format disc for me for a fee ie: Ritz Cameras? Unless I want to invest in the burner now, I will have to preserve my camera recording media until such time as they become more affordable. Any thoughts? Joan

[randy98mtu]

I don't know of any such service, but I haven't looked. But you wouldn't have to preserve the tapes or whatever format the recordings are created in. All of the formats still come with means to transfer the video to your computer, retaining the HD quality. Then you could make a copy and convert it to DVD quality and just hold the HD quality on the computer until you can invest in an HD burner.

[pierces]

Dave this pretty much confirms what I already thought. Is there a service available that will burn my hd discs onto a blue ray or other hd format disc for me for a fee ie: Ritz Cameras? Unless I want to invest in the burner now, I will have to preserve my camera recording media until such time as they become more affordable. Any thoughts? Joan

 

Do you have a Blu-Ray or an HD-DVD player? If not, then storing your HD movies on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD would render them un-viewable. Storing them on your computer hard drive (transferred off of the camera's hard drive if you get a model that uses one), tape or the original mini-DVD (again if you get a camera that uses one) will be fine. You need a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player to see true HD, but highly detailed widescreen video can be played off of a regular DVD. Besides, most widescreen TVs aren't true 1080i HD as those are just starting to show up. The most important part of HD presentation is the wide format and great sound. If you do have one, remember that regular DVDs will play on it as well.

 

Creating your own DVDs on a computer is fun and gives you a lot of control over editing for length, etc. If you have a camera shop just burn them, you will just get a copy of what you shot. If you have a service compile a produced DVD with titles and menus it is rather expensive. If you don't have a computer or don't feel up to editing your own movies, I would suggest a camera that uses mini-DVDs, since they can be stored individually as shot and played directly in a standard DVD player.

 

My 2¢...

 

Dave

[cruise junky joan]

Has anyone told you lately how fabulous you are? We do in fact have both a Blue ray and Hd dvd player, we use my son's game systems. I am also pretty sure that our tv is an HD 1080P but somehow 1080i also rings a bell. I am not sure and the techi's at our house are all out. Which also explains why I am finally able to get on the computer. Anyway thanks so much for the info. now it is just a matter of determining which camera to buy. Any thoughts on that? I know I can go out to Amazon's review page but I trust your judgement. Joan

[cruise junky joan]

Dave we have a Mac G4 and I am concerned that storing our videos on it will use up too much memory. Is that truly a concern or am I worried over peanuts? Thanks Joan

[pierces]

Dave we have a Mac G4 and I am concerned that storing our videos on it will use up too much memory. Is that truly a concern or am I worried over peanuts? Thanks Joan

 

Memory (RAM) is transitory. Your system memory holds programs that are functioning and data that is in transit from the hard drive to be processed and bask again. I believe the kind of memory you are referring to is storage memory. If your Mac has, maybe an 80GB hard drive, this will, indeed, fill up quickly. The good news it that Macs can use Firewire and USB external drives to store as much as you want. A 500GB external drive can be had for under $150 these days and that will hold a tremendous amount of data. There is no practical limit to how much external storage you can attach (my Vista system has 1.5 TB (1500GB) of storage and another 650MB of external backup storage available).

 

Storing video and pictures on external media is what external media was made for. Don't worry. My only warning would be to store only video that you edited externally so you don't waste space on scenes you have or would have cut out anyway.

 

Dave

[cruise junky joan]

Perfect. Thank you, but any thoughts on which camera will give me the best bang for my buck and won't be too cumbersome to take on trips? thanks again. Joan

[pierces]

Perfect. Thank you, but any thoughts on which camera will give me the best bang for my buck and won't be too cumbersome to take on trips? thanks again. Joan

 

It looks like the HD camcorders that record to DVD are running from about $700 - $1200. The two that I liked were the Sony HDR-UX1 ($730 on Amazon) and the Canon HR10 ($850, also on Amazon)

 

Pros: Both record to Mini DVDs and will record both HD or standard video, so you can choose which you want based on how you will play them back. HD will play on Blu-Ray and some regular DVD players that support AVCHD (many new regular DVD players do, but if your DVD player is more than a few months old, it's unlikely that it will.) Standard will play on any DVD player except, maybe, the very oldest out there.

 

Cons: Slow start-up. DVD camcorders can take 20-30 seconds to spin up and start recording, and a minute or more when you put a new disk in. You can forget the sudden kid shots or that UFO.

 

Hard drive camcorders average $100 more than the DVD units. My pick was the Canon HG10.

 

Pros: Fast start-up. No fussing with media.

 

Cons: Need to be computer-literate to get the most out of these. Long-term storage requires disk space and the willingness to make and maintain backups.

 

I was also intrigued by the Sanyo Xacti HD1000. It is very small and uses SD or SDHC memory cards to record HD video. It has a 2 second start up and a pretty simple interface. It also requires some computer skill to get the most out of it, but wait 'til you see it!

 

My opinions, they could be wrong.

 

I would suggest taking the crumbs of knowledge left here and do a bit of research on your own. You may also want to wander down to the local big-box electronics store and just play with different models to see what feels good to you.

 

Good luck!

 

Dave

[cruise junky joan]

Fabulous! thanks for all your help and sharing your time and copious knowledge. Joan

[pierces]

Fabulous! thanks for all your help and sharing your time and copious knowledge. Joan

 

 

No problem...Keeps the moss from growing on my north side!:D

 

Dave

[cruise junky joan]

I'm sure your north side is more attractive than my south end which rarely sees the sunlight but that's another matter. Anyway we are running a mac and i am concerned that some of the cameras you recommended may not be compatable for editing with our computer. Also what do you think of the hitachi dz-bd70a, or the dz-bd70h and should I wait until after the holidays to purchase a camera in hopes that the prices go down? Joan

[pierces]

I'm sure your north side is more attractive than my south end which rarely sees the sunlight but that's another matter. Anyway we are running a mac and i am concerned that some of the cameras you recommended may not be compatable for editing with our computer. Also what do you think of the hitachi dz-bd70a, or the dz-bd70h and should I wait until after the holidays to purchase a camera in hopes that the prices go down? Joan

 

MACs are advertised and sold as masters of multimedia, but until iMovie 08 was released in August, AVCHD wasn't supported. It is now, but you will have to update software or purchase new.

 

Both the Hitachis look ok, but be aware that 8cm Blu-Ray discs are still not so common and the beat price I could find was $29.95 each! (1 hour of full HD playable only on a Blu-Ray player.)

 

With internet pricing, Black Friday and post-holiday sales are not as big a deal as they used to be. Do you want to film the holidays? If so, the after-Christmas sales are not goung to do you any good. You might find a better price, but prices are more driven by new model releases vs. old model stock than anything else. The Consumer Electronics Show in January with all the new toys being released will trigger stock reduction sales, but there will be a delay as stores wait for the new model's shipping dates to be announced.

 

Dave

[cruise junky joan]

thanks for the info. I am actually looking to purchase this camera next spring in enough time for me to practice with it before our alaskan trip in June. It's good to know that I can use whatever camera I want without worrying about not being able to edit my footage. Thanks again Joan

[cruise junky joan]

I know you are probably rolling your eyes right now but please bear with me. I have been looking at these cameras and have pretty much decided on the Canon hg10. My question is this: I want to take this on a 21/2 week vacation to alaska. I am concerned that shooting at full resolution, and why wouldn't you, I only have 5 hours of video. Can I take the external drive to store some of my footage and I know this sounds dumb but I'm working blind here, do I need to take my mac notebook to move the footage to the external drive? I need a course in how to make all this stuff work. Thanks again Joan

[pierces]

I tracked down the manual for the HG10 and there is no mention of direct output to an external deive. It describes transferring to a computer and mentions macking those files up to an external drive in a two-step process.

 

You will have to take the laptop and copy to it and then to the External storage.

 

Sorry I don't have better news...:mad:

 

 

Dave