Which Camcorder?

[Noodles]

I want to buy a camcorder for christmas and have been looking at 2

different models they have for sale here at tesco lotus.

The 1st is the Sony DCR-SR42

The 2nd is the Sony DVD708.

I really have no clue about what would be a good choice. I want if for basic video recording

and then to be able to transfer to my PC for family and friends back home.

The Sony DCR allows you to record onto a hard disc where as the DVD708 on to a mini disc.

Is one method better than the other?

Many thanks for your comments and any recomendations.

Seasons Greetings

[Firefoxx]

First, be aware about the limitations of the various formats. The hard disk and DVD camcorders use higher compression and lower bitrates than the tape formats, and thus will always have lower quality. For the hard disk camcorder, you're limited to what comes with the camcorder, and have to delete footage to record more. If the drive fails, you lose all. For the DVD format, at best quality (which is worse than tape), you can only record 20 minutes per disc. I'm telling you these things because the sales people will only extol the many benefits of these formats, not their downfalls. Tape camcorders, although not as "convenient", are the cheapest of the lot, and use cheap media (less than 100 baht per tape), and have the best quality. The "instant play" ability of DVD camcorders to play the disc on DVD players is only good if you don't care about the short recording time and will never edit the footage.

That being said, if you're willing to pay for these formats, you might as well consider the HD (high def) camcorders. They have much higher resolution (they can record in the older standard resolution too), and the difference is very apparent. Of course they cost more, but really, it's worth it. However, the same limitations apply... tape is still best for high definition camcorders. Much more so in that the high def standard for hard drive and DVD camcorders is still not very widely supported in editing programs, and the kinks in video quality are still much more apparent (unlike standard def, which had time to mature a bit).

[OlRedEyes]

Can you transfer video from the tape to hd or dvd somehow?

[nikster]

I want to buy a camcorder as well. I would have thought hard disk based is the best, but you say it's low quality recording which would kind of defeat the purpose of getting the latest and greatest. I had apparently wrongly assumed that high definition hard disk based camcorders would record in the same compression format that's used in BluRay/ HD DVD disks. Since a blue ray disk holds 50GB, I thought a 60GB corder would record 2 hours of high def.

Which camcorders are tape based and High definition? What format do they record on the tape? I am guessing it's a digital format that is fully HD - but then how do I get that to play on my HD TV?

PS: Firefoxx, I dont quite understand the "you have to delete footage to record more" thing. Surely you can dump your HD on another, external HD via your computer, erase the HD in the camcorder, and record more. That's what I do with my digital camera as well. Do you buy a new SD card every time you run out of space?

Edited December 23, 2007 by nikster

[Firefoxx]

OlRedEyes: The standard for transferring from tape to PC is firewire (IEEE1394). Practically all video editing software supports this, including the movie maker included with windows.

nikster: High def hard disk/DVD camcorders use a *derivative* of blu-ray, AVCHD. It's not the same thing, as it uses much higher compression and much lower bitrates, leading to very noticeable motion artifacts. Hitachi has released the first mini-bluray disc camcorder, but all reports say it's a dud (very, very bad quality, worse than even the DVD-based ones).

The high-def camcorder that's considered the best is the tape-based Canon HV20. It has a progressive mode which is supposed to be superb. The format used is "HDV", which is a standard supported by most popular NLE software, and it can use normal DV tape (you don't need HDV tape, really, I use DV tape all the time... but you *shouldn't* re-use a tape). Only problem is I've yet to see one being sold in Thailand, even though Canon Thailand's website says that it's "new" (and thus they've started importing it... nearly a year after it's introduction).

Yes, you have to delete the footage. You can delete without dumping, or with dumping. Either way, you have to delete it to make room. With tape (or DVD) you just change the tape/disc (which you then store for future use). With a digital camera, at least you can swap out the SD when you're on a trip and far away from your computer (or shop). You don't have that luxury with hard disk camcorders. My point is that it's a permanent fixture.

[nikster]

nikster: High def hard disk/DVD camcorders use a *derivative* of blu-ray, AVCHD. It's not the same thing, as it uses much higher compression and much lower bitrates, leading to very noticeable motion artifacts.

That's amazingly stupid. But you are absolutely right. Out of curiosity, do you know why hard disk based camcorders don't do HDV? I mean.. bits are bits, whether they are stored on DV tape, SD cards, or hard disks.

The Canon HV20 seems win in most categories on http://www.camcorderinfo.com/

But there's strong competition from Sony, maybe those are easier to get in thailand?

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sony-...eview-33709.htm

Edited December 24, 2007 by nikster

[Steve2UK]

I use DV tape all the time... but you *shouldn't* re-use a tape.

Firefoxx, I'm interested/puzzled why you say this (for general amateur use) - although I infer that it's the manufacturer's recommendation rather than an absolute requirement?

I've used DV personally for quite a few years and re-used the tapes (after re-blacking) without issues. Working professionally (e.g. with Beta-SP & DigiBeta), the practice was to use mint tapes, but then a client was paying and I guess we regarded each shoot as "mission critical".

[Firefoxx]

For DV, you can re-use the tapes, but for HDV, it's not recommended. The reason is because HDV has a higher compression than DV (it's similar to Mpeg2 compression). For DV, when you have a dropout from a tape glitch, the corruption to what you see on the screen is only for a fraction of a second. For HDV, because of the use of higher compression (with i-frames and b-frames), the corruption lasts quite a bit longer and is quite noticeable. So far, I've gotten glitches, but it's been very, very rare. Tapes are cheap anyways (less than 100 baht) so I'm not caring much.

There are other tips for less chances of tape glitching, such as not using the first few minutes of a tape (record nothing). Also, you're supposed to stick with a single type/brand of tape, since there have been reports that using different brands can lead to more glitching.

Why don't harddisk camcorders do HDV? Probably because of the same reason that they don't do DV. I'm guessing that it's mostly marketing, but also because HDV/DV aren't suited for random-access media (they can't be edited/spliced on demand).

[Steve2UK]

Appreciated - makes good sense the way you explain it.

[Firefoxx]

Some more information:

The original DV format was not very compressed. The bitrate for DV is around 25mbits, at a resolution of 720x576 for PAL and 720x480 for NTSC.

The harddisk/DVD standard definition camcorders used a different codec, and halved the bitrate (at highest quality) to 12mbits for the same resolution.

*Some* of these camcorders have come a long way (years) and worked out a lot of the quality problems inherent to the format, and are almost comparable to DV.

HDV uses a codec similar to mpeg2 (and thus not fancy) and has the same bitrate as DV (25mbits), but at a higher resolution of 1440x1080 (not 1920x1080, it's stretched horizontally while viewing).

The harddisk/DVD/blu-ray high definition camcorders use a derivative of the blu-ray standard (AVCHD), but at a bitrate of 12mbits (at highest quality, 1920x1080). It has not come a long way, and the biggest problem is motion artifacts. The standard supports up to 24mbits, but that would really defeat the purpose of using it in the first place. The support in NLE video editing programs is also not good.

Blu-ray, which is 1920x1080, has a bitrate of 28mbits to 40mbits (it's variable, according to the complexity of the scene).

Consider that when you get a harddisk/dvd based camcorder, you're paying around 30-50% more than the tape cousins, yet getting less picture quality, in return for some convenience, and some restrictions (20 minutes recording time for DVD, non-removable storage for harddisk).