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Mini Dv Camcorder Questions


Boswell

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From recent experience, a fire wire and capturing software is required.

All you do is turn on the camera play back the footage and click record on the software.

If you get good software splits it all up into sections of each time you have started a newshot.

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Buy it off the internet, or maybe in a PC shop. Download free trials of different packages see which you like etc.

Most of the free trials look good then you release when you have the footage on your PC there's a fat waltermark across it! :angry:

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there sick get one and a nice wide angle lense and your done for life

ulead video studio is best to use i think for editing

Its good to use for beginners, but its at the stage after movie maker and before premiere. For a comparison Ulead is now at the same stage pinnacle studio was 2-3 years ago, just a bit less buggy.

Premiere pro or sony vegas are still the ones to go for if your wanting a proffessional package.

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Its good to use for beginners, but its at the stage after movie maker and before premiere. For a comparison Ulead is now at the same stage pinnacle studio was 2-3 years ago, just a bit less buggy.

Premiere pro or sony vegas are still the ones to go for if your wanting a proffessional package.

Yeah im using vegas6 atm the moment but just got adobe premier of a friend of mine so gonna try that out next i think. Vegas is nice more complex than movie maker by a long way but the results you get are 10 times better.

joe

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I'm think about getting a mini DV camcorder as I heard that the tapes actually produce better footage than DVD's, memory card's and Harddrives, is this true? Also How would I transfer the tapes to my PC if I did get one?:)

Mini DV tapes are good quality yes, probably the best like you said. Also cheaper.

Don't get a DVD one full stop, not as good as it sounds. Either mini DV or HDD (hard disk drive) really. The only HDD one that may be worth it is the JVC HD3 but they're quite a lot.

(Y)

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It does produce better quality than DVD cameras, but that's because DVD cameras suck.

DV/HDV data rate is about 12GB/hour, an 8cm DVD is around 2GB or less. So the compression needs to be very high and so the quality is pretty bad.

Tapes are becoming less and less popular, HDD camcorders are taking over. There are lots of advantages - it's quicker to transfer data, the quality can in some cases be better if you are recording in high definition, higher capacity, less moving parts = less risk of failure. I had to spend 200 pounds on replacing the cassette compartment in my old camera because it jammed.

Take a look at Camcorderinfo.com, they have excellent reviews of most of the popular consumer and prosumer video cameras.

Edited by Inur
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See ive never been impressed with HDD cameras, mainly because at the time of me being shown other people's cameras they were recording in low-q to get as much on the drive as poss. As far as im aware solid state is gonna be taking over slowly but surely. But yeah to answer your question def MiniDV for the time being.

Camera, typically anything by Sony. - Amazon are generally good. Ebuyer are quite limited atm as far as I can see.

Lenses - eBay

Tapes, I use these - http://www.aprmedia.com/product.php?pid=1780

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Mini DV tapes are good quality yes, probably the best like you said. Also cheaper.

Don't get a DVD one full stop, not as good as it sounds. Either mini DV or HDD (hard disk drive) really. The only HDD one that may be worth it is the JVC HD3 but they're quite a lot.

(Y)

Hmm HDD ones suck - it seems silly to me to use something that is going to fail if you shake it a bit ....

See ive never been impressed with HDD cameras, mainly because at the time of me being shown other people's cameras they were recording in low-q to get as much on the drive as poss. As far as im aware solid state is gonna be taking over slowly but surely. But yeah to answer your question def MiniDV for the time being.

very much so - I cant believe its taken this long.

Pretty much every DV camera has a firewire port, it's the standard interface for DV transfer.

A USB connection shouldn't be used for transferring video.

Although some cameras can stream DV via USB2 - which is useful as firewire on cameras are a bit fragile and sensitive. (have known quite a few (including mine) die) Its nice to have the option.

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