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Camcorders
- Thread starter Hulk
- Start date
I was wondering about this too. I can tell you what I have found so far (not too much 
).
8mm - old school - ok quality video
MiniDV - new version of 8mm - video quality ok.
DVD - uses small DVD's - quality good
Tapeless - newer tech uses a HDD, expensive - quallity good
HD - very expensive - quality very good
).8mm - old school - ok quality video
MiniDV - new version of 8mm - video quality ok.
DVD - uses small DVD's - quality good
Tapeless - newer tech uses a HDD, expensive - quallity good
HD - very expensive - quality very good
Hulk said:
you definately want a camcorder with mini-dv as it has the best video quality out of the 4.
digital 8 is a proprietary format introduced by sony and it hasnt been too popular. digital 8 has better video quality than regular 8mm tapes but the only reason you would want to get a digital 8 camcorder is if you have a lot of older 8mm tapes and you dont have anything to play them back with.
dvd based camcorders are expensive and they only appeal to a small audience. i guess they can be perfect for people that just want to record onto a dvd disc and play it back on any regular dvd player. the problem is you are limited to 30min of video per disc. you might be able to sacrifice video quality so that you can record longer but that sort of cancels out the benefit of recording onto a dvd format in the first place..
tapeless camcorders usually record video using the mpeg4 format and although the quality is pretty good, its not very good for video editting. the hard drive based camcorders can record at decent quality but you can expect it to run out of disk space quickly. afterwards you would have to transfer them over to a computer. if you want to put the video onto a physical medium like dvd you would possibly have to edit the video and re-encode it.
this leaves us with good ol' minidv. dv camcorders in the professional market still uses minidv tapes (though you wont find them using cheap tapes) so you really cant go wrong with minidv. each tape can holds 60min of video on standard play and about 90min using extended play. using the SP setting, video is recorded at 3MB/sec for about 11GB of video per tape. the average cost of minidv tapes are about $3 each.
now the main problem is finding which mini-dv camcorder to get... i suggest looking into canon and sony
It depends on what you intend to do with the footage IMO...
1) Hi8/Digital8 is old, forget it.
2) DVD-based cameras are a good option if you just want to record and archive footage. Not so good if you want to get into editing.
3) MiniDV is a digital/lossless format, which is good if you want to download the raw data to a Mac/PC for editing/encoding.
4) Tapeless is appealing due to the smaller size of the camera and that it doesn't use tapes. The quality is still good but the video is generally already encoded/compressed (MPEG-4) so editing/re-encoding could in theory reduce quality.
MiniDV is my first choice and what I currently have. If you're not worried about a potential loss in quality through editing, the tapeless cameras would be my next choice. Just make sure the storage capacity is sufficient for your needs. With MiniDV, you can always hit an electronic store and buy another tape if you run short. If you do go with MiniDV, try to stay with the brand of tapes tho. There's been a lot of debate over it but I understand different tape manufacturers use different lubricants on their tapes and they're not necessarily compatible. The end result is that your camera will need it's heads cleaned much more often. I don't buy into 100%, but i've read enough to convince me to just buy the same brand (Panasonic). I actually bought a bulk box of 20 tapes for *really* good price so I actually haven't ran out yet.
1) Hi8/Digital8 is old, forget it.
2) DVD-based cameras are a good option if you just want to record and archive footage. Not so good if you want to get into editing.
3) MiniDV is a digital/lossless format, which is good if you want to download the raw data to a Mac/PC for editing/encoding.
4) Tapeless is appealing due to the smaller size of the camera and that it doesn't use tapes. The quality is still good but the video is generally already encoded/compressed (MPEG-4) so editing/re-encoding could in theory reduce quality.
MiniDV is my first choice and what I currently have. If you're not worried about a potential loss in quality through editing, the tapeless cameras would be my next choice. Just make sure the storage capacity is sufficient for your needs. With MiniDV, you can always hit an electronic store and buy another tape if you run short. If you do go with MiniDV, try to stay with the brand of tapes tho. There's been a lot of debate over it but I understand different tape manufacturers use different lubricants on their tapes and they're not necessarily compatible. The end result is that your camera will need it's heads cleaned much more often. I don't buy into 100%, but i've read enough to convince me to just buy the same brand (Panasonic). I actually bought a bulk box of 20 tapes for *really* good price so I actually haven't ran out yet.