posted
I bought a JVC video cam three years ago and it broke on the first day. When I returned it to the shop the salesman said: "We have a new Panasonic camera, it`s basically like the JVC only better and a third of the price". So I bought that one (Panasonic NV-DS30), together with a wide-angle lense and I´m very satisfied with it. But that was three years ago. If I´d get a new one now, I´d try and get hold of a good Sony 3CCD camera.
posted
Right Ho! My favourite non-foot fetish subject! I own a Canon MVX-150i(Optura).
I think photography is in my blood. I like it a lot but I didnt have the chance and the money to buy a decent one let alone a videocamera. Three years ago my wife, seeing that I love taking pictures and videos, bought me a videocamera. Actually I wanted to buy one earlier than that, I had a list of some good vidcams for that time .. a friend of mine, who is a photographer adviced me to buy this one, so my wife took me by surprise virtually buying it as a present.
The first use of the camera to me is to keep favourite moments, as everybody else I guess. But I didnt want just a vidcam to record and that's it. I wanted big and bright lense, colour match, good zoom function, highspeed shutter. I guess that was it. Indeed it proved to be above my expectations. Nice and bright shots, able to shoot in low light conditions, good close up of subjects. All the travelling I ve done have been captured by this camera. I m very satisfied with it.
Now for the Foot related subject. Taking photos is not a strong point. A digital camera is preferable ... but the whole candid feet situation and the high motion of walking feet in the streets, which I m keen on, proved to be more than excellent. Very high speed shutter producing the most of moving images.
Very glad I bought it back then .. and I m not sure whether I could do the things I did and still do with another mainstream amateuristic digital videocamera.
If someone asks me what would I buy now.. I d go for a 3CCD camera definately. The prices have gone down ever since I was searching to buy a camera (4 years ago). Of course it worths the money even though they seem to be semi-professional leaving you no choice of bargaining or going for a model lower than this.
posted
Got a little Digital Sony Handycam. DCR-DVD 100.
Its not the greatest thing in the world, but it does record directly onto mini DVDs that you can upload directly into your computer to make clips. And of course the cool thing about the mini DVDs is they can go straight from the camera to your home DVD player! Don't ask me anything technical about it because my eyes will just glaze over and I'll start mumbling like a ngongongongognngnnnn...
posted
Yeah miniDVD is cool comparing to some old formats like S-VHS and Hi-8 or even miniDV but what about editing and cutting scenes? I mean, I was about to buy one of these models (DVD), which you record the films straight on to a DVD disc but I kept thinking If I wanted e.g. to shoot the Eifell Tower and Arc de Triumph .'.. and the next thing was a pair of nice French feet how the yell would I do it? Where would I store it? How could I be able to edit and where....
Anyway, I guess there are editing features within the cameras... but what about scenes you dont want to appear on a DVD ...
posted
Hal - I know somebody who had the same problem with a JVC camera (Mini-DV) and it happened just a few weeks ago. She bought the camera, it punked-out on the first day; exchanged it for another one and within a few weeks she noticed some kind of visual artifact on her tapes - and audible distortion. She then exchanged it for a Canon (Mini-DV), which she loves.
[ July 05, 2005, 11:10 AM: Message edited by: Ben Del Amitri ]
-------------------- Respectfully,
Ben
Malory in Signature Posts: 5772 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Gimme: Yeah miniDVD is cool comparing to some old formats like S-VHS and Hi-8 or even miniDV but what about editing and cutting scenes? I mean, I was about to buy one of these models (DVD), which you record the films straight on to a DVD disc but I kept thinking If I wanted e.g. to shoot the Eifell Tower and Arc de Triumph .'.. and the next thing was a pair of nice French feet how the yell would I do it? Where would I store it? How could I be able to edit and where....
Anyway, I guess there are editing features within the cameras... but what about scenes you dont want to appear on a DVD ...
Gimme.
You can upload everything you recorded onto your computer and then edit it. Then of course burn it onto a cd or a dvd if you have a DVD-R on your computer. It comes with the software to edit movies, create DVD menu's, add music, titles, etc...
posted
you mean that the recorded material isnt being recorded directly on the DVD? My cam, for example, has miniDV which writes the material on cassete and then I extract the clips into the pc with special software. And then burn them on a DVD or do whatever I want with them.
quote:Originally posted by Ben Del Amitri: Hal - I know somebody who had the same problem with a JVC camera (Mini-DV) and it happened just a few weeks ago. She bought the camera, it punked-out on the first day; exchanged it for another one and within a few weeks she noticed some kind of visual artifact on her tapes - and audible distortion. She then exchanged it for a Canon (Mini-DV), which she loves.
She made the right choice to get Canon
Both my vidcam and digicam are Canon and they are pi eeh ar eef eeh kk t'
posted
I think new cameras can transfer the .avi file (the movie) via USB 2.0 --- my old cam still uses firewire.
What I´d like to know about the mini-DVD cameras: How much fits onto one of those DVDs (in minutes)? And does the camera compress the movie in realtime? So do you finally have an MPEG-4 movie on the DVD or is it a raw .avi? I was thinking of getting one of those DVD cameras but my notebook can`t read mini-DVD because I have one of those modern DVD-drives (like in an Apple Powerbook). They are cool but just can`t read mini formats, neither DVD nor CD.
Just saw a new video camera with a 4 GB micro-drive --- now that seems like a cool idea.
Ben, if you`re thinking of getting a good camera it`s probably cheapest & best to get a traditional camera that uses tapes, and then to transfer the movie to harddisk and edit it with Adobe Premiere. That is one of the best video editing programmes available.
What a bunch of great info, thank you! I agree with your idea about buying a conventional tape camera, transfer it to HD and edit - in fact, I've already bought an external hard drive specifically for this purpose and I will dedicate that drive to movie making / editing. This would be cheaper indeed.
Like you, I'd also love to know if those discs are encoded in MPEG-4 or (raw) AVI file and I do think those 4GB Microdrive cameras are REALLY cool - that would be the best for application dummies like myself because you can then just hook up your microdrive and have XP recognize it as a simple hard drive, etc. Shoot, you can probably edit right off the card / drive itself.
[ September 19, 2005, 09:33 PM: Message edited by: Ben Del Amitri ]
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Ben
Malory in Signature Posts: 5772 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Hal I would advice transfering such huge amount of data with USB cables. You'll get jerky video, freezing frames and the rest. Firewire is faster and more reliable; and I found it to be more than perfect and basically having lossless video tranfering to hard-disk with zero (0) dropped frames.
Basically with my Canon MVX 150i miniDV I have to do the following in order to get its video material.
Via the Firewire's cable I extract the material from my vidcam to the pc. I press play and it transfers real-time all or part of the tape's content. After finishing, I had a raw AVI uncompressed audio/video (720x576 image resolution) and raw PCM (48 khz) digital audio.
WIth software like Adobe Premier, or TMPEnc I can make it an MPEG-2 DVD compatible format ready to burn to a DVD.
Whole Process duration:
1) Extraction of miniDV (real time): 60 mins for a 60 min miniDV tape.
2) Convertion to MPEG-2 for DVD compatible players ( depends on each PC's CPU). Mine takes 1hr45 min for 1hr of video with TMPGEnc DVD Author.
3) DVD burning with 8x (or 16x) DVD disc: 5 minutes.
Total time: 3 hours approx.
Same process goes when you want to make Divx AVI format, but with different software. e.g. Virtual Dub and filters.
I ve read in an online manual that these miniDVD cameras transfer their data into memory sticks or compact flashes. So I presume you ll have to buy extra amount of CF or MS to be able to save videos and then transfer to the camera's DVD.
As for the amount of duration in a miniDVD I think it depends on the compression and size of the video recorded. I assume you ll have to be somewhere in between 6 to 7 Megabits of video compression for 1 hour of video (and therefore less quality if you want to make the duration more than 1 hour.
USB 2.0 is faster than Firewire. I have both but I do get better (faster) results with USB 2.0 on most of the things I do (photo transfer, etc.)
The speed of Firewire is 400 Mbits per second, while USB 2.0 is 480 Mbits per second. You do have two different architectures of course so some might even say it's "apples and oranges".
I have no experience with these cameras so my limited knowledge of real world application comes from a girl here who owns a Mini-DV camera with USB 2.0 transfer capability. She tells me it's great.
Thank you for the outstanding, detailed information on the process itself. It gives me the perspective I need for this type of project. It also illustrates to me that it may be more than I am capable of. I really appreciate this information.
-------------------- Respectfully,
Ben
Malory in Signature Posts: 5772 | Registered: Oct 2004
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yes, I also still use firewire. My camera doesn`t allow USB transfer --- but I´ve noticed that new cameras give you the option of USB 2. Not sure if the transfer is worse (frame-drop), I´ve never used it.
Ben,
I also have an external harddisk but I´ve noticed that it is slower than my internal one. If you`re grabbing videos it is important to use the faster one, else you might experience a jerky video clip in the end. I usually transfer to and compress/render from the faster harddisk, and then copy the finished files to my external drive for backup purposes.
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