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I'm thinking of buying a new video cam camcorder thing and getting confused as to which format might be the best. I'd like it for maybe on the slopes but as well as that for general stuff as well.

 

Anyone have any thoughts on which of the formats is best?

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I recently bought a HDD camcorder by Sony. No need to change media like tapes and DVDs but picture quality I've noticed not as good as tape. But for my use, it's sufficient.

 

I purposely kept away from Hi-Def cos the technology is not widely deployed yet and the HD functions cost 30% more for similarly specd cams.

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Thanks for that. Not as good? Wonder why that is. Interesting. Looking on the web and asking shops, you hear so many different opinions it is difficult to know what to choose.

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the HDD cams use a much higher compression (HDD are still expensive compared to tape). Really depends on your budget and how you want to use the footage. If you just want to upload the occational hazing video to YouTube, just get a good digital camera that has a video function.

 

If you don't care about HD and want good SD quality and the ability to edit the video, go for DV.

 

If you want SUPER small to shoot your kid's birthday party and quality is not as much as a concern you could go MicroMV or the HDD camera that thursday mentioned.

 

If you want something that is future proof for a while and HD for your super shred snowboard sessions, go for HDV.

 

If you wipe your ass with $100 bills and want to be the next Martin Scorsese, then go for a Panasonic P2 camera - broadcast quality in a small package but big bucks.

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Kuma, it's HD - just compressed to hell and the raster is subsampled (can you still consider that HD? hmmmm). Uncompressed HD is 1.3Gbps (yes gigabits!) - HDV is 25Mbps...I don't even know what level of compression that is - but it's massive. It's a longGOP compression (like DVD MPEG-2) so that helps it to be more effecient.

 

With that said, HDV looks pretty decent on an HDTV set and most of the editing software now have a codec to edit with. The most exciting format on the horizon is probably AVCHD. Panasonic is going to launch some super kewl stuff around this. The only downside - don't expect to edit it until 2009. AVCHD is extremely computationally intensive.

 

I personally use DV to shoot personal stuff and HDCAM/Dbeta for professional use.

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just remember that if you have an builtin-HDD, the device would be prone to shocks/vibrations/etc.

 

a small jolt can much ruin the device - HDDs are very sensitive...

 

if you plan on using it for snowsessions, i suggest going through solid-state media, ie., memory cards, built-in DVD writers, digital tapes, etc.

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DV probably the way to go for slopes - slightly less fragile (slightly more durable?), and if you do happen to destroy the camcorder, it doesn't hurt the pocketbook as much.

 

DVD probably as prone to shock issues as HDD.

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Note that DVD is not an easy format to edit. It is not designed for that. I got a mini DVD vidcam to film my baby. The camera and DVDs are great, easy to view and to copy. However, it requires various different applications to transcode or convert them into an editable format, and the conversion results in further loss of quality. In addition, mini DVDs don't fit into slit-type DVD players found on MacBooks and other computers. You or your family/friend who will view the DVD needs a tray-type drive for that.

 

A couple months ago I ended up getting a miniDV vidcam. It is bonehead simple to edit from these using a Mac or PC. MiniDV vidcams are also the cheapest kind of vidcam around these days, which is nice.

 

I vote miniDV!

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The quality of MiniDV is excellent. To put this in perspective - there is a professional format of MiniDV called DVCPro. It is used in about 50% of news stations across the US to shoot news stories to air on broadcast television. The only real difference between miniDV and DVCPro is the tape and camera size. The compression is approx 4:1. By comparison, DVD based recorders compress as much as 20:1.

 

MiniDV is the way to go.

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HDV is really the successor, but ouside of Japan, it's still pretty rare to find someone that has an HDTV set (but that is now changing). HDV can be downconverted to SD (widescreen) and burned to DVD - still looks pretty good.

 

When the world moves to Bluray or HDDVD, than you'll want to be shooting in HD and burning to HD. I think this is still at least 5 years away from the mass market. BluRay at BicCamera is still 120,000 yen for a burner.

 

When you go on a trip, you can walk into almost any convience store and buy MiniDV tape. With flash memory you need to dump it down to something (it's too expensive to buy spare memory). MiniDV will be around for at least 5-7 more years I recon. By that time, you'll need to buy a new camcorder from wear and tear anyway.

 

If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you could go HDV - but you'll be paying a bit more.

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Bluray has the head start with it's inclusion in the PS3. However, HDDVD has some pretty heavyweight backers of it's own. The advantage that HD-DVD has is better DVD backwards compatibility, all the factories can start cranking out HD-DVD without serious retooling. These two things should give HD-DVD a cost and compativility advantage. Bluray is a surprior format and has the lead, but we'll see.

 

I vote HD-DVD, but they need to get their sh^t together and start shipping in volume.

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They will probably both succeed. BluRay does have the advantage of the Sony/Columbia media tie-in, but they are less than egalitarian when it comes to licensing the format to other media sources. As with the original PlayStation, they refuse to sell code to studios who will produce media with an... "Adult" slant shall we say. In other words, you will see HDDVD pr0n, but never any BluRay pr0n. In the JDM, HDDVD will have a Toshiba/EMI media tie-in... can't recall who has the USDM affiliation.

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Nah, you will definately see BluRay pr0n (there are already titles available in Japan). The DVD authoring tools support BluRay and anyone can buy them. It will come down to the law of supply and demand. Because nobody wants blurry pron!

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We have recently bought a new machine - we decided to go with a mini-dv one after researching the new technology. It just didn't seem ready for us (or us not ready for it perhaps?)

 

The one we got though is fabulous. \:\)

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My friend bought mini DVD format and is not pleased with the decision as not as flexible as he thought. Of course he should have known maybe before buying I think. minidv tape does really good quality still I think. Does anybody have the hidefinition camera?

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