DVD Camcorder with LP and mike / line in imput ?

[RecordablDVDfan]

Can anyone recommend a good priced one which does this assuming LP mode can give a max of 2 hours with a DVD camcorder ? I know nothing about these

[MarkE19]

DVD cams are now few & far between, and only tend to be basic models. They record to small 8cm discs so 2 hours will offer very poor quality, although AFAIK they all offer settings for adjusting the time you can get on a DVD. I am not aware of any DVD cams that have a mic input, but this also goes for all current SD cams. The only (consumer) cams I know of with line in are the Canon HDV (Tape) models, the HV40 being the current model.

Mark.

[RecordablDVDfan]

Yep I guess they never caught on obvious reasons but I'm wondering how bad really the quality is with a dual layer DVD...

[senu]

Originally Posted by RecordablDVDfan

Yep I guess they never caught on obvious reasons but I'm wondering how bad really the quality is with a dual layer DVD...

Dual layer 8 Cm discs exist?
The truth is that even the full sized ones have some playback compatibitlity issues and alway were less value for money than 2 X single layer
Many Settop DVD recorders did not support them
As for DVD camcorders, the less said the better , really...

[MarkE19]

Originally Posted by senu

Dual layer 8 Cm discs exist?

Yes they do and it surprised me as well

See Here, they list SL 1.4Gb/30min and DL 2.6Gb/55min 8cm DVD's.
The listed recording times I would expect to be at best quality, so getting 2 hours on even a DL 8cm DVD will be pushing it IMO as you would need to take a big hit in bit rate and therefore PQ.

Mark.

[RecordablDVDfan]

I see Canon have a new DVD range out which offer mike input. I expect with these LP quality to be not that bad

[MarkE19]

Admittedly I haven't seen or used the new Canon DVD cams so can't comment for sure on their performace. However as they are DVD based they will still record MPEG-2 compressed video and I would assume they use the smaller 8cm discs. So the quality of the footage if squeezing 2 hours onto a DVD will be much the same as previous models.

The only way to tell for sure is for you to get a demo of the cams and see if the PQ is good enough for you.

Mark.