[unicam]

I need to buy camcorder for recording university lectures which will then be uploaded to the web.

Forgive me if I'm being a bit dim here (I know nothing about camcorders) but do the new HDD/SD type camcorders record to formats such as mov, wmv, avi etc? i.e. a format I can grab via usb or SD card and dump straight into Sorenson Squeeze for trimming and conversion to flv and mp4?

If so do you have any camera suggestions?

Picture quality wouldn't need to be top notch because the films are destined only for the web at 450x253 flv and 320x240 mp4.

The camera would however need to be

1. Easy to use as I'd have to train students how to operate it
2. Preferably under £500
3. Preferably able to record in 16:9 widescreen
4. Able to be mounted on a tripod
5. Able to take an input from a lecture theatre audio mixing desk (I think it's XLR)

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[senu]

Samsung MX20 records to h.264 ( mp4) and is You Tube ready : read about it in the sticky
Most camcorders do not record to such compressed format as you wish for a good reason
These formats degrade fairly quickly during editing, or even if not edited wil be worse if further compression is applied

As for your requirement of XLR you wont find it in any consumer camcorder and certainly not one costing £500
many dont even have a mic input let alone one with balanced audio. My FX1 which cost £2200 at the time) does not

Im not sure of turnover time but although quality need not bee an issue , I suggest you start with high quality as there is only so low you can get for web before it becomes blocky and completely unwatchable
A great many web based videos were actually shot with decent kit and are watchable despite web compression because of that. dont aim too low

[unicam]

Originally Posted by senu

Samsung MX20 records to h.264 ( mp4) and is You Tube ready : read about it in the sticky
Most camcorders do not record to such compressed format as you wish for a good reason
These formats degrade fairly quickly during editing, or even if not edited wil be worse if further compression is applied

As for your requirement of XLR you wont find it in any consumer camcorder and certainly not one costing £500
many dont even have a mic input let alone one with balanced audio. My FX1 which cost £2200 at the time) does not

Im not sure of turnover time but although quality need not bee an issue , I suggest you start with high quality as there is only so low you can get for web before it becomes blocky and completely unwatchable
A great many web based videos were actually shot with decent kit and are watchable despite web compression because of that. dont aim too low

Thanks Senu.

Having looked at the spec the Samsung MX20 would be a contender but for the fact it has no external in mic jack. Although I mentioned XLR I'm pretty sure I could either use an XLR>JACK>MINIKACK adaptor or take a line/phone audio feed directly from the mixing desk. So long as it has some form of mic in socket it would be fine.

Also, and this is where I'm at the edge of my very limited knowledge of digital video, the file format can be anything so long as it can be dumped directly into Sorensen Squeeze, which according to the Sorenson website accepts the following as input formats - AAC, AC3, AIF/AIFF, ASF, AVI, DV, MOV, MP3, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WAV, WMA, WMV.

What I'm trying to aviod is the extra step of having to 'capture' (is that right term?) the video from the camera. I just want to drag and drop the video file from the camera to my PC and import into Sorensen Squeeze for conversion to flv, mp4 and wmv. Now it may be that all the new type of HDD cameras can offer that funtionality and it's only the old style DV tape camcorders that require the intermediate step of being captured. I'm just not sure so if anyone could shed any light on that it would be really helpful.

[gixxerman]

My new Toshiba H20 Camileo records to the .MOV format
(and at £150 from Tesco Direct it's a major bargain for an HD camcorder).

[senu]

Originally Posted by gixxerman

My new Toshiba H20 Camileo records to the .MOV format
(and at £150 from Tesco Direct it's a major bargain for an HD camcorder).

It does however not have a mic input, and Im not sure it can record SD. Its HD is 30fps at 1440 x1080 ..kind of North America biased

Also it auto focus slowly and indoors video is grainy

Someone got one from Dixons and asked me to have a look as he had a chance to return it

Its Good lighting outdoor video is impressive though.. nice on the guys 37" HDTV : HD for not much

But the OP would probably be better off making better low light and mic-in capabilities a priority

Although the need for " You Tube ready" footage is also appreciated it seems most of the camcorders whose footage does not need conversion are aimed at the more pocket friendly marker and fairly basic in features

A camcorder which shoots mpeg2 ( SD) around the £400 mark would probably be more like it
As I said earlier, aiming low for video quality just because the web is the final destination may turn out to be an error of judgement if the final output is barely watchable
In direct answer to the questionof tape vs Sd HDD .. . If the main worry is " capture in real time, you dont have to wory about that in any non tape camcorder. I just think withyour budget you should aim for decent quality and good low light, good AF as well as Mic in rather than a specific compressed format;
They all use one compressed format or another

[unicam]

Originally Posted by senu

Although the need for " You Tube ready" footage is also appreciated it seems most of the camcorders whose footage does not need conversion are aimed at the more pocket friendly marker and fairly basic in features

A camcorder which shoots mpeg2 ( SD) around the £400 mark would probably be more like it
As I said earlier, aiming low for video quality just because the web is the final destination may turn out to be an error of judgement if the final output is barely watchable
In direct answer to the questionof tape vs Sd HDD .. . If the main worry is " capture in real time, you dont have to wory about that in any non tape camcorder. I just think withyour budget you should aim for decent quality and good low light, good AF as well as Mic in rather than a specific compressed format;
They all use one compressed format or another

Thanks Senu.

Youtube ready footage isn't a requirement, it will be an output format but the source footage would need to be better quality than that. I need to convert the footage to various web ready formats using Sorenson Squeeze, so the higher the quality of the source footage the better. Also, I would want to retain a good quality copy of the original footage. However, the source footage would need to be in a format that Sorensen Squeeze can accept. If most cameras record uncompressed mpeg2 then I think that would be fine since it appears that Sorenson Squeeze accepts mpeg2.

But you've pretty much answered my question there. So long as all non tape camcorders avoid the need for real time capture then I think I'm more or less free to choose from any of the non tape camcorders and I'll follow your advice to concerntrate on good low light, good AF and Mic in.