Just bought a Panasonic NVDS30 ( shop soiled - £200 ) - as my old Canon is getting tired. I'm new to Digital video - can someone tell me if there is a difference in quality of downloaded video using the Composite cabel, the S Video, or would I be better off getting a firewire card ( as the are cheap enough ) as I may want to transfer back to DV tape as I understand these are better for archiving

I have an ATI AIW card which I have sent some video to the PC and a new DVD burner when I get sorted out.

From what I have done so far, there doesn't seem to be a lot in quality difference between the old Canon Analogue and the new Panasonic DV - and I was expecting the DV to be much better.

still - loads more experimenting to do yet

Also - any preference in tapes - I bought a couple of TDK to get me going and I have some panasonic ones on the way.

Cheers all


Spokey

No if your transferring video from your NV-DS30 using the analogue output it will be no differrent to what you had from your old Canon, analogue (composite) is analogue and will be no better from a digital cam than from any other cam.. To obtain the full benifit of digital recording you MUST transfer your digital video by firewire and set your capture software for DV capture.

Which tapes you use are very much a matter of personal preference, the important thing though is to choose one make and stay with it, different makes have diferrent coatings and if these become mixed inside your camera mechanism they become very 'gooee' and that can lead to camera failure.

Blimey, You're on the ball - looks like I'm going shopping then

Many thanks for that - excellent response

Cheers

[Northerner]

Blimey, You're on the ball

Like you Spokey, I'm fairly new to digital video - only got my NV-DS60 last week.

But already, thanks to Beejaycee, I have a shed load of knowledge that I didn't have last week.

Just got to make it all work now