Hi, I am going to buy either DCR-HC40E or DCR-DVD201E Handycam. However, I am not sure which model has better quality.

HC40E stores movie on Mini DV which has around 500 lines whereas DVD201E saves movie as Mpeg2, i.e. resolution can go up to 720 lines.

Theoretically, DVD201E is better, am I correct?

no, you are wrong.

both formats give you 720 vertical lines, miniDV gives you over 500 horizontal, which DVDcam aint gonna beat, and besides the AVI compression is nowhere near as lossy as MPEG2.

You'll be stuc with crap software ptions, expensive discs that only give you half the recording time of dv cassettes.

The camera is a lot bigger, the format less stable.

the sole benefit of the format is that you can play it through SOME dvd players, great if you share your (UNEDITED) footage with friends/family, provided their DVD player will play your discs, totally useless otherwise.

miniDV cams come with AV cables to play back on any tv with scart or phono & in some cases Svideo in.

miniDV cameras cost less feature for feature

miniDV tapes cost a lot less, run for longer and can be reused

miniDv cameras are more compact

miniDV cameras will work with a wider range of software

miniDV format is an established widely used format which will continue to be used for quite some time, have you looked at the DVD minefield?

image quality (resolution & compression standards) is higher on miniDV

if you buy a DVD camcorder EVERYBODY on this forum will laugh at you

at school sports days, other parents will laugh at you

Your partner Jane will be embarrassed to be seen with you when you swing though the trees with your DVD cam.

In fact the DVD cam is so big and heavy most vines will simply snap, and then you'll look a bit silly

You'll no longer be king of the jungle, that title will go to the man a few trees down the grove with the miniDV camcorder

There is a recent history of dvdcam owners being found in shallow graves in Epping Forest if you get my drift...

I'll be watching!.

Be safe.

Hi Roy

Thanks for your advise!

Being the king of the jungle, I spent most of my time in the wood, and with Jane of course. Therefore, AV technologies are way too much for me.

I was confused as the software that comes with DC40E (miniDV version) makes VCD only, so I thought the resolution of miniDV was nowhere near DVD's.

By the way, any comments on Sony's DCR-HC40E?

[MarkE19]

The supplied software should be ignored at all costs as far as editing full quality AVI files is concerned. Buy yourself something that will do the job, or if you have a modern PC running Windows XP you alread have a very good starting package called Movie Maker that is part of the XP install. Just make sure you have the free upgrade from the MS web site to MM2. I bet the supplied software is for connecting via USB. You need to connect via firewire to get full quality footage to the PC.

Mark.

[MartinImber]

Get mini DV and edit on a PC and burn a DVD there.

DVD Cameras are a silly idea

[dood]

Interesting comments. I'm keen to give home video editing a go again. I tried 2 years ago and made VCDs as all I had was a CD writer. I was not at all impressed and quit there. I now have a new PC (high spec), new sony HC30E (to replace my old canon MV 300) and a DVD writer (Iomega multiformat).

Although I have used the camcorder I am yet to capture footage.

I have only ever used movie maker software, but the quality of footage on the monitor leaves a lot to be desired - looks like it is designed for e-mailing movies to family rather than producing DVDs. Am I missing something? How do I capture best quality? I will try out some trial versions of other software and hope to purchase something like Ulead or Pinnacle soon.

Will keep you posted on the results from the HC30E (admittedly not as good as your HC40).

[MartinImber]

Originally Posted by dood

I have only ever used movie maker software, but the quality of footage on the monitor leaves a lot to be desired - looks like it is designed for e-mailing movies to family rather than producing DVDs. Am I missing something? How do I capture best quality? I will try out some trial versions of other software and hope to purchase something like Ulead or Pinnacle soon.

Will keep you posted on the results from the HC30E (admittedly not as good as your HC40).

It's a TRV33

If you capture digitally you should be in DV mode and not compressing!

[MarkE19]

Video will never look at its best on any PC monitor! The monitor is designed to display limited colours, but at high resolution where as a TV is the oposite ie limited resolution but unlimited colour. It may look poor on the screen, but don't worry. As long as you are captureing in AVI format and use fairly good quality MPEG-2 encoders to author a DVD the final results should look as good as the origional DV tape played directly on a TV from the camcorder.

Pinnacle Studio 9 is an excellent, highly featured editing package, but only when it works!
Ulead software has most of the features of Pinnacle, but is a lot more stable!

Mark.

yeah pinnacle can be unreliable.

I run v8.12 (i use it mainly for dvd authoring) and have found this to be perfectly stable, I had real problems with earlier versions. The trick with pinnacle is to keep getting the free updates off their site.