[iball]

Hi everyone, I'm currently looking into purchasing my first camcorder and am a bit gobsmacked by the huge variety there is available!

Now I like the idea of having a camera with built in HDD, I'm all for latest technology etc etc but i have a few concerns. One of the main reasons for getting the camera is I get married later in the year and it would be nice to have the camcorder for the day and then to take on the honeymoon. I'm a little worried that we'll get half way through the honeymoon and the HDD will be out of space and it will just be something else to carry on the journey home! With the MiniDV the tape gets full, you put a new one in. So long as I have enough tapes, no need to worry about running out of space.

I'm also concerned about the picture quality, I'm quite big on quality and so would want to be using it on highest quality settings at all times, so even less storage space on a camera with built in HDD.

I notice cameras like the JVC GZMG21EK have a CCD of 800,000pixels but MiniDV cameras like the Sony DCR HC44 are over 1 mega pixel. Is this difference in resolution likely to make a huge amount of difference?

The MiniDV seems to have several advantages, for example, the tape gets full, you put a new one in.

What I really want to be able to do is use the camcorder then simply plug it into my DVD recorder and either burn it to disk or onto the DVD recorders HDD. Can I do this with a miniDV camcorder? If you can is it as simple as plugging it in pressing play on the camera and record on the DVD recorder?

Sorry for all the questions, any help you can give me would be much appreciated.

Many Thanks

Oh and one last questions, what is the benefit of having a DV Input into the camera?

[redsox_mark]

Some answers:

1. The format of standard definition video is fixed (for PAL 720x576). An 800,000 pixel CCD is ample to cover this. More pixels doesn’t improve the picture for video – the extra pixels would only be useful for stills.
2. Yes, if you have a DVD recorder you can simply connect the camcorder to the DVD recorder and press play – better yet if your DVD recorder has DV-in.
3. DV input: The main benefit of this is if you edit on a PC; you can then output your edited movie in it’s original DV format back to tape.


Mark

[iball]

Thanks for that, so DV in isn't an essential as my computer won't really get used for editing, I don't have the patience for it, I just want to copy straight to a disc.

And just to clarify, things like the New Sony which will record onto a 8cm DVD with a 3.3mega pixel CCD won't improve picture quality for video, but will take still pictures of better quality? And presumably even with 3.3 CCD the quality will not be as good as a normal digi camera with a 6 megapixel resolution?

Thanks again, I really am struggling to decide!

[redsox_mark]

Correct – those extra pixels on the new Sony HDD camcorder are only useful for still photos. It can be useful to be able to take reasonably good stills with the camcorder (in cases where you want to shoot video and don’t want to carry a separate camera for stills), but you are right that these megapixel camcorders can’t compete with a good digital camera for stills.

What can make a difference to video quality is to have 3 separate CCDs (one for each colour). Also having physically larger CCDs can help with quality.. but more pixels, no help to video quality.

In general my opinion is that for standard definition, miniDV is the best quality format. Then there are HD formats like HDV…


Mark