[bodhi]

Hi,

I have been mulling over the various HD cams for some weeks now, and want to buy one in time for the arrival of my new baby on July 11th (or therearound).

I had my heart set on the Panasonic, as I loved its looks, ease of use, and very small size. I am purely a point a shoot guy that wants to use the camera every now and again for family/holiday type stuff, but with the best image quality possible. I'm a bit of a gadget nut and thus have a high end PC, HD LCD TV etc. I think the SDHC format is the way to go for me in terms of size and ease of use. I'm not too fussed about tones of features.

However, Sony then announced the imminent release of the CX6, which looks great. It's coming a little late for me really, but more importantly, will be retailing for around $1000, whereas the Panny is currently being sold for $800. I have a friend who can pick me up either model in the US and bring it back over for me.

The question is, is the Sony worth waiting for, or should I just go with the Panasonic? Is it worth seeing if the Panasonic HDC-SD3 is even better?

Cheers.

[senu]

The Sony is a bit of an unknown although they do make decent Camcorders
That is a galling admission from me as Im not a great Sony fan but all my camcorders ( save a Panasonic Mx 500) have been Sony
Im not sure what to say for a child on its way but being a bit more cautious Im wary of being a first wave adoptee of new technology and would suggest you wait.... If you can
If I had to buy now for a newborn I would either stick my neck out for the Panasonic or actually Buy a tape based HDV
Dont forget that Footage of a newborn is probably something you will want to share outside your own home and the need to get a format you can disseminate will soon arise
Unlike Digital stills the AVCHD from Panasonic will need to be turned to say SD DVD for which you are currently limited to Pinnacle Studio 11 ultimate or Vegas 8 when released
I mention tape because Im not convinced that HDD or Soild state camcorders impressive though they are have been able to elimited motion jitter as well as tape .. Due in part to the intense compression needed to fit High def material on limited data space
Good luck... whatever you buy and don't forget.. Babies can come early ( That for me is an occupational hazard!!)

[bodhi]

Hi Senu,

thanks for the comments. I did considr the Canon HV20 for some time, as it is clearly the best performer. However, I have to be realistic, and I need convenience over quality, and when the differences in quality are so marginal, for me the HDD or CD card options are favourable.

I conceive that if I want to give the flicks to anybody else I will have to downgrade the resolution to fit on a normal DVD, but to be fair, I think it will be rare that I will be sharing my films with others, and with the current rate of technological change, probably won't pose an issue for too long anyway (even my mum has a high-def TV, although she doesn't have Blue Ray just yet:-)

The Sony cameras do look nice, and yes, the Panny is a first generation product, which I am normally weary of myself. Under any other circumstances I would wait, but the impending birth is limiting my flexibility here! I reckon I could just hold our for the new Sony's to be released in the US, but if they then get poor reviews I'll have wasted my time (but al least not my money I guess). If I do wait, I'll probably miss the very early days of the little one's arrival, which would be a bit of a shame.

[senu]

It is a lot of money but I would buy something now..ish .. and sell it if I felt discontented later ( taping snippetts of mum in the latter stages of pregnancy , doing up the babies room is a nice prelude to baby's arrival) Think.. brownie points!!

I love the concept of a media card camcorder ( though not for work type projects yet in its current form) but If you got an HV10 or similar now you would have established technology at very high quality for not much difference in money and it would hold its value for a little while

The only disadvantage (IMHO) is the fact of real time transfer period to a PC .. no other TBH : I cant think of any other real inconvenience. The minimal size difference is probably an advantage as ultra small camcorders are more likely to exaggerate hand movt. At any rate, tape camcorders are almost "microscopic" now compared to past models
Tape has moving parts but the camcorders actually tend to be sturdy if used with reasonable care:
Any camcorder can be used as point and shoot even the Panny has manual controls if you want to use them
Ease of use: A draw!
You tell me any other disadvantage if you can think of any

You can play both the tape or card off the camera if you like and the tapes are an archive ( + any footage copied to an ext HDD) which is how you would keep AVCHD files
Tapes are cheap and easy to get..(reusable if not too many times) Unless you got 2 or more cards you'd have to keep one empty and ready all the time.
Also HDV *.m2t files ( even if unconverted to WMV HD) are much easier to edit and play .. at the present time

[redsox_mark]

SD1 vs CX6 - well it's hard to say, as the CX6 isn't here yet. I would not expect a big difference in performance between them.

One issue with the SD1 currently is there is even less editing support, as to date Sony Vegas (one of the few apps which edit AVCHD) only supports the Sony camcorder implementation, though that is supposed to change.

As for AVCHD vs HDV tape... on another thread someone said:

Anyway, reason I chose Hard disk is, it is so quick and easy to drag and drop files. no whirring of tapes or fast forwarding\rewinding Like my previous. I can just drag and drop from the drive and double click on each clip to play or drag them into editing software to trim or create DVD.
Its great, easy, quick, instant

I thought this was interesting. It all depends on if you edit and how you edit. If like the person who made the quote above, you want to make a DVD of some specific clips, and you know what they are (and maybe you want to trim them as well), then HDD or Flash Memory makes sense and is much easier.

Take however a typical family video project for me. Family goes on holiday. I shoot several hours of video, from which I want to make a 30 minute "film". Forget the technology for a moment... to do that (and do it well) I need to:

1. Watch all the hours of footage. (How can I select the best bits otherwise?)
2. Edit to create my production

I also like to keep all my original footage.

I do step 1 by watching the video as I capture it to the PC, taking notes as I do this. Then I edit on the PC. I never am rewinding/forwarding to find a clip on the tape. Once the clips are on the PC (as I use scene detection when capturing) I can find the ones I want just as easy as from a HDD or flash memory cam.

For the type of workflow I use, like Senu I see little benefit of a file based direct access format (HDD or flash memory). If however you want to find just some specific clips directly without having to capture everything, then there is an advantage to these formats.