Newbie to camcorders - help

[slowpoke]

Have a budget up to £500. Have done a little bit of research but dont have much of a clue. What would you reccomend? Someone reccomended the Panasonic SD7 though the SD1 seems a good deal on QVC

[redsox_mark]

SD7 is an import only. The price of the SD1 on QVC is a good deal.
What are your needs and priorities? The best quality will be with a HDV tape model like the Canon HV20, Sony HC7, or Sony HC5. If you want AVCHD on memory card, then the Panasonic SD5, SD7, or SD1. If you want AVCHD on HDD, then Canon HG10 or Sony SR7. The AVCHD models are good, but you lose some quality and you need a fast PC and the right software to edit and play.

[slowpoke]

Thanks redsox

How come tape is still better quality than recording onto harddrive or memory card?

[redsox_mark]

The compression/format. For high definition, HDV (tape) is 25 mbps MPEG2, the HDD/Flash Memory cams are AVCHD/MPEG4, 15 mbps max.

The reason the HDD and flash memory cams use greater compression is so they can fit more on a HDD or card.. there is no technical reason why they could not use a less compressed format; in fact JVC has a couple of cams which do this, they use a version of MPEG2 on HDD. But they have some other issues (e.g. image stabilisation).

[slowpoke]

Thanks again


The reason I was prefering HD or SD was that it would be easier to get onto my PC and edit. With tapes how difficult is it to do this?

Also would the canon HV20 also record in high defintion?

[redsox_mark]

It is easy to upload to the PC from tape using Firewire. It is realtime transfer however. So it will take 1 hour to upload a 1 hour tape.

Yes, the HV20 records in 1080i high definition; and even as a 1080 25p mode.

[slowpoke]

Thanks Mark, its all becoming more clear now

If you had a choice between the SD5 and the HV20 which would you purchase?

[redsox_mark]

I would get the HV20, the main reasons being:

1. I want the best quality I can get
2. I don't mind tape

Point 2 comes down to a couple of things. Some people see tape as "old technology" and just don't want it, even though it is still digital, a good archive media etc. Others don't want to edit much or at all on a PC, and want to be able to quickly extract and upload clips from the camcorder. This is the most compelling argument to me for HDD or flash memory based cams. As I tend to do extensive editing on the PC, I always want to capture all my footage and edit, so the latter point doesn't do much for me.

[slowpoke]

Thanks Mark, that really helps

So it really comes down to how much I will want to edit on PC as opposed to being able to quicly play back onto TV from a camera.

Also agree on the point about tapes. Until you explained it to me I assumed you couldnt record HD material onto tape.

Now here is my next question and hopefully last question. I have an intel core duo Pc with 2meg RAM so fairly quick. Will I easily be able to edit my tapes and burn them onto DVD to play on my TV? Will I be able to watch them in high defintion?

[redsox_mark]

Your PC will certainly be able to edit HDV (tape) with no problem; it's probably also fast enough to edit AVCHD (with the right software).

Will I easily be able to edit my tapes and burn them onto DVD to play on my TV? Will I be able to watch them in high defintion?

This is a trickier question. If you are talking about a DVD video which you can play in a standard DVD player, you can create these easily, yes, but it will not be in high definition. This is the case for either HDV tape or AVCHD like on the SD5.

There are however many options to watch in high definition; some of them are:

- You can burn 20 mins or so of high def footage on to a ordinary DVD disc which can be played by a HD-DVD player. (With the right software to do this).
- You can burn on to a HD-DVD disc (with a HD-DVD burner) or a Blu-Ray disc (with a Blu-Ray burner), and play these on a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player.
- Playstation 3 will play either AVCHD or WMV or MPEG2 high def formats.
- There are media players which play HDV or AVCHD (more support for HDV)
- You can play the files from your PC

[slowpoke]

Mark, thanks alot, I think we have covered everything. really appreciated

[slowpoke]

One last question please Mark

What if I bought the SD1 and took some footage. Could I edit it on my PC and put it back onto a memory card and play it back on my HD TV?

[rhubarbe]

We don't believe so, no. Currently, there is no editing software that will let you output edited AVCHD footage as AVCHD.

We are hoping that there will be soon.

EDIT: I think I read that there is some for the Mac. I will see if I can find where I read it....

[rhubarbe]

Sony Vegas Pro 8 for Windows can do it:

http://www.webvideouniverse.com/edit...le.php/3700861

or so it says.

[slowpoke]

So onece you move the file from the memory card then on most editing SW it gets convereted into a different format and you can chnage it back to the original format.
Can you still play it from he memory card using a different format or will it be too large?