[jynormous]

Hi everyone,

I have spent the last few weeks reading all I can about camcorders as I’m currently in the market to purchase one.

After much though, I have decided that I want a camcorder with a HDD as this will provide me with minimal on going costs as well as the added benefit of high transfer speeds to my MacBook Pro for editing.

The question of HD or non-HD still remains unanswered for me. HD would be great, but I can see several downsides associated with it. The first and main downside is the cost. HD camcorders with a HDD are very expensive. The second being that the compression used for HD HDD camcorders is still in development stages and no one standard has been worked out, although everyone but JVC seam to be using AVCHD. The third downside is that most companies have now released their 3rd generation HD HDD camcorders and still haven’t gotten the video quality / compression as good as they would like. This makes me think that future models will be churned our quite quickly with new technology, meaning any camcorder I buy now, could be outdated with technology quite quickly.

The reason for buying a camcorder is simple. I’m currently on a working holiday in London, and I want to film my adventure around the UK and also when I travel for 4 months on my way back home to Australia. I already have a Nikon D80 DSLR, so the photography part of the camcorder will not be used.

Therefore, would you suggest I bypass HD until it is more stable in HDD camcorders and get a SD HDD camcorder? If that’s your suggestion, then what standard definition HDD camcorder would you recommend?
Or if your think I should be spending more money on a better video quality, then let me know what camera you think I should get.

Budget isn’t really and issue, however that being said, I don’t wish to spend £800 on a camcorder. I think any camcorder I decide on, I will buy from America and get it sent over by my sister.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Cheers,
Jy.

[rhubarbe]

Oz and UK both use PAL 720 x 576i (25fps).

USA uses NTSC (30fps).

If you buy an HD cam then this doesn't really matter as any HDTV will display either a PAL or an NTSC source. However, an SDTV in UK and in Oz won't display from an NTSC source.

I really think that if you are going to buy from USA you must buy HD cam. If buying from UK you could afford to go for an SD cam.

[jynormous]

Ok i was having a bit more of a think regarding this issue and i came accross this litltle problem. At the moment, i dont actually have a Blue Ray burner or player so hence and HD video i record, wont be able to play on a TV.

Is it true that you cant have a HD video on a normal DVD? I know the capasity is much smaller, but can it handle the hight res? If it cant, then i should be looking at SD camcorders.

So if thats the case, i guess my options are only SD now. Knowing that, should i be looking at a HDD model or maybe a flash card model?

[digitalfrog]

I went through a very similar process very recently.

I decided to leave HD for a future purchase for several reasons:

HDD HD = PAIN !! Your macbook (I have one too) will have to re-encode all the data before you can edit it. Transfering the files may be quick, but you can't do anything with them just yet. As far as I'm concerned, HD would have to be HDV based to avoid this. It also solves the compression/quality issue. But I did not want to deal with tapes.

My conclusion was to wait for software to mature so I could edit AVCHD straight from the camera. I'm also not sure I will be using my camera that much as I never had one before (pro photographer, noob videographer).

I settled for a Canon FS100, sdhc base. It's entry level but it will get me going for a while until I know if I want to get serious about video and all those issues (for me they are) above are solved.

Ralph

[jynormous]

Originally Posted by digitalfrog

Your macbook (I have one too) will have to re-encode all the data before you can edit it.

iMovie08 says it can deal with MPEG-2 and AVCHD files without the need to re-encode.

Is this not true?

[digitalfrog]

Originally Posted by jynormous

iMovie08 says it can deal with MPEG-2 and AVCHD files without the need to re-encode.

Is this not true?

Where have you seen that ? I may be wrong, and would love to be :-)

[jynormous]

Originally Posted by digitalfrog

Where have you seen that ? I may be wrong, and would love to be :-)

On the apple website at the bottom right of this page:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/

Can anyone confirm?

[digitalfrog]

It says it supports it, but It needs to convert it first and that takes a huge amount of time and cpu power !

Hopefully someone will know for sure and will let us know. But that's whay I read (can remember where sadly) and that's why I dropped HDD based HD for now !

[rhubarbe]

Editing may not be the easiest but you don't need any fancy equipment to play the files.

You just need a PopcornHour.

[jynormous]

Ok then i guess I’m going for a SD camcorder.

Now can anyone recommend any? I was looking at the new Canon FS100 but haven’t been able to find a detailed review on it yet.

Any models that you would recommend?

[Dave Bartram]

I edit my files from my Xacti HD700 (MPEG4) without problems in iMovie 08. Tis only 720p though.