Buying New HD Camcorder

[bkilburn]

I currently have a Sony HDR HC7 hdv camcorder. I want to upgrade and move away from tape to a hd/flash cam. Ideally i want to spend around £1000 or less. My usage is family videos which i want to load virtually undedited onto my pc as files and play through my hd plasma. The bugbear I have found with HDV is that you lose the date/time stamp (which i find useful) when you download from the cam to the pc. I don't know if this is fixed with avchd or flash hd cams? I currently have sony vegas platinum 8 so my question is can you recommend a new camcorder and do I need to change/upgrade my software Thanks!

Barry Kilburn

[senu]

Originally Posted by bkilburn

I currently have a Sony HDR HC7 hdv camcorder. I want to upgrade and move away from tape to a hd/flash cam. Ideally i want to spend around £1000 or less. My usage is family videos which i want to load virtually undedited onto my pc as files and play through my hd plasma. The bugbear I have found with HDV is that you lose the date/time stamp (which i find useful) when you download from the cam to the pc. I don't know if this is fixed with avchd or flash hd cams? I currently have sony vegas platinum 8 so my question is can you recommend a new camcorder and do I need to change/upgrade my software Thanks!

Barry Kilburn

A few comments:
Date time stamp from tape can be "retrieved" with software linked on these forums a few times ( see my last sentence) but it is normally not visible ( and I have to say most people don't need it, or have manual cataloguing systems to keep track, if need be)
Date time stamp is not fixed in AVCHD as it isn't considered to be a bug anyway
HDV has the advantage of being played off the cameras , and the edited HDV can be returned to camera ( AVCHD cannot)
In fact some AVCHD owners output edited AVCHD to HDV for return to tape so as not to rely on HDD , and to have a ready playback medium
Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 8 edits but does not does not output AVCHD. The Pro version does
If you have the Sony HC7, then the natural "upgrade" would be SR 11/12 which some have said is rather better

I must say that apart from the need to move away from tape Im not too sure that spending £1000 to get a date stamp ( which is actually not a feature of AVCHD)
The advantages of real time download ( via USB), smaller files sizes will also need you to have a need to have a reasonable fast modern PC ( Core2 duo ,/ quad core with a lot of RAM
I have an older HC1 and FX1 ( SONY) , have used the SR 11/12 for just a day and the Canon HG 10 for 2 months. There is not doubt that the newer kit give good to great colour sharpness but not enough ( for me ) to replace the HC1 ( at least) yet
If you share your videos and need to make SD DVDs from Hi def material, You cannont ( unlike withthe HC7) donconvert HDv in camera: it will have to be done software. Quality will remain great, but it is ever so slow
HTH

PS Have a look at the links HERE

[chrishull3]

Originally Posted by bkilburn

I currently have a Sony HDR HC7 hdv camcorder. I want to upgrade and move away from tape to a hd/flash cam. Ideally i want to spend around £1000 or less. My usage is family videos which i want to load virtually undedited onto my pc as files and play through my hd plasma. The bugbear I have found with HDV is that you lose the date/time stamp (which i find useful) when you download from the cam to the pc. I don't know if this is fixed with avchd or flash hd cams? I currently have sony vegas platinum 8 so my question is can you recommend a new camcorder and do I need to change/upgrade my software Thanks!

Barry Kilburn

Make sure your pc is up to to editing if you plan to do any,i knew mine would not be up to editing footage from mySR12 which is a shame as the footage colours and look of the pq is superior to my HC-1 and FX-7 so it can only be stored on a drive for now,Of course footage can be watched through my ps3 via the cam or by plugging a memory stick in.All my hdv material is on blue ray disc as well so for me avchd is limited at present.The only way anyone could make sd as far as i know is by ouputting as hdv tape and then downconverting but the sr12 records sd and hd
Ps i forgot to say i have always put the date of any hdv footage in the title of films unless they are for competitions.