[zorba11]

for camcorder footage is HDV format better quality than AVCHD ?
(all other things being equal - e.g. resolution of cam's sensor, cam's lens quality, etc. etc.)

[A n d r e w]

Problem is, all other things are never equal. Some AVCHD camcorders are pretty ordinary, some are brilliant. Same for HDV. It's a bit like asking "are diesel-powered cars better than petrol-powered ones?" The question is, is tape or tapeless better for you? Answering this question will involve thinking about the workflows involved using the different media: not just the quality of the recording, but transferring to PC for editing, making DVDs, final destination for your videos, and so on.

[senu]

Just to add to the above
The difference in AVCHD and HDV ( at least in consumer camcorders) lies more in the
Hardware used
and
Encoding
Rather than the formats themselves
Also although AVCHD " full HD " resolution is more than HDVs ( at consumer level) this does not always translate to better perceived definition
Sony for instance has used a lot of video enhancing technologies in its more recent AVCHD models , and not its solitary HC9 (HDV) making any like for like comparison impossible. However the Semi Pro/Prosumer HDv models have them and are still going strong
This may be for purely practical reasons, or simply to avoid comparisons that would still create a market for HDV
What is true is that either formats can look stunningly good, especially off a BluRay disc even if mpeg2 is felt to be " ageing" technology

[glesgaguyav]

And just to add to that.

I have both types of cam AVCHD and HDV, IMO HDV is by far the better format especially if you want to edit, not all AVCHD compression formats are the same, the only advantage of AVCHD is the smaller file sizes, as an example when I edit raw AVCHD from my Sony TG3 in Ulead Studio 11 and create an AVCHD file, because Uleads interpretation of AVCHD compression is different from Sony's it can introduce unwanted artifacts, however if I just tell ulead to produce an HDV file from the raw AVCHD then there is no loss of quality, just bigger file sizes.

[zorba11]

Originally Posted by A n d r e w

The question is, is tape or tapeless better for you? Answering this question will involve thinking about the workflows involved using the different media: not just the quality of the recording, but transferring to PC for editing, making DVDs, final destination for your videos, and so on.

Thanks Andew, some thought provoking Q's here !

I'm assuming transfer to PC will be equally trivial for both formats, also burning DVDs once the content is on the PC/external drive.

Final destination though, that got me thinking. Tapes are reasonably stable, whereas I've already had problems with DVD's not playing on certain players and deteriorating.....
Sorry in advance for the newbieness of the Q, but can edited footage (in HDV) be transferred back to miniDV tape for dissemination or "release" ?

For archiving (as a seperate process from dissmeination or release) I know eventually I'll want to get a Terabyte external drive (or three !), but in the meantime could I use the tapes as per above (ie copying back to them from PC)?

[zorba11]

Originally Posted by senu

Just to add to the above
The difference in AVCHD and HDV ( at least in consumer camcorders) lies more in the
Hardware used
and
Encoding
Rather than the formats themselves
Also although AVCHD " full HD " resolution is more than HDVs ( at consumer level) this does not always translate to better perceived definition
Sony for instance has used a lot of video enhancing technologies in its more recent AVCHD models , and not its solitary HC9 (HDV) making any like for like comparison impossible. However the Semi Pro/Prosumer HDv models have them and are still going strong
This may be for purely practical reasons, or simply to avoid comparisons that would still create a market for HDV
What is true is that either formats can look stunningly good, especially off a BluRay disc even if mpeg2 is felt to be " aging" technology

would u class the Sony HC9 as consumer then ?

At what pricepoint does "semi pro/prosumer" start to kick in, and can you name any HDV models ?

[senu]

Originally Posted by zorba11

would u class the Sony HC9 as consumer then ?

Yes, it is

At what pricepoint does "semi pro/prosumer" start to kick in, and can you name any HDV models ?

£2000 upwards
I own the older Sony FX1 but there are far newer models ( model no escape me ) , and Canon XHA1 is also really good
but
They use tape.. cost quite a bit and clearly you may not want to stretch to that

[mmace]

I moved from Sony HC5 (HDV) to SR10 (AVCHD) and the SR10 is better quality for me

[senu]

Originally Posted by zorba11

I'm assuming transfer to PC will be equally trivial for both formats

,
No HDV is real time firefire, AVCDH USB copy across however niether method is complicated but tape capture is less quick

Final destination though, that got me thinking. Tapes are reasonably stable, whereas I've already had problems with DVD's not playing on certain players and deteriorating.....
Sorry in advance for the newbieness of the Q, but can edited footage (in HDV) be transferred back to miniDV tape for dissemination or "release" ?

Yes.. saying that tape is not indestructable

For archiving (as a seperate process from dissmeination or release) I know eventually I'll want to get a Terabyte external drive (or three !), but in the meantime could I use the tapes as per above (ie copying back to them from PC)?

Yes

[zorba11]

Originally Posted by glesgaguyav

however if I just tell ulead to produce an HDV file from the raw AVCHD then there is no loss of quality, just bigger file sizes.

So on the PC, one can convert the raw AVCHD to HDV anyhow ?

Does that process require a whizzbang PC?

If not, then maybe there's a way forward here - get one of the consumer AWCHD cams, and convert the footage to HDV before editing on my wobbly old PC (from memory: 1.3Ghz AMD chip, 500MB, 80Gb HDD).

[senu]

Originally Posted by zorba11

So on the PC, one can convert the raw AVCHD to HDV anyhow ?

Yes

Does that process require a whizzbang PC?

What do you consider " whizz bang?" . More grunt is always handy

If not, then maybe there's a way forward here - get one of the consumer AWCHD cams, and convert the footage to HDV before editing on my wobbly old PC (from memory: 1.3Ghz AMD chip, 500MB, 80Gb HDD).

That is Old
Even HDV will refuse to be edited on that!
Realistically for any sort of AVCHD manipulation ( and HDV to a much lesser extent) A CoreDuo PC ( 2.66) is a good starting point
My P4 3.0Ghz with 2Gb RAM and a Geforce 5900GT ( 218Mb Ram) just about works
It took getting a Q9450 system with 4Gb RAM and a GF 9600GT( 512Mb ram) to get AVCHD happier
I imagine an i7 based system would be even better