New HD Camcorder and time/date stamp

bkilburn

Standard Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2008
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
4
Age
69
Hello I am new to this forum and am about to buy a new HD Camcorder. I know there are several different formats HDD, Memory card or even blu-ray and I don't want to use tape. Apart from the question of which is the best format I am also concerned about the time/date stamp. I take mainly videos of my family and want to store these on my pc with the time/date stamp showing so we know when they were taken. My experience with hdv is that the stamp is lost when you transfer it from the camcorder to pc by firewire or usb. My question is therefor what is the best format to use to get high quality hd footage and be able to transfer it to pc either directly or via any special hardware/software whilst retaining the time/date stamp. I am assuming that e.g. the hitachi blu-ray cam must produce a disc with the stamp on it which you could then copy onto the pc if necessary? My budget is upt to a max of £1500 and i am not looking for a large pro type cam.

thanks

Barry Kilburn
 
AVCHD files (MTS or M2TS) are named with the date as part of the filename....

Can't really recommend a cam until I know what you want to do with it; likes, dislikes.

In the final analysis though there isn't that much choice so it'll likely come down to Canon HF10/100; Canon HG10; Sony HDR-SR12.

Let's see if it doesn't. ;)
 
I am also concerned about the time/date stamp. I take mainly videos of my family and want to store these on my pc with the time/date stamp showing so we know when they were taken. My experience with hdv is that the stamp is lost when you transfer it from the camcorder to pc by firewire or usb.

As well as the date being part of the filename; the date information (datecode) is recorded in the datastream (this is what allows you to turn the date display on/off on the camcorder). It is not actually lost with HDV (or AVCHD) when you copy to the PC. But, I've not seen any editing software which can access the datecode information for HDV or AVCHD (it does exist for DV). And, when you render, you lose the date information at that stage.

If you are editing - what I do is manually add some text at key points to say what the date is.
 
Thanks for that. My preference is for a pretty much fully automatic cam (not too large if possible) with a reasonable optical zoom. I am also keen that it can take good quality stills with a pixel rating of say not less than 6 or 7.

I take the point that no software seems to allow you to "recover" the time/date stamp but if one had a cam which actually produced a blu-ray disc (like the hitachi) would that not preserve it? or do you still lose it as part of that process.

I am not that keen on doing too much editing but if it is simple to add a bit of text at key points that may be the answer. I suppose the cam will come with some basic software to capture the image and then I would need something like sony vegas to edit it? I am not really interested in doing any other editing as in an ideal world I would simply load it straight into the pc in a file and leave it at that.
 
if one had a cam which actually produced a blu-ray disc (like the hitachi) would that not preserve it? or do you still lose it as part of that process?

The problem becomes how do you display it. I don't know the Hitachi, but take the Canon HF10. When you play a video from the camcorder you can toggle the display of the date on/off. If you create a blu-ray disc (without editing) the date information may or may not be retained; but even if it is, the blu-ray player won't have a button to turn the date on/off.

With a Blu-ray recorder, maybe if played on the camcorder itself you can turn the date on/off, I don't know.
 
the main problem with the hitachi seems to be that the latest version hasn't got particularly good reviews - it is a bit big and cumbersome and doesn't provide good stills.

If the date/time issue is basically unresolvable just how easy is it to do some really basic editing to insert a bit of text on some of the frames when the video has been captured?

Barry
 
Adding a bit of text is very simple - about the easiest edit you can do - but - it does involve editing; which will add complexity to the overall process (as compared to not editing at all). I.e. if you edit, then you have to determine what format to output to (not all can output back to AVCHD), and how you create your disc.
 
Mark

thanks for that. The only software I have at the moment is sony vegas 8. If I want to go down the route of limited editing to include some text, what would you recommend as the best software to allow the output to remain as the input i.e avchd. I don't need any other sophistication but appreciate this may be a necessity to achieve the right output for the files. I have noticed that the software you get with a camcorder is so basic you can't for example prevent it creating a new file every time the cam was turned on and off and you need at least some editing capability to "join" these together into one file.

Barry
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom