The latest range of camcorders-which..?

Originally Posted by Dooper1

Why did you have to digitise footage that's already digital ?.

All digital 8/DV camcorders have firewire ports (iee1394).

Firewire captures the digital content as is in a DV compressed AVI file or files, depending on whether you elect to record each clip as a seperate file. (Uses about 4GB for 20 minutes).

Pretty well all video editing programmes will edit DV AVI

Unless you have a really powerfull PC you will find the 1080p50 recordings very difficult to do anything with. Even blu-ray can't do 1080p50.

Sorry..i perhaps confused my terminology....i use the firewire port on the sony to import the video to my lappy...it is the editing bit that is cumbersome and also,the whole business of accessing and retrieving footage from a tape driven machine is a bit old hat. I think at the time,sony actually produced a standalone Hi8 video editing machine though have never seen one live..
In linux i use Kino to import video and then Openshot to do limited editing.

grahamlthompson · 07-12-2011, 11:11

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Sorry..i perhaps confused my terminology....i use the firewire port on the sony to import the video to my lappy...it is the editing bit that is cumbersome and also,the whole business of accessing and retrieving footage from a tape driven machine is a bit old hat. I think at the time,sony actually produced a standalone Hi8 video editing machine though have never seen one live..
In linux i use Kino to import video and then Openshot to do limited editing.

Hi8 is analogue (equivalent to S-VHS),

JulesandSand · 07-12-2011, 11:45

I bought one of these early this year to take on safari and very good it is too. Records in HD. I use an SD card, but it also takes memory stick.

Much simpler to handle the video on PC compared to the miniDV camcorder I used to use.

The only downside I found is that it has no eyepiece viewfinder and the LCD is all but impossible to see in very bright sunlight.

noise747 · 07-12-2011, 15:33

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Originally Posted by Dooper1

Hi all...

I have had a Sony TRV110E camcorder for more than ten years. It is a digital 8 camcorder i.e it records digitally on hi8 tapes. The obvious blocker is that in order to process the video,you have to digitise it...a laborious process which is made much easier by using Linux and kino plus movie maker..

I am now thinging of getting something newer and whilst there is some incredible technology which gives you a lot of bang for your buck,the most glaring omission seems to be that none of them have a viewfinder..!! Surely this is an issue with a camcorder with regard to shooting accuracy and control? any thoughts ?

I am current looking at the JVC GZ-HM455 BK which seems to be a great compromise of price and features/performance...

http://www.jvc.co.uk/product.php?id=...K&catid=100094

i agree with you about the lack of a view finder, a lot of digital still cameras are the same as well unless you got for a bridge or SLR, My old Canon Mini DV camcorder which worked on the same principle as your digital 8, but used Min DV tapes instead of video 8 was the last camcorder I had with a view finder.

You can get or make little covers that will shield the screen from the sun. you get used to having no viewfinder eventually

The JVC MG21 I got when the canon stopped working don't have a view finder and I found it a bit of a pain in the sun

A few months back I got myself a JVC GZ-HM435 Camcorder, which is the model below the one you looking at, I think the main difference is the 445 can take stills, while Mine can't

i will tell you now I am so impressed by the quality of the content that I record, even in pretty naff light it is great, i would recommend the camera to anyone.

The only problem I see is the battery life is not great, about a hour record per charge, but you can buy a larger battery, but they are not cheap about £70 and the 8Gb card that comes with them are not enough to be honest, you need a larger card, but they are cheap enough

the main problem I have with small camcorders, even my older JVC is that they are not easy to hold still the one you are looking at like mine got a anti-shake system, works ok mind you, but it will degrade the quality at full zoom a little bit.

I am going to buy a shoulder mount, give some stability

Stick the model number of the camcorder you looking at into You tube, you will see the quality as peopel do tests.

noise747 · 07-12-2011, 15:35

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Originally Posted by JulesandSand

Hi8 is analogue (equivalent to S-VHS),

His original post said digital 8 which was a system that sony tried to keep going when the MiniDv format was going. The Digital 8 uses Hi8 tapes, but record digital and as been said the footage is archived via Firewire,, good quality, but slow.

noise747 · 07-12-2011, 15:38

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I bought one of these early this year to take on safari and very good it is too. Records in HD. I use an SD card, but it also takes memory stick.

Much simpler to handle the video on PC compared to the miniDV camcorder I used to use.

The only downside I found is that it has no eyepiece viewfinder and the LCD is all but impossible to see in very bright sunlight.

I know a couple of sony Cam corder owners and I have not been that impressed from the stuff that comes out of them, in fact one person I know who does video work for a living and have pro-sony camcorders are now changing them all toe pro-JVC as he thinks the quality is better.

As for the screen, you can make covers to shield them

neo_wales · 07-12-2011, 16:33

Video camera's have really moved on in recent years. Even the video on my Galaxy 2 is far better than anything I captured using tape (my last was also a Sony T*****28E? or something), in fact its really very very good.

My daughter recently got a Toshiba HD with flip out screen for about £95 and its given surprisingly good results.

I now have a Canon and its HD bla bla bla, worth the extra £200? Not sure if I'm totally honest, better for darker locations but not really any better than the cheap Toshiba in brighter light.

JulesandSand · 07-12-2011, 17:00

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I know a couple of sony Cam corder owners and I have not been that impressed from the stuff that comes out of them, in fact one person I know who does video work for a living and have pro-sony camcorders are now changing them all toe pro-JVC as he thinks the quality is better.

As for the screen, you can make covers to shield them

I can't answer for pro equipment - mine cost £250 and the quality, in HD, is excellent.

grahamlthompson · 07-12-2011, 17:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by neo_wales

His original post said digital 8 which was a system that sony tried to keep going when the MiniDv format was going. The Digital 8 uses Hi8 tapes, but record digital and as been said the footage is archived via Firewire,, good quality, but slow.

Fully aware of that. His post mentioned a Sony dedicated editor for Hi 8, useless for digital 8 (it would have been a linear editor, digital footage is edited using non-linear editing software). Been creating DVD's for years using a Sony TRV950 DV camcorder. Never had any problems editing DV content. I used an earlier version of Premiere Pro and Encore for DVD production. Capture may be slow but you can log a DV tape in fast forward and select which clips you waqnt to import and let firewire camera control handle the import entirely automatically. The camcorder was a £1000.00 plus semi pro model. My Sony HD Camcorder delivers superb content despite costing about 50% of the TRV950. These days this is used as a high quality digitiser for analogue content (The relatively uncompressed footage is ideal for conversion to DVD)

noise747 · 07-12-2011, 22:03

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Video camera's have really moved on in recent years. Even the video on my Galaxy 2 is far better than anything I captured using tape (my last was also a Sony T*****28E? or something), in fact its really very very good.

Depends what Tape, digital tape based camcorders are pretty good as they are not compressed, quality is as good as what the camera can take. There was and still are a few HD camcorders that use tape, but they are pro units.

In theory they will produce the best picture as again the content is not compressed, saying that you would not get much onto a a tape.

Quote:

My daughter recently got a Toshiba HD with flip out screen for about £95 and its given surprisingly good results.

I now have a Canon and its HD bla bla bla, worth the extra £200? Not sure if I'm totally honest, better for darker locations but not really any better than the cheap Toshiba in brighter light.

The little flip can give pretty decent results as well, but when you start editing with it you see the limitations, asl the lack of a proper zoom don't help, which is the same with a lot of mobile phones.

i edited some video that was taken with a flip and it looked good until I put it against some stuff shot in the same place on my camcorder.

If i had the money I would go for a nice Semi-pro camcorder.

noise747 · 07-12-2011, 22:06

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Originally Posted by JulesandSand

I can't answer for pro equipment - mine cost £250 and the quality, in HD, is excellent.

i seen some horrid stuff come from Sony camcorders, mind you some of it is to do with the person taking the shots and the editing. I know that Sony is used a lot in the film and T.V industry for some reason.

noise747 · 07-12-2011, 22:16

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Fully aware of that. His post mentioned a Sony dedicated editor for Hi 8, useless for digital 8 (it would have been a linear editor, digital footage is edited using non-linear editing software). Been creating DVD's for years using a Sony TRV950 DV camcorder. Never had any problems editing DV content. I used an earlier version of Premiere Pro and Encore for DVD production. Capture may be slow but you can log a DV tape in fast forward and select which clips you waqnt to import and let firewire camera control handle the import entirely automatically. The camcorder was a £1000.00 plus semi pro model. My Sony HD Camcorder delivers superb content despite costing about 50% of the TRV950. These days this is used as a high quality digitiser for analogue content (The relatively uncompressed footage is ideal for conversion to DVD)

I use Sony Vegas for editing, gave up on Premier as it took a lot of processing power just to run.

i still got some DV tapes to sort out, but I have to borrow my brothers camcorder as my old Canon DV Camcorder overheats for some reason and the firewire don't work.
I want to get it sorted as it was a good camcorder.

The main differences these days between a pro camcorder and a home camcorder are.

Pro are normally larger, so easier to handle and keep still

Pro comes with three CCD,so each one handle each of the separate colours

Pro normally have better lenses and electronics are slightly higher quality.

Pro have view finders.

Pro have ease of access to controls and not done by menu options.

The JVC Hd I own is a great little camera, just a bit too small sometimes and take some holding still, what I do want to get is a Zoom sound recorder, but not sure if I should go for the Zoom H1 or H2. don't get me wrong the camcorder got a good microphone, but it is in mono and the sound of most camcorders don't pick up the stereo separation.

c4rv · 08-12-2011, 00:29

You should be able to edit 1080p50 video on any reasonable PC as editing can be done in SD and only HD when edit is selected to assemble. At that point leave your PC running and do something else.

As for camera, I picked up a refurbished Panasonic SD700 from fleabay for £400 inc 6 months warranty. So far I have been really impressed with the results. HD is good but where it really scores is image stability and low light shooting. The auto settings work 99% of the time just fine but there is option to override a few of them manually if you feel the need to.

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/camcorders...view-49305229/

Also if you use the panasonic software for editing, it uses the camcorder to render the final footage (never tried this though). It has a view finder but annoyingly it is fixed and does not tilt. About the only weak point is the built in mic is not brilliant but that can be said for just about any consumer camcorder. Luckily it has mic in so I can add an external mic in the future if I wanted.

As some body else mentioned battery life is so and so with the default battery, get between 60 and 90 minutes on a full charge. Bought and extended OEM battery around £50 which give around 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Also you will need memory cards, I picked up a class 10, 32GB SDHC card with reader from play.com for £35 which give around 2 1/2 to 3 hours recording (funny about the same at the battery).

I use either pinnacle studio (basic but easy to use) though even window live movie maker in windows 7 does a pretty good job of doing basic editing.

As somebody else mentioned the problem with the flip and cameras on phones is that they rely on digital zoom and also low light shooting is usually not so good.

grahamlthompson · 08-12-2011, 10:47

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Depends what Tape, digital tape based camcorders are pretty good as they are not compressed, quality is as good as what the camera can take. There was and still are a few HD camcorders that use tape, but they are pro units.

In theory they will produce the best picture as again the content is not compressed, saying that you would not get much onto a a tape.

.

All digital recorded (and broadcast) content is compressed, without it camcorders would be near impossible to make.

Take DV/Digital 8 SD camcorders

These use the lowest compression codec (DV).

Without compression 720 x 576 pixels using 24 bit colour and 25 fps.
This requires 720 x 576 x 24 x 25 bits/second = 248832000
Divide by 8 to get bytes = 31104000 bytes/sec, or about 31MB/sec. 20 minutes of video would require about 37GB (DV reduces this to about 4GB).

HD camcorders require much more compression, they use a variant of mpeg4 (AVCHD) depending on bitrate for example a broadcast 1920 x 1080 interlaced transmission will need about 4.5GB of storage.

grahamlthompson · 08-12-2011, 10:53

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You should be able to edit 1080p50 video on any reasonable PC as editing can be done in SD and only HD when edit is selected to assemble. At that point leave your PC running and do something else.

digital zoom and also low light shooting is usually not so good.

Very few editing packages allow proxy file editing. Having achieved 1080p50 what can you do with it. The only practical way to show it is from a hard disc and using a 1080p50 compatible media player. Without a powerfull PC how can you play it back. Only the latest multicore processors can keep up with the datarate required for 1080p50. Streaming it over a LAN needs a megafast network. You can't even burn it to blu-ray.

2Bdecided · 08-12-2011, 12:18

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Having achieved 1080p50 what can you do with it.

Be confident that you've captured the best image you can today with a consumer camcorder, down-res it now if you must, and keep the full quality footage to enjoy on your TV now and/or in the future.

The Canon HV20 is/was a damn good HD camcorder using HDV (DV tapes), but the 1080p models from Panasonic take things to another level again. It makes the HV20 footage look a bit blurry in comparison.

I don't find tape a hindrance - whether it's tape or card, you copy the whole lot onto HDDs. No one works from the tapes - they just sit in a cupboard as a back-up (which is good). But take longer to copy to PC (which is bad). Swings and roundabouts.

This is probably all off topic as I get the feeling the OP is looking to spend less money. But if I was buying today, for shooting family stuff that I want to watch now and in 20 years time, I'd certainly buy one of the 1080p50 models from Panasonic.

Cheers,
David.

noise747 · 08-12-2011, 15:30

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You should be able to edit 1080p50 video on any reasonable PC as editing can be done in SD and only HD when edit is selected to assemble. At that point leave your PC running and do something else.

Yep, agree there, just less hassle if you have got a more powerful machine.

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As for camera, I picked up a refurbished Panasonic SD700 from fleabay for £400 inc 6 months warranty. So far I have been really impressed with the results. HD is good but where it really scores is image stability and low light shooting. The auto settings work 99% of the time just fine but there is option to override a few of them manually if you feel the need to.

It looks nice, should be pretty good since it uses the 3mos system which works very well.
the one problem I have my camcorder is the lack of external control, got to use menus to get to them.

Quote:

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/camcorders...view-49305229/

Also if you use the panasonic software for editing, it uses the camcorder to render the final footage (never tried this though).

Um, never heard of that before, I presume it needs enough space on the card to do so.

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It has a view finder but annoyingly it is fixed and does not tilt

that is annoying, it means you ca,t get low shots unless you are lying on the floor, good job it have a screen as well.

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. About the only weak point is the built in mic is not brilliant but that can be said for just about any consumer camcorder. Luckily it has mic in so I can add an external mic in the future if I wanted.

i must admit the mic on mine is pretty good, and get some good sound recorded, the only problem is the lack of stereo which is why I am going to get a zoom sound recorder and also with a separate sound recorder you can keep it focused on the sound and can move the camera around. the only problem is synchronising the audio with the video after

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As some body else mentioned battery life is so and so with the default battery, get between 60 and 90 minutes on a full charge. Bought and extended OEM battery around £50 which give around 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

My old hard drive based SD JVC camcorder was easy to get a third party battery for, but so far I have not fond one for the HD one.

They say they are compatible, but when I look at the pictures the connections are different.

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Also you will need memory cards, I picked up a class 10, 32GB SDHC card with reader from play.com for £35 which give around 2 1/2 to 3 hours recording (funny about the same at the battery).

Prices have gone down for class 10 cards now, when I got my 16GB card it was nearly £20.

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I use either pinnacle studio (basic but easy to use) though even window live movie maker in windows 7 does a pretty good job of doing basic editing.

Pinnacle used to be buggy. but as you said it is basic and easy to use if it don't crash.
Windows movie maker I hate,

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As somebody else mentioned the problem with the flip and cameras on phones is that they rely on digital zoom and also low light shooting is usually not so good.

Yep, that is the main problem, my JVC HD camcorder got a 40X optical zoom, which for HD is great as most Hd camcorders come no where near that as the lens have to be spot on.

:Never use the digital zoom on my camcorder or my stills camera for that matter, I got it switched off on both.

c4rv · 09-12-2011, 02:15

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Yep, agree there, just less hassle if you have got a more powerful machine.

Also check video card support from the software you want to use. Nvidia and AMD/ATI both offer hardware transcoding. Intel also offer a technology called quick sync built into latest CPU.

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Um, never heard of that before, I presume it needs enough space on the card to do so.

No, I think you connect the camcorder via USB. The software then uploads the data to the camcorder memory to be rendered using the camcorder hardware. Then its downloaded back to the PC.

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that is annoying, it means you ca,t get low shots unless you are lying on the floor, good job it have a screen as well.

Yeap.

The mic is not too back, it supports 5 channel audio built in.

noise747 · 09-12-2011, 10:47

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Also check video card support from the software you want to use. Nvidia and AMD/ATI both offer hardware transcoding. Intel also offer a technology called quick sync built into latest CPU.

Sadly Vegas never really supported hardware rendering until now. It did support it in Sonys on format using a Nvidia card.
The new version support it with all formats now I think, but I am not going to buy the new version just for that

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No, I think you connect the camcorder via USB. The software then uploads the data to the camcorder memory to be rendered using the camcorder hardware. Then its downloaded back to the PC.

I wonder if that is much of a advantage, I suppose it is as the hardware in a camcorder got to be pretty good to compress the image so quick

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Yeap.

The mic is not too back, it supports 5 channel audio built in.

how do it do that, surely it would not have the separation for that

c4rv · 09-12-2011, 13:13

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I wonder if that is much of a advantage, I suppose it is as the hardware in a camcorder got to be pretty good to compress the image so quick

I would think the built in hardware is optimized but never the panasonic software so I couldn't tell you how much difference it makes.

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how do it do that, surely it would not have the separation for that

There are apparently 5 mics built in, have a look about 1/2 way down this page,

http://panasonic.net/avc/camcorder/h.../feature1.html

I don't have a 5 speak setup at home but there is surprisingly OK separation between left and right, I guess the mics are highly directional. Also wind noise cancellation is the best I have heard without an external mic though I am sure the other new camcorders are probably as good.

noise747 · 10-12-2011, 09:50

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