Digital Camcorder/Digital Video

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Author Message   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:11 pm:    OK, I know somebody out there has to have some experience with this (especially based upon the Discoweb video). I am conteplating purchasing a DV camcorder so I can store my video electronically permanently either on my hard disk and/or CD. What I don't know is if this is just a pipe dream w/out spending buko bucks. I don't care much about editing and all that (although if I do, I already have a copy of Adobe), I simply want to store my home videos on CD's, preferebly in a format that can be played on a DVD player and look ok. I have accomplished making a VCD with my composite capture card (ATI Rage 7200 DDR), but the puter just isn't fast enough to capture anything better in real time. The quality of a VCD is not as good as basic VHS on SP. Any experience? How much space does 1 hour of TV quality video take up? Can it be ported to a CD for playing in a DVD player (SVCD perhaps)? I know about the DIVX formats, and may do this and then simply play the CD in the computer and output to VHS, then do it again later when the VHS gets crappy, but would rather just play the CD's. Thanks for any help. Tom   Kyle Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:26 pm:    1 hour of Video is like 12 gig I believe. Get a sony... Kyle   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:28 pm:    12 gig. Not bad at all. The discoweb video was great quality. You know how big that file was? Somewhere I think Axle posted his PC config. Anyone remember that thread? Tom   Kyle Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:33 pm:    Its a late model Dell with a big SCSI drive hooked on.... Kyle   Blue (Bluegill) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:35 pm:    Dell is the shit....   Ron L Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:37 pm:    I just purchased one of these, Alot of fun in a little package. http://www.sonystyle.com/digitalimaging/P_Feature_IP7BT.shtml   Matt Richards (Mateu) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:42 pm:    You need a Mac G4 with the double processors and a 60 gig hard drive. PC's suck, period. Sorry to say it, but truth rattles cages. I record alot of my video into quicktime files. Ten minutes is about 800MB. I burn five minute clips onto cd's.   Blue (Bluegill) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:50 pm:    mac is indeed geared towards the "fun with computers" crowd   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:50 pm:    If the thing runs for days to make one video with my PIII-500, I don't care, I have 4 PIII PC's at home to use. Sounds like DIVX encoding and then storing files to CD's is going to be the way to go, at least until I get a DVD-RAM drive. You can get pretty damn good quality 1 hour video with stereo sound on a CD using DIVX. Tom   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:52 pm:    Please, leave PC vs. mac out of this. Anyone use Canon camcorders? Everywhere I read they are better than comparable Sony's. Tom   Matt Richards (Mateu) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 05:58 pm:    Sounds like a good idea, Tom. Those DVD burners make me all drooly. Blue, Macs are used in 90% of the entire graphics/design industry for print, web, and film. I've worked in both platforms in the business for years and it takes me 25-50% longer to do the same job in even the best PC. It's not the PC's fault. It's actually Windows that makes the trouble.   Matt Richards (Mateu) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 06:01 pm:    Sorry Tom, I was writing at while you posted that last one. Look into the JVC's too. The Canon's are good, but I've heard the proprietary software you have to use with the camera is shakey.   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 06:08 pm:    lol, no problem, matt. it is no secret that the mac family has had the edge on pc's when it comes to video for years. unix based systems seem to do ok, though. tom   Matt Richards (Mateu) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 06:18 pm:    I have a two year old digital JVC, enjoy it alot. If you ever go to Best Buy, see what they have in the "open box" section. I got my camera at nearly half price because there was no box or manuals. I went home with it and downloaded the manuals in PDF format from JVC. My camera is not as small as those $1200 palm-sized Canon's but my lens gets better clarity than the minis. If we ever make it to the same outing sometime soon, I'll have it with me if you'd like to have a try with it. Mac OSX is UNIX based now. Solid as a rock. I can't go above OS 9.2 because my machine is almost to old to handle it.   Axel Haakonsen (Axel) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 07:16 pm:    Tom, the Discoweb video is 26 gig, but that is uncompressed video. I don't want to get into the Mac vs PC debate here, while it is a fact that Macs are preferred by graphics people, a properly configured Win PC can do digital video well also. The key is not so much the speed of the pc, but the throughput of the hard drive. You should plan on having a dedicated hard drive for video storage. If all your video is digital, you can get away with a cheap firewire card to do the capture. If you are capturing from analog sources as well, you need something that can read both. One nice feature that I have in my capturing software is automatic scene detection. It breaks the video down into manageable chuncks for video editing. Digital cameras comes down to personal preference. I use a Sony VX2000, and you have n seen the result on the Discoweb Moab 2001 video. The video was captured using a Pinnacle DV500 card, and edited in Adobe Premiere. I run Win Me on a Dell 4100 1Ghz P3. I also have two external Medea scsi drives for video storage. That setup may be overkill for what you are trying to do, though. Check out http://www.videoguys.com/. They have tons of information about digital video on their site, and after reading up on it, you should be able to find something that fits your need and budget. They are happy to answer questions over the phone, too. I have no connection to them, other than that I have bought most of my digital video equipment from them. Good luck, Axel   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 08:28 pm:    Axel, That's what I was looking for. Thanks. Tom   Tommy Dougherty (Skydiver) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 08:48 pm:    I've got 3 MiniDv camcorders. One is a Canon XL1 - 3 chip MiniDv. This is pretty much top of the line 'prosumer' model. Sony VX1000/VX2000 is comperable. This camera pretty much sits in it's case and gets pulled out for major events (xmas, kids bdays, etc.) My other 2 are Sony MiniDv's - DCR-PC1 and DCR-PC9. These are both 1 chip cameras. I use the DCR-PC's for my skydiving video's. (I'm a freefall videographer on weekends.) The PC1 is 'retired' from skydiving and is now used by the wife for filming the kids. PC9 is my new workhorse. If it means anything to you, 99% of skydiving videographers use sony cameras. They're built well, can handle 120+mph to zero mph shocks quite well, and they're pretty much air tight. I've owned 2 JVC-DVX MiniDv's as well and I hated them. I used to have a ton of problems with the moisture sensor with both cameras. I missed filming my son's birth because of this. The JVC's have lots of little effects built into them, but I think you're better off using a good software package or a hardware editing board for effects. Just my opinion, but for I think that JVC camcorders are on the low end, quality wise. (I love their stereo equip, just not their cameras.) One thing to note - Sony has recently introduced MicroDV's which record video as MPG files onto a 'microdv' casette. I'll let you in on a little secret if you're looking to buy a MiniDv camcorder. Sears will price match ANY advertised price - including online prices. My last purchase was the DCR-PC9 which sears had on the shelf for $1400.00 (last year). I found a 'grey market - no US warranty' PC9 online for mid-700's and I printed the sites page, brought it to sears, and the manager matched the price. To boot, I signed up for a sears charge card and got 3mos no interest financing. -Tommy   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 11:55 pm:    Thanks for the tips, Tommy, especially about Sears. I saw Sony's new MicroDV's and was thinking about waiting. Maybe that would get away from the big gig hard drive needs. My satellite dish does mpeg2, and it is not always perfect, but plenty perfect for what I am trying to do. Tom   Curtis N (Curtis) Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2002 - 02:13 am:    Tom, I am tickled with a Sony DCR-TVR730 I got recently. It records on standard 8mm tape and can convert analog 8mm videos to digital. It is also not small, which is an asset to me. A larger camera is simply easier to shoot well with. I believe it also shoots at the same resolution as can be had on DV. It is certainly not a pro level camera, but it is the best of the Digital 8's and definitely worth a look. I think it was in the $800 range... Curtis   John C. Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2002 - 08:02 am:    Tommy: "I used to have a ton of problems with the moisture sensor with both cameras. I missed filming my son's birth because of this." I hope the moisture was caused by your tears and not because you were too close to the action   Axel Haakonsen (Axel) Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2002 - 10:10 am:    Tom: I would stay with miniDV for now, as it is a proven format. If you want to get away from the huge disk requirements, look into a capture device that can capture the video as MPEG2, as that format take up significantly less space than uncompressed video. Axel   Tommy Dougherty (Skydiver) Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2002 - 11:17 am:    John, The JVC moisture sensors were just too damn sensitive. I could walk into an airconditioned room with those cameras and they'd shut down. I used to store & carry them in a plastic bag full of dessicant pouches. I'm glad to be rid of them! With my daughters birth, I used the XL1, filming from the side with camera facing towards my wifes feet.. so as to not get too much of the action on tape. -Tommy   Tommy Dougherty (Skydiver) Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2002 - 11:20 am:    About the MiniDV vs MicroDV - I agree w/ Axel. Also, I wouldn't want to shoot something in an already compressed (lossy) format, because if you edit it and then recompress (lossy), you lose more quality. (Like making a photo copy of a photo copy, vs making a photo copy of an orig - you lose quality every generation.) Better to shoot clean, edit clean, then compress (lossy). -Tommy   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2002 - 11:27 am:    OK, the big thing for me on converting to some other format (CD, DVD, whatever) is because tapes have a short shelf-life and I don't want to have to pull out my MiniDV camcorder 20 years from now to play the tapes - if they even work. It would be like grandma and grandpa with those old 8mm film projectors. How long is the shelf-life for DV tapes? How do you guys archive your footage? Tom   Greg Bright Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2002 - 11:53 am:    Another place you may want to try is www.bizrate.com they will find the lowest price on the net and give you the sites in order. I bought my JVC miniDV this way. The model I bought was 850.00 at Best Buy and I got it for 530.00 through bizrate. Best Buy wouldn't go anywhere near that price. Circuit City and Sears also would not match that price. Greg   Tommy Dougherty (Skydiver) Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2002 - 02:55 pm:    Greg, Did you ask to talk to the electronics dept mgr @ Sears. The salesman told me he couldn't authorize a $$ change for over $200.00 or so. I got the mgr, and showed him my online price quote. He didn't blink and authroized the change in price on the spot (almost 700.00 $$ change)!! -Tommy   Dean Brown (Deanbrown3d) Posted on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 06:41 am:    >> 1 hour of Video is like 12 gig I believe. Get a sony... So why is it a DVD can hold 3+ hours of film in about 7 gigs?   Tommy Dougherty (Skydiver) Posted on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 09:05 am:    > So why is it a DVD can hold 3+ hours of film in about 7 gigs? Compression. http://www.digivid.com/dvd/DVD_Storage.htm -Tommy   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 10:58 am:    Yes, DVD's are compressed DV format. Same compression that Satellite TV uses. Funny thing is, I always thought my Satellite TV was crystal clear. Last night, I sat and watched and noticed all kinds of artifacts, shading problems, jagged lines, etc. Dammit, ignorance was bliss. Looks like I am going to have pony up more $$$ for a good DV camcorder as my eye is getting better. Tom   Axel Haakonsen (Axel) Posted on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 12:58 pm:    DVD's use MPEG2 files. MPEG2 looks pretty good, but you really don't want to compress down to MPEG2 until you are done editing. A writeable DVD holds about 4.7Gb, which depending on how much compression you use comes out to two hours or so. Some Commercially made DVD's have two layers, this is how they can squeeze more info on them.   Dean Brown (Deanbrown3d) Posted on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 02:15 pm:    Axel, So does MPEG2 compress less than .RM formats? Dean   Axel Haakonsen (Axel) Posted on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 02:41 pm:    Depends on what you set your parameters to when you create the MPEG2 file, but yes, a RM file would typically be compressed a lot more than an MPEG2 file. The other thing about MPEG2 is that the video and audio are in two separate files.   Dean Brown (Deanbrown3d) Posted on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 02:58 pm:    So can you get the dweb video on a CD in .rm format   RVR OVR (Tom) Posted on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 03:00 pm:    wow, a leading question capitalized on! tom   Axel Haakonsen (Axel) Posted on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 04:59 pm:    Yes, Dean. All you have to do is capture the video from the VHS version you already purchased, then you create a RM version from the captured file and burn it to a cd using your handy dandy cd burner. I won't bother with that for myself, I prefer to view the uncompressed version.   Robert Sublett (Rubisco98) Posted on Saturday, May 18, 2002 - 07:17 pm:    Just my 2 cents worth I recently purchased a "Terapin VCD Recorder" off of eBAY for under $300. I can take any form of media, as long as I can plug AV cables into it, and transform it onto CDr media, which will play on most any new DVD player. I was looking into purchasing a video camera, but the ones I like are just so dang expensive. For under $600 total I could make some very nice videos. I've converted many of my VHS tapes into CDr media so that the quality will never go away. It really is a nice alternative route to having a $1000 camera that you would die if anything happened to it. Much like the reason I don't own a Disco II that cost $40,000, I would have to die if I saw it looking like my '96 Disco which is abused on quite a regular basis.. anyhow, there is my 2 cents.. Have a great one..