[thechat] advice on buying a digital camcorder

William Anderson neuro at well.com
Sun Oct 5 20:16:54 CDT 2003


rudy wrote:

> dad wants to buy a digital movie camera
> 
> i have seen three types --
> - dvd camcorders
> - mini-dv camerals
> - hi8 or mini8 or similar
> 
> my questions about the differences (aside from huge price point gaps) --
> 
> dvd camcorder records on a dvd disk that you can simply run in the computer?

looks like most of em can finalise a dvd-r in-cam, then you just pop the 
dvd-r into your regular dvd player or dvd-rom drive, and play away.  you 
can use dvd-ram too, but obviously not playable in most consumer dvd 
players - you'll probably be able to rip the data off via firewire or usb2 
in that instance.

> mini-dv use a little cassette tape (so how to get it into the computer?)

firewire

looks like mini-dv has longer video capacity than dvd-r/ram (~ 30-180 
minutes versus 30-60 in different recording modes)

personally I'd go for mini-dv - probably easier to figure out the paradigm 
than using DVDs in cams ... "oh, i just pop out the tape, put it in an 
adapter like I would for video8/hi8 or vhs-c and i can watch the tape in my 
VCR, and I can connect the cam with the tape to my PC with a cheap firewire 
cable and card! woo!"

-- 
_ __/|   ___  ___ __ _________ "When Microsoft Office is your only hammer,
\`O_o'  / _ \/ -_) // / __/ _ \ pretty much everything begins to look like
=(_ _)=/_//_/\__/\_,_/_/  \___/ a nail. Or a thumb." -- Rob Pegoraro
    U - Ack! Phttpt! Thhbbt!     neuro at well dot com  http://neuro.me.uk/



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