Digital Camcorders - any good?
Discussion
The problem I have is my PC is old. I assume you need a huge hard drive and the latest USB ports (or whatever they are called) to download your recordings, and presumably a dvd burner to make playable recordings. Or can you plug the camcorder into a VCR and tape the footage, so you can record over the camcorder's memory stick again? I aksed in Jessops, but very disappointingly they didn't know! I don't facy having to shell out on a new computer and camcorder at the same time....
I have a sony digital camcorder which takes still photos as well - I can take regular video on a tape or 30 second mpegs on the memory stick, the photos also go on the memory stick.... I must say the quality of the mpegs is awful....but the photos are great...
I haven't got a cd re-writer but its the better option so you can tape the video on to cd to bore your friends and family with!!
I haven't got a cd re-writer but its the better option so you can tape the video on to cd to bore your friends and family with!!
I bought a DV Camcorder (Panasonic NV-GX7b) on Monday from Letsgodigital.co.uk and very cheep they are to. So far I have not done much with it other than edit one film of my other halves dance class. I used Pinnacle 8.5 software to edit the video and then burned it onto a Pioneer A05 DVD burner running on a 2Ghz P4 computer with 512mb ram and 180gig free disk space.
In case you are wondering at all this information, it takes a bl**dy long time to process and render even on my machine. Rendering the video to DVD seems to be dependent on a lot of factors; video quality, resolution, number of scenes, computer speed, free disk space and so on. On my PC during the rendering stage the CPU is pinned at 100%, so yeah you need a good spec PC.
The bottom line, is it depends on what the end result of the video is for. Making DVDs, making tapes, making small internet videos, each takes less power than the other.
So far I have only played, but other people may me able to give you more information.
David
In case you are wondering at all this information, it takes a bl**dy long time to process and render even on my machine. Rendering the video to DVD seems to be dependent on a lot of factors; video quality, resolution, number of scenes, computer speed, free disk space and so on. On my PC during the rendering stage the CPU is pinned at 100%, so yeah you need a good spec PC.
The bottom line, is it depends on what the end result of the video is for. Making DVDs, making tapes, making small internet videos, each takes less power than the other.
So far I have only played, but other people may me able to give you more information.
David
Here is a comment from a friend of mine who I was chatting via e-mail about this topic yesterday, I have includded most of the email from him, but you get the idea:
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I was up playing last night until gone midnight and was getting some really good results. I'm using Adobe Premiere6 to grab and edit the movies. It's just great, I found it much better than Pinnacle - although that did have better menu editing facilities. In Adobe it's so easy to strip audio off and add music instead, also the transitions are just so easy to plug in, to move between one windsurfing scene to another (which have large changes in position and background) I've been using a 20 frame dissolve transition, where the old frame dissolves into the new one - it is just so smooth. To start with I had a loads of problems setting Premiere up to run with my system - I couldn't get the picuture frames to appear in the timeline, or render the edited video - that just turned out to be the codec that I was using to grab and encode the AVI from the camera - make sure you aren't using AngelPortion - newsgroups have lots of info on the best ones. If you have widescreen facility on your camera you can grab/edit using Adobe in that too.
I've also got a second 60gb hard disk, with 40gb free on the first. An hours worth of good quality AVI direct from the camera takes about 30-40gb! Last night I linked about 25 separate AVI files into 6min30s worth of footage, with transitions between the pieces and a separate CD quality sound track, it took about 10-12 minutes to create the new AVI file, but I think I could have got it running faster with a little tweaking.
As you known once you've got your finished AVI file, you can begin to create the DVD, which involves the creation of the menu - conversion from AVI to MPEG-2 then the creation of everything into a DVD. This can take a while, typically I get about 5-12fps - so anything from 33% to 50% real time conversion on a 2GHz top spec machine. I think with a better conversion tool I'll get faster times - I've sometimes seen it creep up towards realtime conversion (for AVI-MPEG2)
But I'm still looking for a decent menu editing /DVD burning software, it has to be able to create decent menus and buttons. The Roxio studio that I am currently running does the conversion for me at the same time (quickly too), but the menu editing is really, really bad. I've just ordered the latest version as the blurb said menus were much improved! I'll let you know as I hope it arrives tonight. The big thing is to make sure the conversion doesn't ruin widescreen if you are working in it - several packages can't cope with widescreen and stretch the image. I wouldn't mind seeing Sonic.
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David
>> Edited by david010167 on Wednesday 12th March 11:02
>> Edited by david010167 on Wednesday 12th March 11:03
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I was up playing last night until gone midnight and was getting some really good results. I'm using Adobe Premiere6 to grab and edit the movies. It's just great, I found it much better than Pinnacle - although that did have better menu editing facilities. In Adobe it's so easy to strip audio off and add music instead, also the transitions are just so easy to plug in, to move between one windsurfing scene to another (which have large changes in position and background) I've been using a 20 frame dissolve transition, where the old frame dissolves into the new one - it is just so smooth. To start with I had a loads of problems setting Premiere up to run with my system - I couldn't get the picuture frames to appear in the timeline, or render the edited video - that just turned out to be the codec that I was using to grab and encode the AVI from the camera - make sure you aren't using AngelPortion - newsgroups have lots of info on the best ones. If you have widescreen facility on your camera you can grab/edit using Adobe in that too.
I've also got a second 60gb hard disk, with 40gb free on the first. An hours worth of good quality AVI direct from the camera takes about 30-40gb! Last night I linked about 25 separate AVI files into 6min30s worth of footage, with transitions between the pieces and a separate CD quality sound track, it took about 10-12 minutes to create the new AVI file, but I think I could have got it running faster with a little tweaking.
As you known once you've got your finished AVI file, you can begin to create the DVD, which involves the creation of the menu - conversion from AVI to MPEG-2 then the creation of everything into a DVD. This can take a while, typically I get about 5-12fps - so anything from 33% to 50% real time conversion on a 2GHz top spec machine. I think with a better conversion tool I'll get faster times - I've sometimes seen it creep up towards realtime conversion (for AVI-MPEG2)
But I'm still looking for a decent menu editing /DVD burning software, it has to be able to create decent menus and buttons. The Roxio studio that I am currently running does the conversion for me at the same time (quickly too), but the menu editing is really, really bad. I've just ordered the latest version as the blurb said menus were much improved! I'll let you know as I hope it arrives tonight. The big thing is to make sure the conversion doesn't ruin widescreen if you are working in it - several packages can't cope with widescreen and stretch the image. I wouldn't mind seeing Sonic.
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David
>> Edited by david010167 on Wednesday 12th March 11:02
>> Edited by david010167 on Wednesday 12th March 11:03
You'll need what's called a Firewire card in your PC. This and the software you'll use will probably dictate whether or not your PC is upto it.
I'd say anything above 1Ghz with 20GB hard disk will be comfortably up to it if you use Windows move maker at lower resolutions (not too big for net posting), you can pick these up for peanuts at the moment but I openly stand to be corrected by people who run slower machines.
PS I use a 2Ghz laptop, came with a firewire card already (most do now).
>> Edited by FourWheelDrift on Wednesday 12th March 11:06
I'd say anything above 1Ghz with 20GB hard disk will be comfortably up to it if you use Windows move maker at lower resolutions (not too big for net posting), you can pick these up for peanuts at the moment but I openly stand to be corrected by people who run slower machines.
PS I use a 2Ghz laptop, came with a firewire card already (most do now).
>> Edited by FourWheelDrift on Wednesday 12th March 11:06
If you don't already own a camcorder your best bet would be to buy a PCI firewire card, thus:-
www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=21271
Then go get yourself a DV camera with a firewire input.
Or if you already have a VHS based camcorder you can get PCI video capture cards, best place would be from www.ebay.co.uk. You'll need to make sure your camera outputs match the cards inputs and it should be OK.
You may also need to upgrade your PC's HD as video takes up a lot of space.
You can then output your finished vids to VCD's which only require a CD writer, you can fit about 70mins on a VCD IIRC and the quality is basically the same as VHS.
Don't expect to be able to create anything to flash with a low spec PC though, complex effects and editing require a fairly powerful setup.
Good luck.
www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=21271
Then go get yourself a DV camera with a firewire input.
Or if you already have a VHS based camcorder you can get PCI video capture cards, best place would be from www.ebay.co.uk. You'll need to make sure your camera outputs match the cards inputs and it should be OK.
You may also need to upgrade your PC's HD as video takes up a lot of space.
You can then output your finished vids to VCD's which only require a CD writer, you can fit about 70mins on a VCD IIRC and the quality is basically the same as VHS.
Don't expect to be able to create anything to flash with a low spec PC though, complex effects and editing require a fairly powerful setup.
Good luck.
cheers guys - this has def put me off a digital one! I wanted to shoot full lenght snowboarding and windsurfing / surfing videos but if all i can end up doing is messing about with 6 minute dribs and drabs here and there and then not even watch them on anything other than my slow old computer, i won't bother. Might as well buy an analogue one, then i can record as long as i want and put it straight onto vhs - ok i won't have the options of sound manipulation / music / graphic enhancement but i'll save a fair stack of cash and it seems more appropriate to what i want to do doesn't it?
zebedee said: cheers guys - this has def put me off a digital one! I wanted to shoot full lenght snowboarding and windsurfing / surfing videos but if all i can end up doing is messing about with 6 minute dribs and drabs here and there and then not even watch them on anything other than my slow old computer, i won't bother. Might as well buy an analogue one, then i can record as long as i want and put it straight onto vhs - ok i won't have the options of sound manipulation / music / graphic enhancement but i'll save a fair stack of cash and it seems more appropriate to what i want to do doesn't it?
I have a panasonic DV camcorder. all these chip card things are gadfgets and not good enough.
I mini DV tape is still classed as digital (its recorded that way) and I save it straight into my video recorder. I can do stuff on PC, but theres nowt wrong with my VCR. the quality of DV over anolgue is superb, and WAY worth the effort.
Thanks Luca, it was more of a: I had a good bonus and do I really want to put it all into the mortgage -- NO, then lets spend. Besides I was after one for a while, so it made sense and I wanted a DVD burner as well, so I just added it to the present pile.
I also have firewire and it was £17 from a little shop in Kingston; for a three port with on cable. Have to say firewire is the dogs doddahs when it comes to large volume data transfer.
David
I also have firewire and it was £17 from a little shop in Kingston; for a three port with on cable. Have to say firewire is the dogs doddahs when it comes to large volume data transfer.
David
luca brazzi said:
tuscan_s said: Jessops do a Firewire card, cable and software for £49.99!
Don't go for the £200 solutions!
Dabs do firewire cards for 10.99!!!
Steve
PS David010167 - well done on your purchases...Easter present to yourself huh?
S
This is a good point, just because it is DV, does not mean you cannot use your VCR to do a bit of editing. The only difference with usinf a software solution to edit is control, titles, menus (on dvds very cool), and editing fade/sweep effects.
David
David
s2ooz said:
zebedee said: cheers guys - this has def put me off a digital one! I wanted to shoot full lenght snowboarding and windsurfing / surfing videos but if all i can end up doing is messing about with 6 minute dribs and drabs here and there and then not even watch them on anything other than my slow old computer, i won't bother. Might as well buy an analogue one, then i can record as long as i want and put it straight onto vhs - ok i won't have the options of sound manipulation / music / graphic enhancement but i'll save a fair stack of cash and it seems more appropriate to what i want to do doesn't it?
I have a panasonic DV camcorder. all these chip card things are gadfgets and not good enough.
I mini DV tape is still classed as digital (its recorded that way) and I save it straight into my video recorder. I can do stuff on PC, but theres nowt wrong with my VCR. the quality of DV over anolgue is superb, and WAY worth the effort.
firewire with a decent DV camera also does 'the lot'....
composite and s-video into DV camera, straight into PC realtime. This removes any need for high priced analogue input card.
Editing in Premiere, keep DV connected, link analogue output to monitor.. shows timeline scrubbing / editing in realtime on the monitor.
Sweeeet.
Ed
composite and s-video into DV camera, straight into PC realtime. This removes any need for high priced analogue input card.
Editing in Premiere, keep DV connected, link analogue output to monitor.. shows timeline scrubbing / editing in realtime on the monitor.
Sweeeet.
Ed
sorry, but loads of you are missing the point, basically because you know far more about it than me. I don't have a big hard drive or a DVD burner. Movies played back on my computer would look crap. So your recommendation, for someone who wants to ultimately record to VHS as the storage/playback media is Mini DV. Is that the basic answer?
I've got a standard budget digital camcorder that acts just like a conventional analogue one (i.e. you can play it back on a tiny built-in screen, cable it up to your TV or VCR) as well as a firewire connection to you PC to let you edit it digitally if you want. Point is all this stuff via the PC is in addition to the usual output to VCR/TV, and you don't *have* to use your PC to show the video. I think that was your concern?
I would also recommend the ULead Video Editing studio for Video Capture/Editing, I have used premier in the past but found the Ulead option to be a lot easier to use (user friendly) than Adobe. But, as has been stated above, there is a fairly big hit on any system doing video editing at home. Studios have specialised systems with HUGE ram and memory space.
Good luck with your editing though, it can be fun if you get to know the editing software well!
Good luck with your editing though, it can be fun if you get to know the editing software well!
green v8s has hit the nail on the head - if a digital camcorder can be plugged straight into a vcr and you can record onto VHS, I'll buy one. I've just been into Jessops and today they said you can do that with 'most'! They're staff seem to have gone downhill a bit as they used to know their stuff very well.
I am currently looking at Canon MV5i - down to 649 quid which seems good value (free bag) - would this be a good buy?
I am currently looking at Canon MV5i - down to 649 quid which seems good value (free bag) - would this be a good buy?
zebedee said: sorry, its 699.99 - any good?
£640 here - www.prcdirect.co.uk/PRC/PRC.storefront/EN/product/MV5I
Matt.
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