Which HD camcorder - Sony HC3E or Sony SR1E?
Discussion
Right, going to buy a new HD camcorder after Xmas to take skiing in January. However, I cannot decide between these two:
Sony HDR-HCR3 - HD MiniDV
or
Sony HDR-SR1E - HD Hard Drive
I like the idea of the hard drive (SR1E) for convenience of searching and trasnferring, but worried about the editing capabilities of the AVCHD format that this uses and the disk storage. In addition, it's quite big.
The HC3E is much smaller, cheaper and as good quality, but tape is a royal pain in the arse, but HDV is a more common format and I get to store the tapes as a backup.
I'm siding on the HC3E due the the size mainly. Anyone got any of these to offer advice?
Sony HDR-HCR3 - HD MiniDV
or
Sony HDR-SR1E - HD Hard Drive
I like the idea of the hard drive (SR1E) for convenience of searching and trasnferring, but worried about the editing capabilities of the AVCHD format that this uses and the disk storage. In addition, it's quite big.
The HC3E is much smaller, cheaper and as good quality, but tape is a royal pain in the arse, but HDV is a more common format and I get to store the tapes as a backup.
I'm siding on the HC3E due the the size mainly. Anyone got any of these to offer advice?
viper_larry said:
Right, going to buy a new HD camcorder after Xmas to take skiing in January. However, I cannot decide between these two:
Sony HDR-HCR3 - HD MiniDV
or
Sony HDR-SR1E - HD Hard Drive
I like the idea of the hard drive (SR1E) for convenience of searching and trasnferring, but worried about the editing capabilities of the AVCHD format that this uses and the disk storage. In addition, it's quite big.
The HC3E is much smaller, cheaper and as good quality, but tape is a royal pain in the arse, but HDV is a more common format and I get to store the tapes as a backup.
I'm siding on the HC3E due the the size mainly. Anyone got any of these to offer advice?
Sony HDR-HCR3 - HD MiniDV
or
Sony HDR-SR1E - HD Hard Drive
I like the idea of the hard drive (SR1E) for convenience of searching and trasnferring, but worried about the editing capabilities of the AVCHD format that this uses and the disk storage. In addition, it's quite big.
The HC3E is much smaller, cheaper and as good quality, but tape is a royal pain in the arse, but HDV is a more common format and I get to store the tapes as a backup.
I'm siding on the HC3E due the the size mainly. Anyone got any of these to offer advice?
I recently bought the HCR3, I was looking at a Hard Disk model, was put off by the potential damage if you drop it.
Two different types of technology.
The HC3E uses HDV (High def on MiniDV tapes). While HDV is compressed MPEG, it is no compressed so much that NLE software cannot deal with it. It also delivers it's stream at a very high rate.
The HDR-SR1E uses AVCHD. It is a consumer oriented compression scheme that is designed for those that just want to film and then plug the camera into their television to show aunty Pearl the latest footage of the wee one puking her porridge. Most NLE's cannot handle it and the stream runs at a very low rate. AVCHD has some potential, but not the current generation.
Long and short of it, if you want to edit your footage, stick with the HC3E. I have the HC1 (HC3E's ancestor) and love it. I'm also very jealous of the HC3E's ability to do slow motion in bursts. Matrix shots anyone?
ErnestM
andyparrott said:
I was looking at a Hard Disk model, was put off by the potential damage if you drop it.
Just to add to that, a friend of mine thought a hard disk camcorder was a good idea until he tried taking it on a track day - the camcorder refused to work at all when driving - it shut itself down due to vibration. It was a smooth track too so it must have been engine vibration that caused the problem.
Think I'll have to wait for cheap high definition camcorders that use flash memory before I upgrade.
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