HDD Camcorder I'm confused..
Discussion
Hi,
I searched but didn't seem to find an answer to this, so hopefully someone can help out.. bit of a n00b with this video stuff
We have used/borrowed MiniDV camcorders in the past, and the biggest pain I found is getting the video off to edit on a PC - for every min of footage your PC needs to capture for 1 min (so 1hr per tape), and typically we have had a whole batch of tapes to compile together.
Now, with an HDD camcorder am I correct in thinking that it stores n x seperate video files (and start/stop recording creates a new file) which I can just copy onto the PC via FW or USB2? and then manipulate as I need - if I have 2hrs of footage I don't need to leave a capture over FW running for 2hrs - just whatever time it takes to copy data down the USB/FW cable.
Are these files compressed and ready to share/distribute? or is it the same principal as capturing from MiniDV? that if you want to produce a file to burn to DVD, or post on t'internet you need to run some kind of process over it to compress it to DivX or AVI/MPEG etc? - I assume this is pretty CPU Intensive so is a camcorder able to do it "on the fly"?
From memory 1hr of video on a MiniDV takes something like 13Gb at full res once captured off - so would a 30Gb device equate to 2 and a bit hours of footage?
or have I got this all round the wrong way?
Thanks..
I searched but didn't seem to find an answer to this, so hopefully someone can help out.. bit of a n00b with this video stuff
We have used/borrowed MiniDV camcorders in the past, and the biggest pain I found is getting the video off to edit on a PC - for every min of footage your PC needs to capture for 1 min (so 1hr per tape), and typically we have had a whole batch of tapes to compile together.
Now, with an HDD camcorder am I correct in thinking that it stores n x seperate video files (and start/stop recording creates a new file) which I can just copy onto the PC via FW or USB2? and then manipulate as I need - if I have 2hrs of footage I don't need to leave a capture over FW running for 2hrs - just whatever time it takes to copy data down the USB/FW cable.
Are these files compressed and ready to share/distribute? or is it the same principal as capturing from MiniDV? that if you want to produce a file to burn to DVD, or post on t'internet you need to run some kind of process over it to compress it to DivX or AVI/MPEG etc? - I assume this is pretty CPU Intensive so is a camcorder able to do it "on the fly"?
From memory 1hr of video on a MiniDV takes something like 13Gb at full res once captured off - so would a 30Gb device equate to 2 and a bit hours of footage?
or have I got this all round the wrong way?
Thanks..
You've got it right. HDD camcorders record files on the disc. You can copy files over USB/FW to your PC pretty quickly (much faster than real time).
What you do with them once they on your PC depends on where you want them to end up, but they will bundle software with the camcorder to help you compress/convert the files to other formats or just make the files smaller.
It's usually best to do a bit of research and find your own conversion software (which can be free/shareware) to do the job better/faster/easier.
Some cameras now (mostly high end) record a low quality version of the video alongside the full quality version so you don't need to do the conversion.
HTH
What you do with them once they on your PC depends on where you want them to end up, but they will bundle software with the camcorder to help you compress/convert the files to other formats or just make the files smaller.
It's usually best to do a bit of research and find your own conversion software (which can be free/shareware) to do the job better/faster/easier.
Some cameras now (mostly high end) record a low quality version of the video alongside the full quality version so you don't need to do the conversion.
HTH
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