Help! Camera questions

[Tagger]

what are you gonne be needing it for?
the only harddrive recorders i know are 4:4:4(:4) cameras like the thomson Viper but they are a bit expensive to rent (let alone buy) for "just a project" :)

i would just buy enough tapes :)

[bbd]

Thanks for your answer.
All the filming will be from a fixed tripod filming a person speaking in front of about 40 people.
The speaker will be wearing a wireless lapel mic that will be fed into the camera. The reason for asking about hard drive and hard drive cameras was just the amount of tape I’d end up using and if it would be easer just to skip the tape altogether.
For the cameras I was thinking along the lines of the jvc GZ-MG77
http://www.jvc.com/product.jsp?modelId=MODL027663&pathId=119&page=1
or the sony dcrsr100e
http://www.sony.co.nz/products/product.asp
I just want to know if anyone had any experience using either camera and if they would be up for the job, or any other subjections

[Tagger]

well, the sony isnt a HDD camera, so i dont see where you would get your adventage over tape with it.

The problem with those lowend camera's is that they film in Mpeg2. Personaly i wouldnt prefer that as a codec as long as you still need to work on it, but that's up to you.
Just bare in mind that the site says "up to 37 hours", but that's marketing talk, so that's with the lowest settings possible so if you want a bit of quality it's gonne be way less then that. (it says 7 hours in High quality)
As far as i can read you cant attach an external HD to the camera which means you'll have to unload the the entire drive every time it's full. Wether to tape you'll just have to switch tapes before beeing able to record again.

but havnt tried any of the two camera's so dont know about the specs. It all comes down to your personal needs realy.

Dont worry, the end of tape is slowly comming :) ... but at this point, i wouldnt say it's quite there.

[Ed Bittner]

We recently picked up the Canon XL2 which, I believe can record to hard drive. We were looking at the Sony HD cameras, however, we wanted uncompressed video for editing. I mean, if your footage is already compressed when shot, what's the point of HD? Then down convert to SD video for publishing. Kinda doesn't make sense.

E.

[Tagger]

i think you have the concept of HD/SD (high definition/standard definition) confused with hard drive recording.

and the XL2 isnt HD nor does it record to hard drive afaik

and the point of High Definition is the fact that you have a higher resolution, not that wether or not you have compression, all videoproductions are compressed (at least 4:2:2) for editing, uncompressed is mostely used for compositing of effects, so it does make sense to compress :)

[bbd]

Sorry wrong link for the sony camera
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start;sid=iKms0c-Ux6OtIYuuX4im2oCbvQDNq5Rx3bw=?CategoryName=dcc_DICamcorders_HardDiskHandycamCamcorders&Dept=cameras

7 hours would be a good amount of time for a days shooting and then at the end of the day i can off load the footage on to a computer. But can you get good results form the cameras?
or if i decided to go with tape shooting what with people recommend. If i was willing to put my self into a little dept i could go as high as the sony hdr-fx1 or maybe canon xl2 but would it be worth going that expensive.

[Tagger]

well, if you go for the fx1 or xl2 you have two main adventages. You'll have a 3CCD camera which will improve the picturequality and you'll have a decent lens (which can be replaced by another one if you want).

If the amount is enough for you it's up to you. Like i said the quality of the DV codec is higher and more stable in postproduction then an Mpeg2 codec but if you want DVD productions i dont know how deep you want to go with that

[Kai01W]

First of all, I just don't see why you not use tapes. They are still more reliable than harddiscs. And much cheaper.
Second, harddiscs only make sense if you want to capture an umcompressed signal of a camera that overwise could have not been recorder without compression, or of cameras that simply have no camcorder part (see viper, d-20, dalsa, etc.).
Third, I don't know of consumer HD cameras that offered an uncompressed digital out. I'm not even sure if you can capture the compressed stream over firewire while recording. Probably not.
All I can say is, stick with tape.

-k

[Ed Bittner]

Tagger,

I'm well aware that the XL2 is not an HD camera. Never said it was. By the way, it does record to hard drive. We are using the XL2 for a lot of greenscreen work as well. Works much, much better than compressed video.
E.

[Ed Bittner]

Sorry, double post.

[satchking]

hey dont mean to butt in, but i am new to video cameras and want to start doing film. and i hate watching vhs because the quality is so poor, is there something im missing when it comes to camera tapes? what about dvd recording cameras? are they any good?

Many thanks in advance

[Tagger]

VHS is just one form of tape, and one of the worse ones on the market atm.
Personaly i dont beleve in DVD-recording because the compression is more lossy then then DV-compression you find on miniDV tapes

[satchking]

What are MiniDVs? and doesnt data transferrence make using tapes bad? say i wanted to record something, a then edit it on my computer, id probabley have to change format eventually right?What format offers the least lossy quality on tape?

and isnt there an uncompressed format for dvds, or the MiniDVs?

thanks for the info
and thanks in advance for more..he..he..:D

[Tagger]

miniDV tapes are tapes used in most consumer camera's these days where your movie is recorded on in digital DV quality.
Data transfer itself doesnt make your tape bad.

There isnt an uncompressed format for dvd's (well, you can write uncompressed files on a data dvd but that's a whole other thing) and mini dv tapes are stuck to DV PAL 4:2:0, DV NTSC 4:1:1 or MPEG-2 codec (which is the same as on dvd's).

just think about the fact that everything you see on TV these days was transfered on some tape (usualy on digiBeta/DVcam) on some point in production (even though that's changing) and that doesnt look as bad as your VHS does it ?

[satchking]

Brilliantly put friend! i never thought of it that way. MiniDv it is!

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