HD Camcorders: Tape > flash?

[Jumpem]

From another thread:

Originally posted by: Kaido
HV30 > HV20 > HF11 > HF10 > HV100

HV20 & HV30 are tape-based. Best picture quality, but you've also got tape noise from the motor and you have to do 1:1 imports from MiniDV tape. The HF11 is the newer version of the HF10. It supports full AVCHD (24 MB/sec), while the HF100 only supports 17 MB/sec. The PQ is better on the HF11 and I believe the HF10/HF11 both have more controls than the HF100. HOWEVER, unless you're a film geek you won't be able to tell a difference between those and the HF100. The HF100 is my standard recommendation for a camera to anyone; the HV30 is my recommendation to someone who wants to be a film geek.

And why do you consider the tape based units better?

Originally posted by: FP
Less compression.

Does anyone else have opinions on this? I'm debating what to buy.

 

[ElFenix]

no way in hell would i get a taped based system unless i'm doing professional work.

 

[Koing]

I like the ease of dumping in a new tape and for storage reasons. Sure you can get a bunch of hard drives and not leave them in the system etc. It's just personal preference.

The early hard drive camcorders used savage compression and pans looked BS imo...and I'm no film geek. The hard drive HD camcorders are suppose to be better but I have no experience. My dad has a Sony HDV 3 and it works great.

Koing

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
From another thread:

Originally posted by: Kaido
HV30 > HV20 > HF11 > HF10 > HV100

HV20 & HV30 are tape-based. Best picture quality, but you've also got tape noise from the motor and you have to do 1:1 imports from MiniDV tape. The HF11 is the newer version of the HF10. It supports full AVCHD (24 MB/sec), while the HF100 only supports 17 MB/sec. The PQ is better on the HF11 and I believe the HF10/HF11 both have more controls than the HF100. HOWEVER, unless you're a film geek you won't be able to tell a difference between those and the HF100. The HF100 is my standard recommendation for a camera to anyone; the HV30 is my recommendation to someone who wants to be a film geek.

And why do you consider the tape based units better?

Originally posted by: FP
Less compression.

Does anyone else have opinions on this? I'm debating what to buy.

Flash video is compressed, MiniDV isn't. As Kaido mentions, many people won't be able to tell the difference.

Flash (AVCHD) is much less effort to manipulate, given no need for transfer from tape. Take the card out of the camera, put in into your laptop/card reader; there are your files. They'll still need a conversion to final format, however.

Tapes are more effort, requiring real-time conversion to a working format, then another conversion to final format.

From my perspective (mostly home movies, and very limited artsy-fartsy hobby shooting) flash represents a gigantic time/convenience improvement over tapes for a tiny loss in quality.

So, the answer will depend on what your intent is - are you shooting home movies or something more?

 

[sswingle]

Due to AVCHDs compression, you need massive processing power to edit. I have a Q6600, and trying to do a multicam edit, 1 cam AVCHD, the other HDV, and it was a stuttery mess trying to edit. I converted the AVCHD footage into HDV, and editing was smooth as could be.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: rivan
Flash video is compressed, MiniDV isn't. As Kaido mentions, many people won't be able to tell the difference.

Flash (AVCHD) is much less effort to manipulate, given no need for transfer from tape. Take the card out of the camera, put in into your laptop/card reader; there are your files. They'll still need a conversion to final format, however.

Tapes are more effort, requiring real-time conversion to a working format, then another conversion to final format.

From my perspective (mostly home movies, and very limited artsy-fartsy hobby shooting) flash represents a gigantic time/convenience improvement over tapes for a tiny loss in quality.

So, the answer will depend on what your intent is - are you shooting home movies or something more?

That's pretty much the deciding question right there. If you want to be a film geek, go with the tape-based HV20 or HV30. Better quality and more controls (like a roller manual focus instead of a joystick). But it's more effort - you have to use tapes which require the 1:1 input, you have motor noise from the tape to deal with, etc. The digital versions have a slight loss in quality and features, but it's much more convenient to use. Here are my 3 basic recommendations:

1. Wants "easy": Canon HF100 (budget & convenience)
2. Wants "film geek": Canon HV30 (quality)
3. Wants "some film geek but still easy": Canon HF11 (no budget & convenience)

The HF100 is a superb home camera that records to 17 MB/sec AVCHD. The HV30 is an awesome film-ish camera that offers some extra controls and better quality. The HF11 is a good mix of both worlds because you get great quality at 24 MB/sec AVCHD and the convenience of a pure digital storage system. So if budget isn't an issue but you want convenience, the HF11 is a great choice.

 

[California Roll]

If I were buying a new Camcorder right now, it would be flash all the way. I have literally hundreds of DV tapes in storage and it's frankly a pita to manage.

You can't go wrong with either the Canon HF11, HF10, or HF100. All 3 share the exact same internal design, specs, etc. Main difference is the HF11 can record at a higher bitrate (24 vs 17 for the HF10 and HF100). The problem with the HF11 is that even tho you can record at the higher bitrate, none of the other internals were changed to optimize the quality. You can barely see a difference between the two bitrates, you're just using up more drive space.

If you're on a budget, get the HF100 and use the spare cash to buy more SDHC cards.

If you want it in black (like me, doh), get the HF10.

If you got money to spend and want the best (even if you can't really tell), get the HF11.

For a tape based camcorder, the HV30 is also quite awesome.

 

[Jumpem]

Thanks for the inputs guys. Looks like I want etiher the HF100 or HF10.

 

[themisfit610]

Flash video is compressed, MiniDV isn't. As Kaido mentions, many people won't be able to tell the difference.

This is completely not true. MiniDV is compressed down to ~25mbps CBR, with aggressive chroma subsampling. It is true that DV doesn't have any interframe compression, meaning each frame is a distinct image and doesn't reference data from other frames.

AVCHD and HDV (the consumer HD formats) do use interframe compression, but good editing software makes this not matter.

Flash (AVCHD) is much less effort to manipulate, given no need for transfer from tape. Take the card out of the camera, put in into your laptop/card reader; there are your files. They'll still need a conversion to final format, however.

There's nothing tying flash memory directly to AVCHD. True, AVCHD is most commonly stored on flash memory, but HDV can also be stored on flash, and so can DV or any other file format - for that matter!

The only real advantage of a flash or hard drive based camera is their ability to transfer data to the PC at faster than real-time speeds. It's handy! You're quite correct on that part!

However, (assuming AVCHD) if your editing program is smart, you don't have to re-encode the entire feature to create a final BluRay compatible AVCHD disc! The software can simply re-encode the GOPs surrounding any trim operations, and copy the stream to an AVCHD compatible file structure, which can then be burned onto DVD-R or DVD+R and played on a BluRay player. This saves lots of time and image quality, especially considering the poor quality of most H.264 encoders (x264 being the glowing exception).

From my perspective (mostly home movies, and very limited artsy-fartsy hobby shooting) flash represents a gigantic time/convenience improvement over tapes for a tiny loss in quality.

This is true, for the most part. It's important to not make your picture quality evaluation based on the storage technology. The weakest link in any video acquisition system will be the compression. If the AVCHD encoder in camera A is crap, and the encoder in camera B is good, then you might see bad results from camera A at 25mbps, and great results from camera B at 18mbps.

Put simply, read reviews. Play with the camera. Don't buy something because "it has a hard drive (or flash memory) and records in AVCHD".

~MiSfit