HD Camcorders

[MrMaster]

Curious to see what people here think. They go from 600 to over 1000.

I just don't know if I would get enough use out of it. The primary focus would be to create some work tutorials followed by using it on vacations. Then again, would I really use it enough compared to the price they cost?

what do people think here?

 

[Feldenak]

Originally posted by: MrMaster
using it on vacations.

Just admit it's for your homemade porn.

 

[RKS]

Originally posted by: Feldenak

Originally posted by: MrMaster
using it on vacations.

Just admit it's for your homemade porn.

Unless pros are involved I would imagine that would be a baaaad idea. even with pros I think HD porn is a bad idea. Does anyone really want to be able to count genital warts or pick out surgical scars?

 

[spacejamz]

i bought a canon HV20 last year for about $900 and that thing takes amazing video...all of my outdoor footage is pretty impressive when using the HDMI connection to my TV...haven't done any indoor footage with it though...

I can create a blu ray compatible disk on a standard dvd with about 30 minutes of footage using Pinacle studio...

 

[mugs]

I bought a non-HD video camera a few years back... I really don't use it as much as I'd like because my Canon SD550 digital still camera takes such good videos and is so convenient to use. If your kids are doing something cute, it's a lot easier to grab the digital still camera and record it. I only use the video camera when I know in advance that I'm going to be recording something and it's going to be longer than a few minutes.

 

[Descartes]

I have a Canon HV20, and the quality is incredible. I took several hours of video from several trips, including a few hours from India. The quality is as though I'm there.

My only complaint is that it's a royal pain in the arse to get the video, at least for me. I was ignorant about what was required when I bought the thing, and it took me some time to actually capture the video. Couple that with the fact that the player I'm using seems to have issues and it's been a bit of a technical nightmare, but otherwise it's great

 

[WarhammerUC]

friend has the canon also.. i have a regular hi8 digital and it was good but the new stuff is amazing... im getting the hv20 or something similar..

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

It depends on what you are going to do with it. Some friends of mine who just got married and had their first kid ended up getting a HD camera. To them it made sense because the movies they take NOW they want their kids to be able to view in 30+ years. I know that movies taken 20 years ago with VHS look pretty crappy even on a regular tv now, much less a HDTV.

 

[Stiganator]

Isn't that a miniDV camera? I don't know if I could hand using tapes, isn't that a hassle? Is there some advantage to miniDV over a harddrive or flash memory?

 

[MrMaster]

hmmm...no kids here so that wouldn't cut it. So what do you mean by pain in the arse to capture the video? I assume they have come along way from the hi8 tape to the harddrives/sd cards. That was my last stint with camcorders and that wasn't very fun for me.

 

[spacejamz]

Originally posted by: Stiganator
Isn't that a miniDV camera? I don't know if I could hand using tapes, isn't that a hassle? Is there some advantage to miniDV over a harddrive or flash memory?

if you fill up the harddrive on your camcorder, you are pretty much screwed until you can offload the footage. With mini-DV, you just pop in another tape. When I got my canon last year, hard disk camcorders were about $200 more...looks like the prices on both have come down since then...

 

[MrMaster]

oops. never knew this forum existed.

 

[teatime0315]

I just bought a Canon HF10. So far it's amazing! Quality is better than i thought it would be. It has the option to record in 1080 with 17mbits quality. Only downside is the HUGE amounts of space the videos take up. SDHC + internal Flash memory .

 

[TerryMathews]

I think the general concensus is that a high-end 3CCD miniDV camcorder that is standard definition will produce better results than a consumer high-def miniDV camcorder if your end target is DVD.

If you can preserve the original high definition format, go for it, but BD-R is pretty expensive still...

I'm using a Canon Elura 85 as a tide-me-over until HD is more commonplace. I figure 3 years for $200 players and $100 PC BD-R drives.

 

[theblackbox]

the only problem with consumer 3ccd is the sensors are almost always too small and that don't bode well for night. I've had much more success with HD. If you are using canon 24p you can take the footage, telecine it and remove the 3:2 pulldown and make real 24p that looks just as good as it can based on what you are filming. it won't make you any better, but the quality is nice.
I have started using avchd simply because it is so much easier to work with then minidv in terms of scrubbing and accessing footage quick.
but overall, i have been much more impressed with HD over SD.
Especially if you print it to a true 1080p, and not 1080i

i saw a hv20 at circuit city on clearence for 349, so hd isn't that expensive anymore.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Originally posted by: theblackbox
I have started using avchd simply because it is so much easier to work with then minidv in terms of scrubbing and accessing footage quick..

What kind of AVCHD camcorder do you have? Isn't it highly compressed? Is it easy to edit?

I'm still old-school MiniDV guy... but I'm looking for a small flash or HDD camcorder for quick stuff.

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: theblackbox

i saw a hv20 at circuit city on clearence for 349, so hd isn't that expensive anymore.

The camcorder's aren't, but the rest of the gear is (relatively speaking).

It all comes down to what you want to do. If you're end-goal is making vacation DVDs for the extended family, it's a pretty large investment to go HD.

In essence, I'm saying the cameras are coming down so quickly because there isn't a critical mass of the rest of the gear out in the marketplace yet.