Sony's HDR-12 series High definition camcorders

[Dari]

I hear that the tape-based camcorders produce much higher quality than ones based on hard drive technology. Does Sony's newest consumer camcorders have a tape version?

 

[Diogenes2]

The tape cannot produce higher quality .. 0's and 1's are the same on a tape or a hard drive..
If the quality is better, there is another reason besides the storage medium ..

 

[tdawg]

Originally posted by: Diogenes2
The tape cannot produce higher quality .. 0's and 1's are the same on a tape or a hard drive..
If the quality is better, there is another reason besides the storage medium ..

I think the slight degradation in quality when going to a HDD-based camcorder is the compression they may use. I vaguely remember reading that somewhere, but I'm definitely no expert, so I could easily be wrong.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Diogenes2
The tape cannot produce higher quality .. 0's and 1's are the same on a tape or a hard drive..
If the quality is better, there is another reason besides the storage medium ..

While true, the tape camcorders are higher quality because of the codec. Sony is using MPEG-2 packetized stream around 25Mb/s onto tape. They are using AVCHD at around 9Mb/s on HDD. While AVCHD is a better compressing codec, the quanity makes a difference. AVCHD is also not as well supported in editors yet.

 

[Diogenes2]

I stand corrected - and it makes sense -

Now that you mention it, I have heard about people having problems getting editing software to work with AVCHD ..

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Diogenes2
I stand corrected - and it makes sense -

Now that you mention it, I have heard about people having problems getting editing software to work with AVCHD ..

No correction required, but just a clarification. The quality is not in the tape, but in the compression. A prime example would be Hi-8 vs DV8. Hi-8 is analog and better than VHS. DV8 is digital and the format we know as 480i. Both on the same tape. One is much better and easier to edit because it already is digital.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Diogenes2
The tape cannot produce higher quality .. 0's and 1's are the same on a tape or a hard drive..
If the quality is better, there is another reason besides the storage medium ..

While true, the tape camcorders are higher quality because of the codec. Sony is using MPEG-2 packetized stream around 25Mb/s onto tape. They are using AVCHD at around 9Mb/s on HDD. While AVCHD is a better compressing codec, the quanity makes a difference. AVCHD is also not as well supported in editors yet.

Any reason why they can't give you the option of recording at MPEG-2 or 25Mb/s on the hard drive using AVCHD?

 

[reicherb]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Diogenes2
The tape cannot produce higher quality .. 0's and 1's are the same on a tape or a hard drive..
If the quality is better, there is another reason besides the storage medium ..

While true, the tape camcorders are higher quality because of the codec. Sony is using MPEG-2 packetized stream around 25Mb/s onto tape. They are using AVCHD at around 9Mb/s on HDD. While AVCHD is a better compressing codec, the quanity makes a difference. AVCHD is also not as well supported in editors yet.

Any reason why they can't give you the option of recording at MPEG-2 or 25Mb/s on the hard drive using AVCHD?

Because the number of minutes of video a hard drive can hold is significantly less at the high data rates.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Diogenes2
The tape cannot produce higher quality .. 0's and 1's are the same on a tape or a hard drive..
If the quality is better, there is another reason besides the storage medium ..

While true, the tape camcorders are higher quality because of the codec. Sony is using MPEG-2 packetized stream around 25Mb/s onto tape. They are using AVCHD at around 9Mb/s on HDD. While AVCHD is a better compressing codec, the quanity makes a difference. AVCHD is also not as well supported in editors yet.

Any reason why they can't give you the option of recording at MPEG-2 or 25Mb/s on the hard drive using AVCHD?

As reicherb says. At 25Mb/s, 1 hr is about 13GB (DV and HDV are about the same sitting in the editor in size). A 40GB drive would only hold 3 hours. Now a tourist has to worry about file offload while on vacation.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Diogenes2
The tape cannot produce higher quality .. 0's and 1's are the same on a tape or a hard drive..
If the quality is better, there is another reason besides the storage medium ..

While true, the tape camcorders are higher quality because of the codec. Sony is using MPEG-2 packetized stream around 25Mb/s onto tape. They are using AVCHD at around 9Mb/s on HDD. While AVCHD is a better compressing codec, the quanity makes a difference. AVCHD is also not as well supported in editors yet.

Any reason why they can't give you the option of recording at MPEG-2 or 25Mb/s on the hard drive using AVCHD?

As reicherb says. At 25Mb/s, 1 hr is about 13GB (DV and HDV are about the same sitting in the editor in size). A 40GB drive would only hold 3 hours. Now a tourist has to worry about file offload while on vacation.

Then, IMHO, they should make a prosumer version of these camcorders. Any recommendations?

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Diogenes2
The tape cannot produce higher quality .. 0's and 1's are the same on a tape or a hard drive..
If the quality is better, there is another reason besides the storage medium ..

While true, the tape camcorders are higher quality because of the codec. Sony is using MPEG-2 packetized stream around 25Mb/s onto tape. They are using AVCHD at around 9Mb/s on HDD. While AVCHD is a better compressing codec, the quanity makes a difference. AVCHD is also not as well supported in editors yet.

Any reason why they can't give you the option of recording at MPEG-2 or 25Mb/s on the hard drive using AVCHD?

As reicherb says. At 25Mb/s, 1 hr is about 13GB (DV and HDV are about the same sitting in the editor in size). A 40GB drive would only hold 3 hours. Now a tourist has to worry about file offload while on vacation.

Then, IMHO, they should make a prosumer version of these camcorders. Any recommendations?

They don't yet because the Pro's in Prosumer want the tape for library and AVCHD is not really in the pro editors (at full datarate either). Otherwise we have get RAID clusters and big tape drives. Avid showed a kick butt one at road show that works seamlessly with Media Producer. But the near 6 digits USD to it populated ...

The closest thing is P2 on the Panasonic. 4/8GB memory drives. Gets $$$ to carry around.

Prosumer... The Canon A1 was pretty sweet for the price. XLR, tape, HDV 1080i with all the good pro buttons and whistles.

RED Cinema Scarlet will be announced in less than a month. Let the revolution continue.

/looks over the shoulder at the small bookcase with about 150 tapes in it...

Thats a lot of home videos mate

Koing