usb digital camcorder?

[Oscar1613]

my boss has asked me to look for a digital camcorder, but none of the computers in the office have firewire so we need one that supports USB. however, after some initial research, it seems that a lot of the camcorders that specify USB support just have USB1.1 for still picture transfers and you have to use firewire to get the video. because of this, i was suspicious about the ones that did claim USB2.0 so i looked up the manuals of those few. well it turns out that those either only support low resolution video transfers or real-time video transfers (a 20 minute video would take 20 minutes to transfer).

one way around this that i have considered would be to just get a DVD camcorder, but that would require ripping the movies off the DVD so they could use them for what they need. but the dept's computer guy just left and they want something simple that anybody can do, as i am only there temporarily to help them figure out how to do everything he took care of without requiring a lot of technical know how

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Oscar1613
my boss has asked me to look for a digital camcorder, but none of the computers in the office have firewire so we need one that supports USB. however, after some initial research, it seems that a lot of the camcorders that specify USB support just have USB1.1 for still picture transfers and you have to use firewire to get the video. because of this, i was suspicious about the ones that did claim USB2.0 so i looked up the manuals of those few. well it turns out that those either only support low resolution video transfers or real-time video transfers (a 20 minute video would take 20 minutes to transfer).

one way around this that i have considered would be to just get a DVD camcorder, but that would require ripping the movies off the DVD so they could use them for what they need. but the dept's computer guy just left and they want something simple that anybody can do, as i am only there temporarily to help them figure out how to do everything he took care of without requiring a lot of technical know how

Get a firewire card instead. They start at less than $30 and save you a lot of hassle.

AND any DV recorder will only support real-time transfer from tape. With tape, you have full resolution compression and no need to do recompression on edit. Using a HDD camera, you will not have the original media as storage.

Adding a card is easy. While the case is open, add a hard drive too or plan on getting a USB/Firewire external drive. Get something like Pinnacle Studio of Sony Vegas Movie to edit.

 

[Oscar1613]

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Oscar1613
my boss has asked me to look for a digital camcorder, but none of the computers in the office have firewire so we need one that supports USB. however, after some initial research, it seems that a lot of the camcorders that specify USB support just have USB1.1 for still picture transfers and you have to use firewire to get the video. because of this, i was suspicious about the ones that did claim USB2.0 so i looked up the manuals of those few. well it turns out that those either only support low resolution video transfers or real-time video transfers (a 20 minute video would take 20 minutes to transfer).

one way around this that i have considered would be to just get a DVD camcorder, but that would require ripping the movies off the DVD so they could use them for what they need. but the dept's computer guy just left and they want something simple that anybody can do, as i am only there temporarily to help them figure out how to do everything he took care of without requiring a lot of technical know how

Get a firewire card instead. They start at less than $30 and save you a lot of hassle.

AND any DV recorder will only support real-time transfer from tape. With tape, you have full resolution compression and no need to do recompression on edit. Using a HDD camera, you will not have the original media as storage.

Adding a card is easy. While the case is open, add a hard drive too or plan on getting a USB/Firewire external drive. Get something like Pinnacle Studio of Sony Vegas Movie to edit.

i know adding firewire is cheap and easy, but this is a major corporation, so i wouldnt be able to do it myself. gotta call up tech support, get it approved, have them send someone out, blah blah blah. its a major headache, and then that one person with the firewire pc is the only one that can get the videos off the camera, whereas all the pcs have usb so anybody could pull the videos off.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Oscar1613
i know adding firewire is cheap and easy, but this is a major corporation, so i wouldnt be able to do it myself. gotta call up tech support, get it approved, have them send someone out, blah blah blah. its a major headache, and then that one person with the firewire pc is the only one that can get the videos off the camera, whereas all the pcs have usb so anybody could pull the videos off.

But you are not going to find a camera that does USB well. And if adding hardware is an issue, would you not have the same with adding software? Check with the Engineering folks that specify the hardware. They may have a firewire solution already specified and it is just not widely known (we do.)

 

[Oscar1613]

what about the panasonic gs59? it has a high-speed usb2.0 port and claims you can use it to download the videos off the camera with it.

software is not as big of an issue, cause they can connect to the PCs remotely to install the software for us right then and there. and if someone else needs to use the camera on their pc, its a quick phone call for the software, rather than having to get another firewire card, calling them, and waiting for them to come intall install it.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Oscar1613
what about the panasonic gs59? it has a high-speed usb2.0 port and claims you can use it to download the videos off the camera with it.

software is not as big of an issue, cause they can connect to the PCs remotely to install the software for us right then and there. and if someone else needs to use the camera on their pc, its a quick phone call for the software, rather than having to get another firewire card, calling them, and waiting for them to come intall install it.

Not a great camera and you will need to software that comes with the camera. But, it looks like it will work. No review at Camcorderinfo, but I suspect that low light performance is not too great. Use a tripod whenever possible.