kav

Dull question for you.......I'm thinking about getting a digital camcorder. Not had a detailed look yet but I'd like to know what media they use to record onto. I understand that the cameras which can take still pictures as well have flash memory for recording onto but what does the 'moving' stuff get recorded to? Any recommendations on makes and models?

Cheers
Kav

Blitz_Boy

DV camcorders record into DV tapes. There quite expensive ranging from £5 to £10 per tape depending on quality and length.
Make sure you buy a DV cam with dv in&out so that you record edited footage back into your camcorder from a PC.
Oh yeah, you'll probably need to invest in some longer life batteries because the standard one will only last around an hour.

If you want to edit your videos then you'll probably need to invest on a firewire card and a decent video editing software.

As for recommendations on DV cams itself, i dont many but im sure someone else will help you out.

boomer

DV tapes are a standard amongst most manufacturers.

I have a Sony TRV30 (replaced by the TRV50) camcorder, that can record "stills" as a five second video on the tape. These are transferred to a PC via FireWire.

It can also record "mega-pixel" stills on a Sony Memory Stick, plus either 15 or 60 second (depending on resolution) video in MPEG1 format to the same solid media card. These are transferred via USB.

The Memory Stick stuff (stills and MPEG1) isn't particularly high quality, but plenty enough for web used!

I guess that other manufacturers have similar facilities.

mb

MarkO

I bought a DV cam last week.

Size was a big issue, so I looked at the JVC DR-GVP7 (I think, it's the little black one) but although it was very sexy it turned out to be the same size as most of the others, so the compromise on features wasn't worth it.

In the end I bought a Sony DCR-PC101 from Cameras Direct. RRP was about £1200, they've got it for £883 inc VAT. Very impressed with the service too.

Oh, and the camera? It's absolutely superb. Very pleased and impressed with it.

pwebb

DV tapes £5- £10 ? - you was ripped off ;-)

try http://www.tapecity.co.uk dv tapes £2.75 + vat

back to the thread - DV in/out digicams now start around £600-700

best brands are canon, panasonic and sony - try to get one with OPTICAL (not digital) movement correction and optical zoom (digital zoom is rubbish) - 'nice to haves' include manual white balance setting, external microphone socket and support for stills (progressive scan + some easy storage media help) As suggested elsewhere - save some money for buying a firewire capture card and editing software for your PC

tip - get best price from the internet then vistit a jessops shop and ask them to price-match.

happy hunting

Paul W

MarkO

Bear in mind though that Jessops won't price-match a website. I tried with the Sony I bought. They would have matched the price of some of the stores on Tottenham Court Road (e.g., www.askdirect.co.uk) but it would have meant paying another 60-70 quid (that's nearly 10%) over what it cost from CamerasDirect.

kav

Dear All

Good stuff - thanks for the input.

Cheers
Kav

kav

.....one more thing, are these cameras with still picture capture a viable alternative/hybrid for a digital still camera with 3 or so mega-pixels?

Cheers
Kav

MarkO

Depends on how much you care about image quality.

Bear in mind that most of the cameras in the range £600-1000 are 1megapixel jobs. Some of them (e.g., The Sony DCR PC120) have as much as 1.5megapixel CCDs. But that's still nowhere near your 3-4 megapixel still cameras.

If you want I'll try and remember to take some stills with mine tonight and post 'em tomorrow so you can guage the quality...

kav

Top man - thanks MarkO!

Diesel

Got a JVC GR DV 1800. Paid a grand in TC Road.

Has a memory card for the 2M Pix stills - bit rough quality, but OK. Stills off tape will be even rougher unless you shoot in progressive scan mode, and this is no good for moving images... Decide before you shoot, but you can grab thousands of stills from one tape - 'continuous still shooting'...

You can have it chipped to take DV IN for £40. Big £200 import duty on having a standard 'video input' is the reason for this loophole.

Try Keene electronics for batteries - they do them for half the high street mega cost. If you are in London buy tapes from the broadcast suppliers around Soho (Stanleys or Blanx for eg) - box of ten is the price of 4 tapes from Dixons.

D

kav

Thanks guys - keep 'em coming.

DavidBrown

Checkout the fancy schmancy Hitachi vidcam, which records onto DVD discs rather than tapes.

http://www.hitachidigitalmedia.com

Diesel

DVD Recording - ITS TOO EARLY TO BUY! Res is lower than DV I believe.

Was speaking to the Ikegami guy today (they make the D's B's top dollar broadcast cameras) and he says they can suffer from disk edge float when you move the cam - think of a nice whip pan maybe, wobbling the disk as you land on your subject!

D

MarkO

A couple of pictures as promised. These were taken in the office this morning with my Sony DV cam. Be warned though, they're 1152x864 jpegs, and as such are fairly large (about 0.5Mb). I was going to reduce or compress them, but didn't see the point since they're supposed to be showing an example of the camera's quality.

They're pretty good - but clearly not up to the same quality as a dedicated stills digicam.

Pic1 Pic2

I'll remove the pictures in a couple of days to stop excessive bandwidth-rinsing.

BTW, if you want to know more about DV Cams, check out the following sites which I found useful:

Camcorder Info
Cam User Online
AVForums (camcorder forum)


[Edited by MarkO - 7/25/2002 8:08:16 AM]

kav

Thanks mate - I'll take a look at them when I'm back in the office (crappy 56K dial-up at home!)

Cheers
Kav

JonW

Bought a JVC GR DVP7 for £867ish all in from RGB when it first came out earlier this year - totally happy with the unit, its small and has all the functions I need. Its sexy in black and stills are good enough (think its 1.1m megapixels). Even 'bolted' it to my R1 two weeks back for a week long blast round France... camera coped admirably to bumps at speed. :-)

Jon.