Please help me buying a Camcorder
I'm thinking of buying a camcorder, but felt totally confused after seeing so many models and a wide range of price tags! Over a month I'm unable to find out which model should be best buy!
I can't understand why analog models are so cheaper comapred to digital models.
Which model should I buy - analog or digital?
What are Hi8mm, VHS, MiniDV etc.? What is best? Why?
How do I distribute my movies to my friends? Do I always have to carry the camcorder to their homes and attach it to TVs? Or I can give them the output in VCDs? What if I don't want to give them in VHS cassettes?
How many hours of video I can store in a disk (Hi8mm,MiniDV etc.)?
Some camcorders boast of supporting MPEG movie mode? How am I going to get any benefit for that?
Can you please help me?
Lots of thanks!
Re: Please help me buying a Camcorder
Quote:
Originally posted by sbasak
I'm thinking of buying a camcorder, but felt totally confused after seeing so many models and a wide range of price tags! Over a month I'm unable to find out which model should be best buy!
I can't understand why analog models are so cheaper comapred to digital models.
Which model should I buy - analog or digital?
What are Hi8mm, VHS, MiniDV etc.? What is best? Why?
How do I distribute my movies to my friends? Do I always have to carry the camcorder to their homes and attach it to TVs? Or I can give them the output in VCDs? What if I don't want to give them in VHS cassettes?
How many hours of video I can store in a disk (Hi8mm,MiniDV etc.)?
Some camcorders boast of supporting MPEG movie mode? How am I going to get any benefit for that?
Can you please help me?
Lots of thanks!
As mentioned above, for final picture and sound quality, you need to look at Digital.
I think you can get about an hour on each digital tape, but you need to double check that.
For distribution, movies can take several formats. Of course you can connect the camera to the TV.
But the sexiest way is with a PC video capture software (see Pinnacle) and a firewire card - you capture your movie on PC as an AVI. Actaully a very large AVI file, so HDD space is important too e.g. about 10-20 mins of video can take up 1Gb (estimate).
Once your AVI is captured, you can use the video editting software for nice transition effects, add mp3 soundtracks, add text, add your own voiceovers. Teh output can be form Real Player to Windows Media Streaming to MPEG to AVI. Then you can distribute to your friends on CD or streaming on teh internet.
One thing that is also useful is to check of your camera has DV in/out. Most have "out" i.e. camera to Firewire card. "DV in" allows you to record you finished work of art back to Digital tape.
My camera (JVC Megapixel) has MPEG and stills formats, but I never use them. I don't see teh benfit when I have the ability to control the quality and size of my movie using Video Capture software. And the stills are just awful compared to a decnet 2 Megapixel digital stills camera.
If you got the cash, I'd go Sony all the way....