What is a good NON-FIREWIRE DV camera?

[The Truth]

Ok, in this new firewireless world that Apple is creating, can anyone recommend a camera that is easy to import from? What should I look for in a non-firewire DV cam?

[Chaos123x]

Ok, in this new firewireless world that Apple is creating, can anyone recommend a camera that is easy to import from? What should I look for in a non-firewire DV cam?

LOL

[bchamorro]

canon hf10/hf100/hf11

[Chaos123x]

canon hf10/hf100/hf11

Those are all home movie cameras.

[Courtaj]

Those are all home movie cameras.Yes, but did the OP specify a budget?

[x86isslow]

would this do?
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=16186

[Chaos123x]

Are using this for making indie films and industrial videos?

Or for like home movies like birthday parties and kids sporting events?

Do you need manual features or is a automatic ok for you?

[Chaos123x]

The new camera that I like are the SONY XDCAM EX and Panasonic P2 Camcorders.

They both use laptop card slots.... no firewire needed.

But the memory cards cost a small fortune.

[Gymnut]

The new camera that I like are the SONY XDCAM EX and Panasonic P2 Camcorders.

They both use laptop card slots.... no firewire needed.

But the memory cards cost a small fortune.

Based upon the OP's questions, I would hardly fathom he's looking for a $5000-$6000+ camera, not budgeting the $1000(at least) you'll need in either P2 or SxS media.

[The Truth]

Thanks for all the quick responses. Well I guess I was imagining a low end HD camera. What format do HDD cameras usually record to? Which formats are better than others for use with iMovie or Final Cut Express/Pro?

[nomad01]

Thanks for all the quick responses. Well I guess I was imagining a low end HD camera. What format do HDD cameras usually record to? Which formats are better than others for use with iMovie or Final Cut Express/Pro?

I was going to post to ask something similar.

I currently use a Sony Mini DV camcorder that's probably 3 years old and while I'm not pro, I do like to do a fair bit of editing and post production on my home vids.

I don't want to spend a fortune. I don't need loads of features but I also don't want something that will look particularly worse quality than the current Mini DV camera.

My concern about HDD cameras is not having a replacable "tape". My concern about memory card cameras is that the resolution is going to be poor.

Any advice is appreciated.

[ftaok]

My concern about HDD cameras is not having a replacable "tape". My concern about memory card cameras is that the resolution is going to be poor.

I share your concern with HDD camcorders. Besides, I've never really liked the idea of an HDD in a portable recording device.

As for flash based camcorders, your concerns are unwarranted. As far as HD camcorders go, the flash ones are all AVCHD. This format has the same resolution as HDV (1920x1080) ... in fact, it actually has higher resolution since HDV is actually 1440x1080 with rectangular pixels.

At this point, it's inevitable that AVCHD will win out over HDV in the consumer market. It's a shame since I'm in the HDV camp (well, actually miniDV with the mindset to buy a Canon HV20/30). I guess the consumer has spoken and tapeless is what they want.

ft

[duncanapple]

I second what was said above - the Canon HF10 is a very solid camera from the reviews I have read, and you can find it online for around $700-$800. It records to a format called AVCHD and you can only transfer via USB 2.0. This is probably the camera I will pick up. I asked a similar question not too long ago and got a great site to reference. Really good, easy to understand reviews on camcorders...

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/

Good luck!

[nomad01]

As for flash based camcorders, your concerns are unwarranted. As far as HD camcorders go, the flash ones are all AVCHD. This format has the same resolution as HDV (1920x1080) ... in fact, it actually has higher resolution since HDV is actually 1440x1080 with rectangular pixels.

At this point, it's inevitable that AVCHD will win out over HDV in the consumer market. It's a shame since I'm in the HDV camp (well, actually miniDV with the mindset to buy a Canon HV20/30). I guess the consumer has spoken and tapeless is what they want.

ft

Thanks for that. I wasn't planning on buying a HD model just yet especially as they all seem to be pretty expensive for the amount of use I'd get out of it.

May have to try and get some demos of a few memory card camcorders and see if the quality is acceptable compared to the Mini DV.

Thanks again.

[Courtaj]

I second what was said above - the Canon HF10 is a very solid cameraThe HF100 is the same camera without the rip-off built-in internal flash memory. You can buy an SDHC card to make up the storage difference for about a third of the price difference.

Andrew.

[Sdashiki]

Ask yourself WHY you would want an HD capable camcorder.

What is your end product going to be?

DVD, Internet, Broadcast?


More than likely, youll be editing to show others on their TVs.

Your HD capable camcorder has a lovely HD image, but now what are you gonna do with it? Sure, edit it, cut it, produce it on your computer, but then what?

How are you gonna output the HD file to an HD playing device? You MAY have an HDTV, but how are you gonna get the movie to play on it?

Connect the camcorder to the TV? Kinda silly and not really able to send out to friends.

Connect the computer to the TV? Not always gonna work for most people.

Watch it only on the computer because you have a lovely HD capable screen? Thats not sharing.

Burn it to Blu-ray? You're joking right?

All the hub bub about HD is well founded, but until there is a viable OUTPUT I fail to see a general need for HD at all on the consumer/prosumer level.

[nomad01]

Ask yourself WHY you would want an HD capable camcorder.<snip>

I'm most probably going to want to stick it on a DVD at present time so I take your point.

My concern is that the standard def memory card camcorders are inferior quality to my MiniDV. I've seen some really nice looking little memory card camcorders at amazing prices but I have no idea what the quality is like.

Most online reviews seem to be comparing them to HD cameras or pointing out that the quality would look bad on a HD TV.

[ftaok]

All the hub bub about HD is well founded, but until there is a viable OUTPUT I fail to see a general need for HD at all on the consumer/prosumer level.

You may not agree, but I think that there is a viable output method for HD material. Media extenders are the way to go, in my book. It doesn't have to be the aTV, but it's devices like it that will be the way to view/share HD content.

Eventually, most TVs will be of the HD variety. Adding a small box (like the aTV) or adding media extending capabilities to cable/sat boxes will be key. Connect that to a host PC/Mac and you're golden.

Apple has gotten half of this equation down with the aTV, but they need to do more. Consumers with AVCHD/HDV cams will still need to use a PC/Mac to offload footage and to perform edits. It's just one extra click to convert that footage to aTV (or another format). Apple just needs to step it up and allow for the aTV to view full resolution HD, or at least allow it to stream AIC directly ... just need a robust home network.

Another output method is to burn BD compliant discs. Yeah, I know you disagree on this one, but it's an option. You just need a DVD-burner and a BD player. Toast can already do this ... and it shouldn't be difficult to add this capability to iDVD.

ft

[ftaok]

I'm most probably going to want to stick it on a DVD at present time so I take your point.

My concern is that the standard def memory card camcorders are inferior quality to my MiniDV. I've seen some really nice looking little memory card camcorders at amazing prices but I have no idea what the quality is like.

Most online reviews seem to be comparing them to HD cameras or pointing out that the quality would look bad on a HD TV.

Personally, if you're not going HD, then I would stick with the miniDV right now. That 3-year old Sony is probably still better than any flash SD cam you can get.

ft

[nomad01]

Personally, if you're not going HD, then I would stick with the miniDV right now. That 3-year old Sony is probably still better than any flash SD cam you can get.

ft

Yeah that's what I figured... just know that I'll eventually need to connect via FW to my new Macbook though. :-(

[ftaok]

Yeah that's what I figured... just know that I'll eventually need to connect via FW to my new Macbook though. :-(

Well, that's the deal killer for many with the new Macbooks. You could always go with the $999 Macbook. To me, it represents a great deal ... although the build quality isn't the best.

Ultimately, if you do stay with miniDV and want the new MB, you could always get a used Mac for importing duties. If you use iMovie'08, you'd probably want to use the oldest Mac that supports, '08. Or you could use something like Voltaic if you want to use an older Mac.

ft

[maxrobertson]

Don't bother. They're going to drop USB soon anyway.

[Fast Shadow]

Ask yourself WHY you would want an HD capable camcorder.


Because I want my original footage to be in the highest resolution possible. I'll scale it down as needed.

[nomad01]

Well, that's the deal killer for many with the new Macbooks. You could always go with the $999 Macbook. To me, it represents a great deal ... although the build quality isn't the best.

Ultimately, if you do stay with miniDV and want the new MB, you could always get a used Mac for importing duties. If you use iMovie'08, you'd probably want to use the oldest Mac that supports, '08. Or you could use something like Voltaic if you want to use an older Mac.

ft

I love my new Macbook but I will need to do some video editing at some point so I need to find a USB solution.

I don't want to pay for a HD camera right now so I guess I need to just look for a good standard def camera that will give decent results and isn't too pricey.

Maybe i just need to try them out though.

[ftaok]

I love my new Macbook but I will need to do some video editing at some point so I need to find a USB solution.

I don't want to pay for a HD camera right now so I guess I need to just look for a good standard def camera that will give decent results and isn't too pricey.

Maybe i just need to try them out though.

I didn't realize that you bought a new MB. Incidentally, I was playing with one at the store and it's a great little machine. Seems very well built and looks great.

If you're intent on staying with SD, I would suggest getting something that uses flash memory. Here's why. When you eventually move up to HD, chances are you'd be getting an flash based AVCHD model. If you do, your investment in SD cards don't evaporate. Try and find a SD cam that supports SDHC cards, as that's what you'll be using in the future.

Try looking at Apple's compatibilty page to see which SD cams are supported. That'll narrow down the models to look at.

I'd also recommend Canon, Sony and Panasonic as they're the usual suspects for quality video cams.

Lastly, in order to keep your total cash outlay to a minimum, consider going HD now. AVCHD is several years old and has gotten pretty close to HDV. It's pretty mature at this point. I think you can still record at SD resolutions (although there may be problems if you record SD and HD on the same card) if you really want to do SD.

AVCHD cams are getting pretty affordable these days.

ft

[harcosparky]

Personally, if you're not going HD, then I would stick with the miniDV right now. That 3-year old Sony is probably still better than any flash SD cam you can get.

ft

Any HD MiniDV cam will give better results than the HDD/ Flash Memory Cams. I can't speak to comparing SD MiniDV to flash though. From what I have read the compression level on ACVHD is such that the video quality will not be as good as that on tape. I read where ACVHD has at least one or two more generations to work through to get the quality level up.

Again, it's not so much a matter of resolution, it's about compression to get as much time on the HDD / Flash Memory as possible.

[Le Big Mac]

Burn it to Blu-ray? You're joking right?

All the hub bub about HD is well founded, but until there is a viable OUTPUT I fail to see a general need for HD at all on the consumer/prosumer level.

On the other hand, if you take HD footage of your baby today, I'm pretty sure that by her second or third birthday you can burn to blu-ray, or stream directly to your tv. Having high quality source material is never a mistake.

[nutmac]

If you want HD, I recommend HF100. Few things to consider:

There are 2 popular HD camcorder formats: HDV (uses MiniDV tapes) and AVCHD (can be flash memory, hard disk, or DVD).
iMovie and Final Cut import footage from HDV camcorders via FireWire. Import from AVCHD is done over USB and/or memory card reader (for flash-based camcorder), or DVD (for DVD-based camcorder).
Both iMovie and FCE cannot edit HDV and AVCHD footage without conversion. They convert HDV and AVCHD into Apple Intermediate Codec, which consumes almost 10 times the disk space as the original: 17 Mbps (7.5 GB per hour) vs. whopping 120 Mbps (52.7 GB per hour). Needless to say, beef up on the external hard disk.
Final Cut Pro can edit HDV without conversion. Many video editing software for Windows platform can edit AVCHD and HDV without conversion on higher-end computers. Perhaps iMovie '09 and FCE 5 will do the same?
Importing and converting HDV to AIC is done in real-time. AVCHD requires additional processing power, which can take much longer than HDV on slower Mac.
Although AVCHD camcorders made last year (and earlier) recorded inferior video footage when compared HDV, the gap has been virtually eliminated with 3rd and 4th generation updates. I have compared HF100 to HV30 and frankly, I can't tell any difference.
Some online video websites, such as Vimeo, offer free 720p HD video hosting.

[The Truth]

If you want HD, I recommend HF100. Few things to consider:

Wow, awesome answer thank you!

[Chris7]

I'm new to HD (just bought FCP and an AVCHD Canon, the HF100). Someone with some HD experiences correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think many people would try to edit HD without an external RAID hard drive, which would require a FW800 or an ExpressCared34 port. It seems the Macbook is no longer an option for video editing -- Apple wants you to buy a MacBook Pro for this.

[Gymnut]

I'm new to HD (just bought FCP and an AVCHD Canon, the HF100). Someone with some HD experiences correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think many people would try to edit HD without an external RAID hard drive, which would require a FW800 or an ExpressCared34 port. It seems the Macbook is no longer an option for video editing -- Apple wants you to buy a MacBook Pro for this.

Ideally you would be utilizing two hard drives when editing. In the case of a laptop, the second drive would be an external drive with one or more interfaces, USB2.0, FW400, FW800, or eSATA. The internal drive in the laptop obviously contains the OS and the editing software that you are using. The external drive would be designated as a "scratch disk" where the media you are editing is stored.

It's just a tried and tested practice to keep your media that you've captured on a separate hard drive.

A RAID is not necessarily a prerequisite to editing high definition content. I've edited HDV content that was stored on a Lacie bus powered FW400 drive without encountering problems.

[nomad01]

Has anyone used the Panasonic SDR S7? I know it's not a serious piece of kit but I can get an amazing price for it at the minute.

User reviews generally say that it's brilliant but magazine reviews are a bit more iffy.

I want something that'll produce decent home movies but not just look like it was shot on a digital still camera or a webcam... if that makes sense.

[Chris7]

I've edited HDV content that was stored on a Lacie bus powered FW400 drive without encountering problems.

This is interesting. Have you tried using a non-RAID drive for editing 1920 x 1080 ProRes or AIC (the formats which FCP and IMovie transcode AVCHD to on import)?

[nutmac]

I'm new to HD (just bought FCP and an AVCHD Canon, the HF100). Someone with some HD experiences correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think many people would try to edit HD without an external RAID hard drive, which would require a FW800 or an ExpressCared34 port. It seems the Macbook is no longer an option for video editing -- Apple wants you to buy a MacBook Pro for this.
On my previous post, I wrote iMovie and FCE transcode AVCHD footage to AIC running at 100-120 Mbps. To be able to playback in real time, you will need a hard disk that can sustain 150 Mbps or so easily (18 MB/sec), which MacBook's USB 2 can do (about 30 MB/sec sustained read, 19 MB/sec sustained write, but around 10 MB/sec for random read and write).

[Courtaj]

Has anyone used the Panasonic SDR S7? I know it's not a serious piece of kit but I can get an amazing price for it at the minute.YGWYPF. Below average to mediocre standard definition video shooting outdoors in good lighting. Forget about using it indoors. You might be more forgiving given the price (i.e. you'll go in with low expectations) but do you really want to watch sub-par video more than once? MiniDV at the same price or near offer will smoke it. That says it all, really.

[Chris7]

you will need a hard disk that can sustain 150 Mbps or so easily (18 MB/sec), which MacBook's USB 2 can do (about 30 MB/sec sustained read, 19 MB/sec sustained write, but around 10 MB/sec for random read and write).

Thanks. Sorry I did not catch your post before I posted. Sounds like editing on a Macbook is indeed possible, so long as only one stream is used.

BTW, is there a way to set the HV100 so that the 24P/30P does not stutter when panning?

[nomad01]

YGWYPF. Below average to mediocre standard definition video shooting outdoors in good lighting. Forget about using it indoors. You might be more forgiving given the price (i.e. you'll go in with low expectations) but do you really want to watch sub-par video more than once? MiniDV at the same price or near offer will smoke it. That says it all, really.

Okay. Point taken. :)

Now looking at a HD camera... considering Panasonic's HDC-SD9EB. Needs to look at reviews first though. :-s

[Courtaj]

considering Panasonic's HDC-SD9EBI can vouch for the SD9. It's not wonderful in low light indoors (noisy, grainy) as you'll have discovered reading the reviews. The Canon HF100 is better (picture quality, shooting modes, mic input and all that jazz), but more expensive. The SD9 is still good value for money in my opinion, but I find myself using the manual exposure mode to get the best pictures out of it. Panasonics in general have comprehensive manual control of iris, shutter, and gain.

If you decide to plump for the SD9, since you're in the UK I'd recommend using either Amaz0n (who sell it with a free 8GB SDHC card) or Dix0ns online (in black, with a 4GB card), both for about the same price.

Cheers,
Andrew.

[nomad01]

I can vouch for the SD9. It's not wonderful in low light indoors (noisy, grainy) as you'll have discovered reading the reviews. The Canon HF100 is better (picture quality, shooting modes, mic input and all that jazz), but more expensive. The SD9 is still good value for money in my opinion, but I find myself using the manual exposure mode to get the best pictures out of it. Panasonics in general have comprehensive manual control of iris, shutter, and gain.

If you decide to plump for the SD9, since you're in the UK I'd recommend using either Amaz0n (who sell it with a free 8GB SDHC card) or Dix0ns online (in black, with a 4GB card), both for about the same price.

Cheers,
Andrew.

Thanks very much for the advice.

To be fair, my Sony MiniDV camcorder (purchased in 2004... found the receipt last night!) is pretty bad in low light too and it's never been a huge issue for me. If the Panasonic is about the same or not too much worse then I'd be happy.

The HF100 was another option but yeah... the price is an issue. If I was a serious user, I'd go for that in a heartbeat but I can't justify spending quite a lot on something I don't use very often.

[sprice25]

Go Canon. Get the 32GB flash drive (+ sdhc with optional card). Do not get a hard drive version, they break.

[Courtaj]

Go Canon. Get the 32GB flash drive (+ sdhc with optional card). Do not get a hard drive version, they break.The HFs with the built-in flash memory (i.e. HF10) are a bad idea for three reasons.

You can buy the less expensive model without the built-in memory (i.e. HF100) and make up the difference with SDHC cards for less money;
You are restricted to plugging the camera directly into your Mac when importing clips from the built-in memory;
The built-in memory is slower (and noticeably so) than most widely-available SDHC cards.

[nutmac]

The HFs with the built-in flash memory (i.e. HF10) are a bad idea for three reasons.
...
In addition, at least on HF10 and HF11, when internal memory gets filled up, it doesn't automatically let you continue recording on to the memory card. You need to stop recording and use the menu to switch over to the memory card to continue recording. While that may be easier than switching memory cards, it's heck of a lot easier and faster to import using SDHC memory card reader. Currently, you can get class 6 SDHC 16 GB (good for over 2 hours of recording at 17 Mbps) for about $40, typically with memory card included. In about same time next year, I am sure you will be able to get 32 GB for the same price (or lower).